Animal Kingdom scrapping

We had lunch at Tusker House last year, partly because we did the dining package to see Rivers of light, and partly because we like the food there and it comes with characters. Obviously there were photos! When it came to scrapping them, I decided to split up the character photos as I didn’t want to leave any out and couldn’t fit them all on the same layout.

This one is a double as you can’t separate Donald & Daisy. It just wouldn’t be right. That consists of pretty much all Basic Grey. It’s getting a real hammering with this album.

Next is Goofy.Yet more Basic Grey. I have so much of it as I loved all the packs that they brought out. Some of them are getting quite depleted now though.

This one is my favourite layout from that lunch. As soon as I saw the photo, I knew what the title had to be LOL We have lots of photos taken in Animal Kingdom, and a lot of them were Photopass ones. They’re so much fun! Scrapped with Basic Grey Offbeat. Another new Photopass magic shot is the hyenas from The Lion King. We found a couple more Lion King magic shots too. More Basic Grey Offbeat.

I had a couple of random photos taken in Asia so I bunged them together to make a companion layout to the one that I did of Africa.  I’m on a mission to complete the 2017 album now as I’ll soon be taking A LOT more photos.

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Animal Kingdom & Rosie

More scrapbooking and this time I’ve done one of Rosie when she was quite a bit younger and smaller. I have a pad of cat-themed papers that I’ve been working my way through and the colours in the pad are perfect for Rosie. I also have quite a large stash of cat embellishments that I bought when we were thinking about getting cats again, so it’s nice to be able to use them now.

I love the way Rosie was posing for this photo. It’s one of my favourite pics of her.
I’ve also been working my way through some more Holiday photos from last year and have done a couple more layouts of Animal Kingdom.

This one is going to be the section divider for AK.And this one is just to show off two of my favourite photos from the park.Both of those layouts are using some very old papers. The black/Kraft one is probably the newest one of them and that was dated 2008! It’s great to see old stash being used finally.

WDW holiday, 10th Oct – Hollywood studios

Tuesday

We had a slightly later start this morning but we were at Pepper Market, the quick service restaurant at Coronado, by 8.30am. We had a nice breakfast there. I had pancakes and sausages and Stephen had a breakfast sandwich. Once we’d finished eating, we went for a stroll round the resort.

Coronado is split into three areas, all with different styles and landscaping. We’re in Casitas and are just a couple of minutes walk from the central area with the shop and eateries. The landscaping is lovely all around the resort. It’s a pretty place to walk around and we enjoyed having a little explore.

We had our FastPasses at Hollywood studios today but needed to pop to the Swan first to return our hire car. We needed a photo of it first though. It’s a holiday tradition.

From the Swan it was just a short boat ride to the Studios. We got there in plenty of time for our first FastPass on Tower of Terror. Stephen didn’t feel like riding it though so he sat in the shade while I went on by myself. I had a blast, but sadly the people in front of me had their hands in front of my face for the photo. We did get a magic shot with the balloons though. We had fun getting it done.

Next we went over to do the Muppet show and spotted a lonely photographer when we came out. He had no customers at all so we hijacked him to take some shots in front of the Muppet theatre. We asked if he had any magic shots and he walked us round the corner and took this one.That’s another one that I’ve been after so I was a happy bunny.

We were getting a bit peckish so had a bit of lunch at PizzoRizzo. We split a small pizza between us but had a dessert each. What can I say? It’s our last day and we needed a treat.

Next up was Toy Story Mania, which we love, and Stephen actually managed to beat my score this time. I’ve beat him every time on Men in Black, TSM and Buzz Lightyear apart from this time, so I guess I can let him have one win 😉

We spotted one last photographer taking pics with the Star Wars sign in the background so joined the queue. He took a few normal poses and then told us to do this.
We did have one more FP to use but we needed to get back as I wanted to take my time doing the packing. We have a very early start tomorrow as the Magical Express will be picking us up at 7.15am.

We got back to our room to find that housekeeping had been busy.So pretty!

We had a little relax before starting the packing and then Stephen hauled the suitcases out. I like that in this room, they fitted nicely under the bed so were out of the way. Packing, as usual, consisted of me organising and packing, while Stephen hovered waiting for instructions.

It took a while to get everything as ready as we could, and we were getting hungry so decided to walk over and get something to eat. We’d been eyeing up the table service restaurant here, the Maya Grill. It’s about a three minute walk from our room so we popped over and got a table.

It’s lovely inside and the menu is short but everything looked lovely. I had the beef short rib and Stephen had a pork chop. The flavours on both were delicious. My beef just fell apart and was excellent.

Back to our room after that and an early night, ready for departure in the morning.

WDW holiday, 9th Oct – Animal Kingdom

Monday

This morning we were up early and managed to get to Animal Kingdom for early entry at 8am. It was hot even then at 26° with 97% humidity. Apparently this is July weather rather than October’s. We’ve never felt heat like it here and even though we’re here a month earlier than usual, we really didn’t expect this.

The lines for both Pandora rides stretched for what looked like miles so we went to the Safari and had two goes on that. It would have been nice to get another ride on Flight of passage but we’ve been on it twice so can’t complain.

A lot of the animals weren’t out yet on our very early safaris but we did see all three lions together which was worth the early start alone. On one of the safaris we managed to get a shot of the lion and one of the lionesses together.On the other ride we got my favourite ever lion photo.We also managed to get a nice shot of one of the black rhinos as he’d come down to the water at the front of his area.

My camera didn’t like the heat & humidity. The lens misted up and wouldn’t clear. My glasses have been misting when going from the air con to the heat, but clear in seconds. My lens was still misty an hour after leaving our room. In the end I had to gently wipe it. I’ve never seen that happen before but luckily Stephen had his camera on him so we didn’t miss out on any of the photo ops on the Safari.

We were getting peckish once it got to 9am but had a walk round the park trying to get a few more photos before we left Animal Kingdom for the last time this trip. We got the elusive Simba magic shot on the Harambe bridge.

The photographer told us that there would be a photographer in Dinoland in about 15 minutes, when we asked about the dino bone magic shot. I’ve been trying to find that one since we arrived in Disney World but there’s never been a photographer in the area. We crossed our fingers that our luck had changed and headed over. We got some nice photos over in Asia on the way.When we got to Dinoland, there was indeed a photographer and she was very obliging. She took several shots of us posing in front of the huge dinosaur and then took us to the side to do our dino bone shots. Stephen’s is definitely the best.

I was starting to get a migraine by the time we left so instead of heading out to find breakfast somewhere, we came back to Coronado to pick up something to take back to our room. It was blessedly cool inside so we decided to relax for a while after eating, and go back out to the Magic Kingdom later for our FastPasses.

By 2pm we knew we weren’t going to the parks that day. The temperatures were up to 33°, but with the lack of a breeze and the high humidity it felt like 40°. We just couldn’t face it. Stephen has had a cold for a few days so had a nice long nap and I read for a while.

Once it had cooled down, and after doing a bit of research on what was showing, we headed for Disney Springs to go to the cinema. We saw The mountain between us and quite enjoyed it. We had hot dogs and popcorn in there and called that dinner 🙂

After the film, we walked down to The world of Disney store and got another three charms for my Pandora bracelet. There are charms that are exclusive to the Disney parks so I can only get them here. I got a purple Mickey charm, one with the castle and fireworks on it, and a red/black/silver Minnie charm. They’ll add a bit of colour to my bracelet.

We looked round a few other shops then took a slow walk back to the car park and headed back to Coronado.

WDW holiday, 8th Oct – Coronado Springs

Sunday

This morning we got up fairly early and packed everything up as it was time to leave the Royal Pacific. We’ve loved our stay there. It’s a beautiful hotel and all the staff are so friendly and helpful. The room was full of luxurious little touches but at the same time was cosy and comfortable. Add to that the short walk to the parks and having Express pass access to the rides, and it’s a great place to stay for a few nights.

It wasn’t quite time to go home though as we were off to Coronado Springs on Disney. It’s a resort that we haven’t stayed at before but I’d read great reviews of it and it looked and sounded lovely. On the way there, we stopped off at IHOP for breakfast. I had a pancake combo again but this time with chocolate pancakes with a mocha espresso filling/topping. It was yummy.

We checked into Coronado Springs just before noon. Our room was ready but the cast member asked us if we’d like one of the newly renovated rooms instead. I said that I’d like that very much and she said we’d have to wait up to an hour as housekeeping were still in there but that I’d get an email when it was ready.

We had a look around the central area while we waited and then drove over to the nearest car park to our room. The email came just after that and we unloaded the car. The room is lovely. It’s quite large and has a really nice bathroom area with lots of storage space in it. It looks like we got an upgrade too as we booked a standard room but have a preferred room. We got a decent coffee maker again, the same type as we had at Royal Pacific. There were plenty of USB charging points as well as standard sockets.

There is some construction going on at Coronado at the moment, which we knew about when we booked. We didn’t think it would impact us that much so we weren’t worried. I thought it was a nice touch that Disney left a little gift in our room because of it though.

We unpacked the essentials and drove over to Animal Kingdom to use our FastPasses. We went on Dinosaur and hammed it up for the photos again. I don’t think we’ll ever tire of that 😉

We found a photographer who was doing magic shots with the butterfly. We hadn’t found that one before so were quite chuffed. I do love the way Stephen really gets into it.We also found the magic shot for the Lion guard.We did the Safari and saw the Nemo show, which I love to bits, the Lion king show, also brilliant, and It’s fun to be a bug. At one point we walked over to Africa from Pandora, using the new path. It was a nice walk with a lovely view of Harambe as you approach it.

We had lunch in Satu’li canteen again. Stephen had the same as the last two times, the beef bowl, but I tried something different and had the cheeseburger bun, which was something a bit different and although not as yummy as the chicken bowl that I’ve been having, was still very nice.

When it got dark enough we headed over to Pandora as I’d been dying to see it lit up at night. It was beautiful. I didn’t attempt to take any photos, partly because it was raining a bit but we did get a couple of photos taken by the Photopass photographers.

I love this animated shot with the wood sprites.

After we’d had a good look round we headed back to our room to finish unpacking.

WDW holiday, 3rd Oct – Mickey’s not so scary halloween party

Tuesday

Today we knew we’d be having a late night so we had a lazy morning and went out to pick up our hire car at about 1pm. We’d arranged to pick it up from the Dolphin so we got a bus there via Animal Kingdom, (the first bus that came). There was a massive expo at the Swan & Dolphin and the place was rammed with business people. I’ve never seen it so busy. The front of the Dolphin must have been blocked off as the bus had to drop us off at the Swan. We had to walk over to the Dolphin to do the paperwork, and then had to walk back over to the Swan to pick up the car. We got the car without any difficulty and got upgraded, probably because they didn’t have any economy sized ones. We got a nice red Corolla, which has lots of clever features that our own car doesn’t 🙂

We drove to the Magic Kingdom, as that’s where we planned to end the day, and then got the monorail to Epcot to use our FastPasses. First though we went to get something to eat. We went to Sunshine Seasons and both had Sweet and sour chicken with jasmine rice. It was nice enough and was quite filling so it hit the spot.

Our first FastPass was on Test Track and was great. I love the bit where you design the car, and I really love the bit where you whizz round the outside track. It really blows the cobwebs away!

Next was Mission Space and once again we went on the less intense, green section. I don’t know if the spinny orange section would make me travel sick, and I don’t want to find out. We were in with a really nice couple and had a good laugh with them.

Finally we went on Spaceship earth. Stephen loves it so we usually go on it a couple of times during our visit.

Then we needed to get a wiggle on and head for the Magic Kingdom for Mickey’s not so scary Halloween party. We were looking forward to it as there were going to be some great photo ops, a parade and shorter lines for the rides.

The first thing we did once we’d got our party wristbands was head for the line to see Captain Jack Sparrow. We had hoped to see Jack and Sally but the line for that was massive so we didn’t bother. We waited over an hour to see Jack Sparrow and that was long enough, although worth it as we got loads of photos taken and had a good chat with him. He was brilliant and had all the expressions and mannerisms down to a tee.

We found several more photographers as we went round the park, including one that took our photo against a blank wall, while another photographer walked behind us with a tall flashing light. We had no idea what the result would be but when it came through, we thought it was really cool.

I love this animated shot too.

We got a magic shot with the grinning ghosts. One photographer had a lantern for people to pose with. Stephen really got into the spirit (excuse pun) of it. We did several rides too, mostly with waits of less than 20 minutes and some with just a five-minute wait. We did Big thunder mountain, Peter Pan, Haunted mansion and Seven dwarves mine train. That one is brilliant in the dark. 

We were eating while the fireworks were on so mostly missed them. We were too hungry to wait so had burgers in Cosmic Ray’s. We did see the parade though and it was brilliant. I love the Halloween parade.

We finally got back to Kidani at about 1am and after a quick look at the night’s photos, we were out for the count.

WDW holiday, 2nd Oct – Animal Kingdom & Magic Kingdom

Monday

This morning we’d intended to do Early entry but we also wanted to stay out a bit later too so one of those plans had to change. We just don’t have the stamina to do both these days. We decided to do the later evening, as we hoped to see Rivers of light again, so had a lazy morning and got to Animal Kingdom at about 11am for our first Fast Pass of the day on the Safari.

You may have noticed that we spend more time at Animal Kingdom than any other park, and in that park, we spend more time on the Safari than any other ride. We just love seeing animals, and learning about them and about conservation. I think it’s the main reason that we keep coming back to Disney World, and we love staying at Animal Kingdom Lodge and having all that available to us in our resort.

The safari is different every time you ride so you can never get bored with it. On this ride the Wild African dogs (Painted dogs) were walking around near to the front of their section, and as I had the best seat (front row, left hand side), I had a brilliant view of them.

I got a good view of the Sable antelope for the first time this visit and thanks to my new camera, with better zoom than my last one, I got a reasonable photo.

The new camera helped me get great shots of the lioness too. She was tucked away but I managed to zoom in on her.

Stephen got several lovely photos of this elephant playing with a stick.

We even got a good look at the mandrill monkeys! I think that’s the best photo of them that I’ve managed in all the years we’ve been going to Disney World.The white rhinos were out again. And the Nile Crocodiles were looking quite photogenic too. After our Safari, we went over to Pandora and managed to get the Banshee Magic shot from a photographer.

It really is beautiful there. I love the way they’ve used real plants and added the make-believe ones in among them. The details are amazing. I could spend all day there just looking. We got a couple more PhotoPass pics done too, while we were there.

Next we had our second ride on Flight of passage. We were very lucky to get two FastPasses this year as they were one of the hardest ones to get. The second ride was just as amazing as the first. It’s an incredible experience.

After that we were ready for lunch and although we’ve been trying to eat at different places this year, we couldn’t resist going back to Satu’li canteen as the food there is brilliant. I had exactly the same as last time, the Chicken bowl with raw veggies and black bean dressing. Stephen had the beef bowl again, with the same base of sweet and red potato hash, but had the chimichurri dressing instead of the black bean. We resisted dessert this time but planned to make up for that later.

While we were relaxing after eating our lunch, I checked the time of our next FastPass at Dinosaur but it had vanished from the app. I checked my emails, and sure enough there was a message to say that Dinosaur was down and we could use that FP on a different ride, although not either of the Pandora rides.

At least we found out before walking all the way over to Dinoland this time and as we used the FP on another go on the Safari, we weren’t complaining.

This time on the Safari, we saw the lion and as we were stationary for a few seconds, I managed to zoom right in to him.

We also saw the baby elephant with his family and I got a shot of my favourite view in the Safari.

The flamingos, the water, the palm trees. The safari truck with the elephants in the background. I just love it.

The scimitar-horned oryx were out where we could see them. They’re often quite shy. They’re so beautiful. Next we headed to the Magic Kingdom as we had three multi-park FPs to use and wanted to get on the 7 dwarves mine train. We were disappointed to be told, while we were queueing for it, that we couldn’t use the FP on the ride. We’d been told when we were given the FPs that there were no exclusions at Magic Kingdom so that was a bit annoying.

At one point we stopped for drinks at the Main Street bakery. I had the Strawberry & crème while Stephen tried the Vanilla bean crème. Both yummy. We also split a Spiced pumpkin muffin.

We stood and watched the Move it! Shake it! street party for a while. 

It was really busy in the park so it took us ages to use the three FPs. The FP queues for Buzz lightyear, Haunted mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean were huge. I think we spent between 20 and 30 minutes in each line. We did manage to get a Magic shot outside the Haunted mansion though.

We decided to head back to our resort after that. It was really hot again and we were getting quite weary. On the way out, walking down Main Street, we spotted Luke and Jake again so stopped for a chat. When you consider the size of Disney World, it’s a miracle to bump into someone once let alone twice.

I had a couple of hours nap time when we got back as I was getting a migraine. I’ve had a few since we got here, but have been controlling them well with medication. This one was being a bit more stubborn but I felt better after a nap and having something to eat. (crackers and cream cheese.) I spent the rest of the evening reading. I’ve started the latest Flavia de Luce book and am really enjoying it.

 

WDW holiday, 1st Oct – Hollywood Studios & Epcot

Sunday

Disney do a thing called Extra magic hours for resort guests. The parks have early entry or later nights on a rotating schedule. I always plan to do some but we rarely get up in time to do early entry and are usually too tired to stay and do the late nights.

Today, however, we managed to get to an early entry park before it even opened. We were at Hollywood Studios for 7.45am. Amazing! We  headed straight to Star Tours to do that first and then walked over to Rock’n’Roller coaster which we got on with just a short wait. That one really wakes you up, and as a bonus, there’s a ride photo.

It started to rain a little as we came off that so we took shelter until it eased a bit and then made a run for Tower of Terror for our first FastPass. I love that ride! It’s exhilarating. We had a brilliant time on it. As we were walking through the gift shop, on the way out, we noticed the rain had come back with a vengeance. It was hammering it down, so we had a really good look around the gift shop until it eased off.

Next up was breakfast time. You notice we got the really stomach-churning rides out of the way first? We headed over to Bill and Min’s dockside diner and got the breakfast burritos. They were really good and excellent value for money.

We had a bit of time before our next FastPass so went for a wander round looking for photographers. I wanted to get as many Magic shots as I could as they’re so much fun.
Not a magic shot, but we liked it.

Our next ride was Toy Story Midway Mania. I don’t think we’ve ever done this without a FastPass, as the queues are so long, but it is a fun ride. I got the high score for our vehicle and more importantly, I beat Stephen 🙂

Our last FastPass was for Star Tours but as we’d already had a go on that, we didn’t wait for our window as we were worried it was going to rain again and we had plans to walk over to Epcot. Our favourite artist, Larry Dotson, was going to be in the Norway pavilion, signing prints. We got two from him last year, to add to the two that we already had, and we hoped to get a couple more.

It was a very hot walk over to Epcot. Stephen had wanted to take the boat but I thought it’d be good to have a nice stroll and take advantage of it not raining. We needed a rest when we got over there though so sat by the Boardwalk for a while, just chilling.

Eventually, we made it to Norway, via France for some more photos.

We had a chat with Larry and picked out a couple of prints. I’d had a pretty good idea what I was looking for. We already have one from the Beach Club and two from Jambo House plus one from Animal Kingdom. I wanted another AK one, preferably showing the Safari, and maybe one of Kidani Village. We found both, and got them signed by Larry so I was well chuffed.

While we were paying for them, we spotted a cast member holding this.

She’s called Kitten and is something to do with Frozen. (a new film about Olaf?) She’d just arrived in the store and sort of followed us home…

After the excitement of shopping we stopped for iced tea to cool us down and then headed for the bus stop. We made it back to our apartment by 3pm and I used the afternoon to catch up on the laundry as we won’t have a washing machine once we move to Universal in a couple of days, and we generally just chilled. Stephen was out for the count by 7.30pm. All this fresh air and heat is wearing him out!

Just in case you’re missing seeing photos of the animals, fear not as we’re back at Animal Kingdom tomorrow.

WDW holiday, 30th Sept – Animal Kingdom

Saturday

Today we planned to see Rivers of light, the night-time show at Animal Kingdom. We had the dining package, which meant that we would eat at Tusker House and they would give us tickets to a special seating section to view the show.

Because we planned to be out late (for us anyway), we had a later start after spending the morning relaxing in our apartment. We got to Animal Kingdom with plenty of time to spare before our lunch, so we used our FastPass tickets from yesterday to do a Safari first. It was brilliant. There were some giraffes blocking the road so we were stationary for about ten minutes. Plenty of time to take lots of photos of the giraffes, including the baby one. He was so cute. We’ve been in a Rhino road block before but it was our first time in a giraffic jam 😉

We also got quite a good look at the hippos. After our Safari, we strolled over to Tusker House to check in for our lunch. We made it just before the rain started. We had to wait about thirty minutes before getting our table, but at least it was under cover. It was a character meal so we got to see Goofy, Donald, Daisy and Mickey. We haven’t made a point of seeing any characters this time so it was nice to finally do so.

Usually I love the food there but I felt the standard had dropped a little. The main dishes were pork and salmon. The pork was very fatty and the salmon didn’t have much flavour. There didn’t seem to be as much of a selection of other dishes that I remembered from our last visit, but overall we did enjoy our meal. It just didn’t live up to my memories of other trips there.

We ate quite a lot, always a hazard at a buffet, so went for a wander round the Tree of life gardens to try to walk it off before our next FastPass. We spotted a few animals plus DiVine.

Then it was time for the one that we’d really been looking forward to – Flight of Passage in Pandora. We’d heard that it was amazing and a very realistic simulation of flying. We were a bit worried that it would be down as it had had problems for a couple of days but it was working fine and we had a brilliant time on it. It was incredible! I loved every second. You really felt like you were riding a banshee.

I’d been messaging with Luke, a friend from when I worked at the airport, as he was in Animal Kingdom too that day. When we came out of Flight of Passage, I had a message to say that he was sitting down by the drums with his fiancé Jake. We went straight over to find them and had a lovely thirty minutes chatting to them both.

It’s been lovely meeting up with friends while over here. Amazing that you can come all this way and see people who you know.

Next we went over to the Dinosaur ride for our FastPass on that and from there, straight to the Safari for our second trip of the day. This was a night safari so not good for taking photos, but brilliant for seeing some of the animals being more active than in the daytime. We saw the hyenas walking about as well as several other animals.

It was dark when we came off, and raining again. It was quite heavy this time and we had a bit of a walk to get to the entry point for our Rivers of light seating. Luckily we’d brought the ponchos with us so although we did get fairly wet, bits of us stayed dry. It was very hot and sticky under those ponchos though as it was still quite hot.

Rivers of light was lovely. I’m sure I’d have liked it more if it hadn’t been raining so hard, but we did still enjoy the show. There were boats, and floats and dancing water and beautiful lighting effects. It was really pretty. I didn’t take any photos, partly because they wouldn’t have come out brilliantly in the lighting conditions but mainly because it was bucketing down. I have access to some Disney stock photos though, through the PhotoPass website so am using one of those to show you how pretty it is.

It took a while to exit the park but we timed it perfectly for the bus back to our resort. We were very, very happy to see that bus as we were feeling very soggy and just wanted to get back and get in a warm shower.

It didn’t take long to get back and we were soon dry and tucked up for the night.

WDW holiday, 29th Sept – Animal Kingdom

Friday

We had a late start today as our FastPasses were for the afternoon. We spent the morning relaxing. I read on the balcony for a while, with the occasional break to take photos of the animals below.

We got to Animal Kingdom just before 1pm and headed for Pandora. On the way we spotted a photographer so had a photo taken. She was doing magic shots but we had to get our Wilderness Explorer flamingo badge first by doing a quick quiz. It was fun!

From there we nipped to Africa to grab another magic shot that I’d heard about. It has hyenas 🙂

Finally we went into Pandora to use our first FastPass for the Na’vi river ride. Unfortunately the ride was down, and was going to be down all day. We were told that we could use our FP for any ride so went on the Safari instead.

We were getting quite hungry after the Safari so went back to Pandora to try the new Satu’li canteen that I’d been reading about. They do a sort of mix’n’match bowl. You pick a base, a protein and a dressing from a selection. I had the chicken, quinoa and veg, with the black bean dressing.

Chopped Wood-Grilled Chicken Bowl

Stephen had the beef, sweet and red potato hash, and he had the black bean dressing too.

Slow-Roasted Sliced Grilled Beef Bowl

The bowls of food were amazing. Mine had lots of raw veggies such as kale, carrot, spinach, and cauliflower. The chicken was delicious and there was plenty of it and the dressing was lovely. I really enjoyed it.

There are two amazing-looking desserts so we got those to split between us.

Chocolate Cake

Blueberry Cream Cheese Mousse

The desserts were to die for. I think we’ll definitely be going back there.

Stephen had a beer too. It was green! I had a sip and it was very nice. Stephen seemed to enjoy it 😉

Hawkes’ Grog Ale

As we came out after our lunch, it started to rain. It was light to start with but it soon got heavier. We made a dive for a cart and bought ponchos. Once outfitted with those, we made a beeline for the Safari. It’s great in the rain as the animals get more active and we had a great time. Also the wait line is all under cover 😉

We saw plenty of animals. The Elephants were playing in their pool and even the Cheetah looked alert, although we were on the wrong side of the truck to get a photo of him. When we came off, we noticed that the queue had really gone down so we went round again for another go. This time we saw the black rhino and some bongos. They’re both usually quite elusive so we were chuffed with that.

Baobab tree

Black rhino

Elephants

Hyenas

Greater kudu

Bongo

White rhino

Hippo

Warthog family

Wildebeest

After that it was time for our next FastPass, which was for the Safari. We’ll happily ride that all day so we went back in and got to the load area really quickly. We then stood there waiting to load, and waited and waited. Forty minutes later, and after watching many empty trucks go past without stopping, they told us the Safari wasn’t going to be running any time soon and gave us paper FPs to use. They’re good for tomorrow too so we’ll use them then.

We then paddled over to Dinosaur for our last FP. The rain was coming down really hard by now but we were ok in our ponchos, apart from my feet. I was wearing Crocs and my feet were sliding about inside them as they were so wet.

When we got to Dinosaur, it was down. Three out of three not running! We were told that we could use our FPs on any ride but as there wasn’t a lot left running we decided to call it a day. It was just after 6pm and getting dark and very wet.

On the way out we stopped at guest services, where I expressed my disappointment. I know what it’s like when customers complain so I kept it pleasant and polite and asked nicely if there was anything they could do. A few people were in there with the same thing and were being given a couple of extra FPs to use on a different day. We got three FPs to use at any park on the 2nd October, plus VIP tickets to Rivers of Light. We were very happy with that.

We’d still had a fun day, with a great lunch and a couple of goes on the Safari and now had some extra FPs to use so all was good.

We spent the evening chilling in front of the TV, watching back to back episodes of The Big Bang Theory.