Animal Kingdom

We started our Disney day bright and early with a quick breakfast in our hotel room and a drive to our first park of the day: Animal Kingdom. Because we elected to stay at a Universal hotel, we did not have early entry to the park. The earliest we could enter was 8, and we managed to get ourselves into that line probably around 7:40a.

To help get more out of our park day, Sean sprung for Lightning Lane Multi Passes. This let us have up to three lightning lanes at a time. As we used each one, we could reschedule it for another ride. Our first Lightning Lane was meant to be the DINOSAUR ride, which Disney will be getting rid of early next year to make way for a new Tropical Americas land. Alas, this ride was not running at the start of the day and they wound up canceling our pass.

Here’s the rub. Sean had DINOSAUR scheduled at 8:05a. Once we used our first pass, we could then schedule at any other park for later times, but not until the first pass was used. Since they canceled that DINOSAUR lightning lane, we didn’t get to use our first pass until 10-something, and by then future lightning lanes were mostly taken. It was kind of a bum deal.

We wanted to ride Flight of Passage in Pandora, but its standby time had already swollen very quickly. Instead, we thought we’d hit a couple faster lines and try that one again later. Expedition Everest, a family favorite, had something like a 10 or 15 minute standby line, and I’d swear to you we got through it even more quickly than that. The ride was just as much fun as I remembered it. Since the queue was still short, and DINOSAUR was still closed, Sean and the kids rode Everest a second time. [Sean: We actually had a Everest lightning lane for 8:20a but we rode it twice using standby and it was only 8:15a. I should have either tried to tap in anyway or waited the 5 minutes and tapped in, thereby enabling me to book lightning lanes in other parks.]

We hopped in line for Kilimanjaro Safaris, which promised only a 30 minute wait. Again, I’m not even sure it took that long for us to get through the ride queue, and then we were trucking around Africa watching the wild beasts roam. We even got to hear one of the lions roaring, which was neat.

We went back to Expedition Everest again to finally spend our first lightning lane, so that Sean could attempt to book some rides in our afternoon parks. As mentioned earlier, most of the good stuff was gone, gone, gone by then, so ultimately our lightning lane purchase may not have been worth it. After riding Expedition Everest yet again (because hey, why not) and seeing that the Flight of Passage line was still terrible, we decided it was time for some refreshment.

We went to Pandora to the Pongu Pongu stand and ordered Night Blossoms for the whole family. We sipped on these while walking to Nomad Lounge for an early snack-based lunch. We were situated in comfy seats around a low table. The kids ordered mocktails while Sean and I ordered proper drinks. [Sean: I make a better Tempting Tigress than Nomad Lounge does.] Sean chose a handful of snacks from the menu thinking that surely the kids would find something they liked. Alas, he and I ate very well and the kids half heartedly nibbled at a few things.

Our server at Nomad Lounge asked us where we were headed next. We explained that we were going to hit DINOSAUR. He seemed heartened by this and quipped that we should go ride DINOSAUR before it goes extinct. Maya in particular thought this was very funny.

We essentially chose DINOSAUR over Flight of Passage as our last hurrah at Animal Kingdom because first, it would give us more time at the other parks we intended to hit and second, it would be our last chance to ride it, ever. And so, after bringing an iguanodon back from the cretaceous period, we made the long walk back to our car to drive over to the TTC at Magic Kingdom. Sean had loosely planned to spend 8-11a at Animal Kingdom. We drove off the lot a little after 12.

Magic Kingdom

Magic Kingdom was the only park we went to where Sean managed to hit all the attractions on his wish list. But, we only managed to do so by giving up on a much-desired stopover at Polynesian Village Resort to have cocktails at Trader Sam’s. Our notion for this multi-park day was to take civilized breaks in between the hustling, and this was one we had down as a post-Magic Kingdom cool down.

We headed into Magic Kingdom and straight for our lightning lane at Space Mountain. Ian in particular loves this ride, and Sean didn’t have too many lightning lane options, so he spent it on this.

After that initial quick-hit, we got in the standby line for the always popular Tron Lightcycle / Run. This was a new one for us. Tron had a 65 minute wait time, and I think that wound up being pretty spot-on. It would have been fine, but it was more or less in full sun and we were cooking by the time we finally got to enter the building. The ride vehicle is mounted like a motorcycle. As you pull the handlebars toward you, a restraint comes to rest against your back. It feels very secure.

The launch was epic, the scenery immersive, and the track layout was lots of fun. But, the ride felt short. I think we all loved what we got to experience, but as the train rolled into the station, Maya spoke for all of us when she said, “That’s it?”

We stopped next at the Cheshire Cafe to pick up Cheshire Cat Tails for the kids. Then we went to sit for a bit at the Country Bear Musical Jamboree. This is one of Sean’s childhood favorites anyway, but he particularly wanted to see it this time because they’ve refreshed the show a bit. The bears are wearing fancy new costumes and the songs are different. I’ll leave it to him to say how he felt about it. For my part, I was content to sit down for a bit before the next line. [Sean: It was nice seeing the Bears and I enjoyed hearing their renditions of modern Disney staples, but the new show doesn’t hit the same nostalgia button that the older show hit. Melvin, Buff, and Max were on point though.]

After the Country Bears sang us out the door, we made our way over to Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, a re-theming of Splash Mountain. Again, the standby queue was posted as having a 65 minute wait, and again this proved accurate. A decent amount of this ride queue is shaded at least, so it could have been worse.

Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is a log flume ride. Ian, for reasons I don’t understand given his enjoyment of thrill rides, had himself all worked up about the big drop at the end of this one. He rode next to me and insisted that I put an arm over him while we went down the last hill. In the end, none of us got all that wet, the new theming was fun to watch, and Ian didn’t fly out of the log, so I guess it all worked out ok.

We took a quick break to buy the kids popcorn and ice cream and to buy the grown ups egg rolls that had fillings of cheeseburger and pizza. And with that, we boarded the Monorail over to EPCOT. (Note, we had planned to leave this park by 4, but we wound up leaving a little after 5 instead.)

EPCOT

The wish list for this park was going to be fine, if we could score just one decent lightning lane. One of the things Sean wanted to see was the new version of the test track attraction – Test Track 3.0. I believe this is the one he was hoping to get a lightning lane for. Thanks to the cancelation issues early in the day, this wound up not being possible. [Sean: I could have gotten a lightning lane for Test Track and for Tiana’s had I been able to book them at 8:05a. Alas.]

As no lightning lanes were available for the big rides we wanted to try to hit, Sean scored one for Journey Into Imagination With Figment. This is a dark ride that encourages you to use your five senses. Figment the mischievous purple dragon confounds matters. This is another one that hits lots of nostalgia buttons for Sean. Maya just loves Figment’s chaos. We managed to juuuuust make it into the tail end of our lightning lane slot, only to find that the ride was down. There wasn’t much else we could work in before our dinner reservation, so we ultimately just waited till it started running again. In my memory, this took maybe 15-20 minutes.

We walked out to discover that it was raining. When it seemed like it had let up a little, we walked over to our dinner reservation a little early. We had a 6:40 reservation at Space 220 Restaurant. After a slow and awkward seating process, we rode the special space elevator up to the space station that housed our restaurant. As the elevator ostensibly went up, the landmass visible on the screens below us grew further and further away, eventually revealing Florida’s peninsular shape. Once in the restaurant, giant windows gave us views of space with a cast of astronauts, satellites, and space dogs to add interest.

Sean warned me that a typical dinner here could take 90 minutes, so we’d have to hustle afterward to do things. Service was so terribly slow that I think we wound up being there closer to two solid hours. And it wouldn’t have been so bad except the food was really not quite up to the price point. I had a carpaccio that I genuinely liked, and a short rib and grits dish that was fine. All in all though, I felt a little mishandled by that dinner. [Sean: Agreed. I had heard such good things but walked away disappointed. The food was very under seasoned and the service was painfully slow.]

We thought we might get to walk through the Journey of Water, Inspired by Moana trail, which is supposed to be truly lovely at night. Alas, we were so late leaving the restaurant, we only had time to go get in the standby line for our one big-deal attraction at that park: Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind. The park closed at 9 and the deal is, if you’re in line by park close, they’ll let you remain in line to ride the ride. I think it was around 8:45 when we finally made our way into that line. We’d have missed our chance if we walked the Moana trail.

The standby line for Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind said it was 135 minutes, but we absolutely were not going to miss this one, so despite borderline mutiny from our tired children, we waited it out. Early on in the planning phase of this trip, Sean had been trying to decide if we’d see the night show at EPCOT (Luminous) or try to make it over to Hollywood Studios to see the night show there (Fantasmic). As it was, we saw a little of the upper portion of the Luminous fireworks as we stood in the Guardians line.

Ultimately we were through the line in only about 90 minutes and once we were in the building, the queue is honestly pretty spectacular. There were lots of things to learn about the planet Xandar, a faraway planet not so different from Earth. And then, at long last, we got to the ride itself.

There are a couple novel things about this coaster. First, you’re facing backward when it launches. Second, the ride cars rotate as you proceed through the ride. We have ridden coasters in the past that have spun freely on their Y-axis as the car traveled over the tracks. This ride is different in that the Y-axis turns are controlled. You see exactly what the ride creators want you to see and you feel forces the way they intended for you to feel them. It is an incredibly smooth journey. Also, I gripe a lot about how damn dark these indoor coasters often are. This is not that. The scenery was vivid, immersive, and hilarious. I think all four Woodses were happy to have done this one. The kids both proclaimed that it had been worth the wait. [Sean: We got Disco Inferno for our song which made me happy. This has to be tied with Flight of Passage for my favorite thrill ride at WDW.]

There was nothing to do afterward but take the monorail back to the TTC so we could go find our parked car and head back to the hotel. I think it was generally a good day, but for sure things didn’t work out as we had planned and there are things we’d do differently. For one, I think we’d stay on property at Disney, if only for one night, just to enjoy the early booking and early park entry benefits that confers. We chose not to do so this time since we were spending most of our time over at Epic Universe and didn’t want to have to deal with baggage transfer and hotel check out, check in hassle. That was probably an error.

I think I’ve written about this before as well. Sean struggles to balance his own planning with the sometimes erratic desires of the kids. He wants them to be happy and enjoy their park day, but in meeting their demands, he often winds up giving up on what he wants. I don’t know that that alone caused us to miss some of the items on his wish list, but definitely it impacted our timeline. Still though, I think it was a day well spent. For my part, the only thing I’d change would be to ditch Space 220 and do a quick service dinner in its place. And even that is only obvious in hindsight.