So,
Disney!
We did two WDW days. DAK is by far our favorite WDW park and it is not even close, so I originally had both days there (and do not get me started on those "half day park" people lol).
Then, Disney made every day for the last half of May and all of June DAK EMH morning days. This pisses me off to no end. I have to book my dinner 180 days out, books rides 30 days out, and they just do this crap? I said before how important that park planing is, and it is more so at WDW because of this FP+ nonsense, then they do crap like this. As an important point for making your park touring plan, do not go to WDW parks that have EMH. Disney is just funneling thousands of people who have no idea what they are doing to those parks. Avoid them.
So, DHS is a no go because it has 4 rides open, and we did MK two years ago. E.P.C.O.T.! Or "Epcot", now. I have such nostalgia for this park. Commincore, World of Motion, Horizons. I got goose bumps just typing that. Last visit was five years ago, so let's see Frozen Ever After, new Mission Space stuff, and new American Adventure.
Disney's Animal Kingdom
This rope drop will go down in my mind as the best planning I ever did. I want a trophy for this.
I wanted to make sure to do Flight of Passage, and every other ride except Dino spinner and Dino MouseTrap (lol!). Rivers of Light was important too, but I did not want to burn a FP+ on this. 30 days out, I ended up with FP+ for Safari @ 9:15, Everest @ 10:15, and Navi River Journey @ 1:15. The important thing here is to realize that, because of Disney making everyone book 3 FP's, the 4th day-of FP+ pickings are slim. But that's all you got.
Park opens at 8:00 and we arrived to the parking gate at 6:36. The attendant waved us in for free! Is this a regular thing? No idea, but it sure was "magical". :grin:
I was worried that our Magic Bands from 2014 might not work, but there is NO WAY to test this. I asked. I had our cards from 2013 in my pocket for backup.
MBs worked!
We're through the tapstiles at 7:34 (don't call me OCD dammit!) and people are running for Pandora. We laughed, jogged a few times, but in the end realized that we were still near the front. If you don't get there at least 75 minutes before rope-drop, prepare to throw elbows.
Not going to review the ride, but it is awesome. All the gushing that people do about its legit. It is great.
We were out of FoP by 8:04 and the line was 130 minutes. I love to point out that this is not 1 hour and 30 minutes. :freak:
So, even though we had NRJ FP+ for later, it had a 5 minute wait so we did it. Lots of people giving a lots of poop about this ride, but I liked it. I also like F&F okay, and this is similar in that it's just a bunch of nonsense while you go through. I'm not looking for Ernest Hemingway here. The ride gets the job done.
Quick piece of advice: do not try FoP if you can't rope drop it. Pandora is a wonderful land, filled with many twisty-turny paths. By 8:30, they were doing cross-walks. The path from the ride exits to the bar crossed with the extended, not planned, queue. They had ropes at at least two intersections to allow smart people like me (who already did the rides and just wanted a green beer) and dumb people (standing in a 3 hour line). And crossing guards. With ropes.
BTW I'm from Athens GA and one of our local breweries, Terrapin , makes the Pandora beers. Shout out!
Terrapin Beer Co.
Now, the best thing. Did Kilimanjaro twice, and then signed up for Caring for Giants. I love DAK more than any other park including UOF and this is an absolute hidden treasure. There is a weird booth right before Kilimnjo, and it opens at 10:00. You can sign up for one of many hour-long tours. I think it is $30 a person, which is an absolute steal compared to those cupcake parties.
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You get a behind-the-scenes tour of the elephants and it is absolutely fantastic. It was my family of three and another couple on this thing, and my 11-yr-old kid would not stop with the questions and they answered every one. 3 Cast Members for 5 people, and they were indeed magical.
They tell you all about every elephant living there. We are still gushing about this a week later, with 7 Orlando trips now under our belts. It is flat-out amazing.
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I cannot recommend this enough. The elephants are more lively in the morning, but we did ours at 1:00, because ride plans and stuff.
So, how bout those Rivers of Light?
This was the enigma to my 1-day plan. I want to see it, but if you reserve it via FP+ you burn all the day-of Fps you can get. They have two dinner party reservations available, but my 11-yr-old freaking loves Yak & Yeti for some reason. I do too, and I now have a Landry's card.
So, walking out at 8:56 (don't call me OCD dammit) and holy poop there is the RoL queue and not a single person is in it.
We got in on the second concrete row, 3 from center, and it was really good. Lots of crap being thrown at this show, but I really liked it. If USF's lagoon show is this good, I'd consider that a win. It was good!
It all worked out! Best planned day ever.
This went a lot longer than I thought it would, so I'll do Epcot tomorrow. Prepare to be disappointed in more ways than one.....