So last day on the Disney pass and of course it's raining. We wake up to overcast skies and drizzily 'up north rain' as I call it. Reminds me of Pennsylvania in the winter. Gray, cold, and dreary. The Animal park opens early as the animals don't sleep in. 8-6 as it's Saturday.
The campground filled up a bit, but I would call it between half and two thirds full. Usually in January you can't get a spot at all. As it's raining I decide on shorts and a plastic raincoat as I know the coat will retain heat and my legs will dry faster if not in damp jeans. It's a bit warmer with highs in the mid 60s, but cool enough to not be comfortable.
Anyway, we are up and at the transportation center (bus stop) around 8:30. Our bus is the first arrive minutes later and off we go. It's only about 10-15 min ride and we are there and walking in.
I forgot to mention the routine at the parks. First they take your temperature, then the bag check, and then your tickets. This is only the second time I've been to Animal Kingdom.. The last time was in the late 90s right after it opened. Back then they didn't have alot of rides yet, so it was kinda lame with a zoo.
Even today there aren't alot of rides compared to the other parks, but I was happy as this was almost like a brand new park for me as it'd been over 20 years.
Unlike the other parks I didn't have the lay of the land so to speak. The first attraction was the Bug's Life which was pretty good. I got a surprise and jumped out of my seat toward the end, which amused Naya greatly. If you have been on it you'll know lol.
From there we were less than scientific as when you come off the ride it's the entrance to Asia. So we walked that way and went to the Yeti ride. about a 25 min wait, but it's a fun coaster. Next we made our way to the dinosaur land and went back to the Cretaceous and narrowly avoided a comet impact.
Then in our haphazard trip through the park went to Africa and discovered alcoholic Dole Whips. I passed instead for a Coffee with Amarula as it was wet and cold out. We did the safari ride (one of the only rides open the last time I was there).
I learned a long time ago that a rainy day is a good day at the zoo, as the animals tend to come out more. This was the case today as well (although we skipped a lot of animal exhibits).
We then rode a train over to a petting zoo and research center. This llama had a security detail as it likes to spit at people so it's handler is just out of the photo and we were warned not to try and pet it.
The pigs were funny as they were napping outside where they could be petted. Most of the other animals cringed away from the noisy kids trying to molest them and would hide behind the ropes where the kids couldn't go. The pigs didn't care.
The African train. It was a fun little ride to the research center and ran every 5 minutes.
After Africa, we headed down to Pandora land. Lucy marveled at how they could build a land off of one movie. Naya has never seen the film, so some of it was lost on her. There were two rides there. The first one is similar to Soaring, but you ride one of the flying dragon animals. It was a pretty good ride. I was impressed.
They did a good job getting you into the vibe of Pandora. The other ride was the Pandora Jungle Cruise basically. It was alright, but I recommend doing that first as the Banshee ride was alot more intense.
With time waning, we headed back across the park (again!) to Asia to hit the Yeti ride again. Boy did we. Lucy rode it 5 more times, me 6 and Naya 7. It was pretty much as fast as you could go around you were on it. I was done after 5 but then on the way back from the restrooms said why not and grabbed another. This last time, I took time to stop and read the newspaper articles that were on the walls in the buildings. It was pretty good copy giving you back story to the ride and the yeti.
Got to try a variety of seating positions and you get whipped the hardest on the right side toward the front.
At one point I said to Naya it reminded me a bit of the bobsled run we did in Utah. On the Olympic bobsled run you pull 4Gs. Came to find out the Yeti ride pulls 3 and is the highest G-force ride in all of Disney.
I had planned on cooking a steak on the grille as it was the last night and we'd be back early. As I was leaving the park, I was tired, cold, and wet. I wanted nothing to do with grilling in cold rain. Lucy and Naya wanted to go back to the Polynesian so they got on that bus. I went straight back to the campground.
I looked at the radar and saw that the rain was done. I seasoned the steak and took a hot shower. Feeling a lot better, texted the girls to tell me when they were on the boat back to the Magic Kingdom to transfer to the other boat, knowing that would be the time to light the coals.
Enjoyed a couple of cocktails while I waited and the timing worked out perfectly. I had mini taters in garlic and butter in the fire in foil packs and as i pulled the steak off the grille they rolled into the campsite on their bikes. We could see stars as the clouds pulled out and we turned in fairly early as we were wiped out from 20K steps a day.
Sunday morning, breakfast, pack up, dump the tanks (the Fort doesn't have a dump station and we were on a pop up site ($30 cheaper per night) so we minimized the onboard water/toilet use as the bath house was about 75 feet away. Then one last visit to the trading post in the Fort and we were on the way home. Took secondary roads the whole way home. This is a section of Canoe Creek Road.
I found out awhile ago, that since I can't go 80 (well I can, but the coach is a handful and it's not fun) taking the lesser traveled path is more relaxing and only adds 5-10 min on the trip from Orlando area.
I had taken this path once before in the coach on the way home from Disney. There are better ways to get out of WDW, but there was a miscommunication with the navigator and we wound up back tracking a bit on the WDW property but found our way out to 192. As it was Sunday AM, the traffic was light and we made decent progress on US192. We headed to Old Canoe Creek road and then Canoe Creek road which shadows the turnpike south from western St. Cloud all the way to Kenansville about 8 or so miles north of Yehaw Junction. From that point we rolled 441 to Okeechobee, right past Sirum's GMC and down the Beeline for home.
Once back on I-95, we were spotted by my wagon buddies in West Palm.
At first I didn't recognize their vehicle, but then after they pulled away I realized that it was David and Danny. Good stuff. Got home around 4 and offloaded everything..... Another one in the books and back to work the next day.
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