Our first day of vacation was spent traveling, meeting up with Zach's parents, getting settled into our resort, eating at the resort food court, and getting a good night's sleep so that we were ready to hit the parks early the next day. I am not a morning person, but we've learned the benefit of getting to the parks early to beat the rush and fit in some rides when there are no lines. And my excitement about being at Disney gets me up early and helps me bounce out of bed, ready to enjoy another day.
#truth
On our first two trips, we started and ended our week at Magic Kingdom, fitting in all the other parks in between. I decided to mix things up a bit this trip to see if we could find lower crowds at Magic Kingdom by going in the middle of the week. Therefore, we kicked off our week at Animal Kingdom. The weather was in the 50's and it poured down rain for the entire day, but that didn't keep us from enjoying a full day of theme park fun and taking advantage of the fact that the rain scared many people away, making lines practically non-existent for every ride, character, and attraction (except for the Pandora rides).
All poncho-d up and ready for some fun.
We made it to the park before park opening and were able to walk on to Navi River Journey with no wait. Everyone enjoyed the picturesque boat ride through a bioluminescent rainforest, although there were some scary dogs that convinced Briggs he didn't want to do it a second time. After getting off the ride, Staley and I walked over to Expedition Everest only to find out that it was temporarily shut down. We met back up with the rest of the group to watch It's Tough to Be a Bug. I had to leave with Briggs within the first 5 minutes and Adelie covered her eyes and cried her way through it. On our first trip all 3 kids cried and we all had to leave the theater, so this was progress.
Another perk of an empty rainy day at the park: no other visitors in our Tree of Life photo
After the bug show, we made a quick stop to meet Mickey and Minnie in their safari gear before going on our actual safari. The safari is always an Animal Kingdom highlight.
Mickey and Minnie were dry, but didn't seem to mind wet hugs from my kids.
Some of the safari animals took cover, but we saw plenty of animals out enjoying the rain.
After the safari, we enjoyed a late breakfast at the Tusker House, which is one of Zach's very favorite Disney restaurants. We got to enjoy an abundance of good food while also meeting Micky, Donald, Daisy, and Goofy. All 3 kids ate a lot, but I think Briggs set a new record for how much food he consumed at one meal.
I love character meals. Instead of waiting in a line, you get to eat and just wait for the characters to come to you. #winning
Adelie had cards for all the characters we met, and they all seemed very pleased.
Papa photo bomb!
We'd already met safari Mickey just a little earlier, but that didn't mean the kids weren't excited to see him again.
We followed up our yummy meal with 'Finding Nemo: The Musical.' We had never seen it and everyone really enjoyed it. Part of that enjoyment might have been that we were inside and out of the rain, but it was a very cute show nonetheless. I actually think it's my new favorite stage show at Disney. While Uma and Papa decided to head back to the hotel for some warmth and dryness after that, we soldiered on to fill the rest of our day.
We took advantage of no lines to meet some more characters. We met Pocahontis with absolutely no line, which meant that she (and her racoon friend, Meeko) spent lots and lots of time interacting with our kids. We also met a random bear that none of us recognized, but we came to find out is from the movie 'Brother Bear.' Who knew??
Pocahontis and Meeko might have been one of the best character interactions we had. They spent a lot of time talking with and playing with our kids.
Pocahontis had the girls sign their card for her while Meeko played peek-a-boo with Briggs.
And we didn't have to wait in a line to meet this random little bear, so I guess you'd call that a win too.
Briggs wasn't too interested in meeting Chip and Dale in their dinosaur costumes, but the girls were.
We also enjoyed another warm, dry indoor show when we watched 'The Festival of the Lion King.' We all enjoyed it until the fire eater came out, which was the turning point for Briggs. He stuck it out, but kept asking when it would be over. And although they were not all indoors, we took advantage of line-free rides. We all did Triceratops Spin a few times (which is basically Dumbo with dinosaurs) and Staley found a new favorite ride when she did Dinosaur 3 times.
Neither Adelie or Briggs wanted to do it, but Staley loved this adventurous jeep ride back into dinosaur times.
Staley had really wanted to do Expedition Everest, which is the big roller coaster at Animal Kingdom. When it was back up and running for the day, we went over to do it together. Staley got nervous while in line, cried, and finally determined that she did not want to ride it. I walked her back to Zach and then rode it alone. Staley woke up the next day with roller coaster remorse, wishing she had done it. I told her that I didn't really want to be the mom that drags her crying child onto a roller coaster, but she said that I should have. So now I have mom guilt for not making my child do something she adamantly said she didn't want to do. #cantwin
By mid-afternoon we had done all the rides we wanted to do, seen all the shows we wanted to see, and met all the characters we wanted to meet. Everyone was very cold and very wet. Briggs had refused to wear a poncho and didn't have a raincoat, so he was the coldest and wettest of all. However, I had a FastPass+ for the Avatar Flight of Passage ride about an hour from that time and that is my very favorite ride in all of Disney. My wonderful family stuck it out for me and spent the next 45 minutes in the warmth and dryness of a gift shop, killing time until I could ride my ride. Our stroller left a magnificent puddle in the middle of the store and we dripped our way from souvenir to souvenir, but no one seemed to mind.
Cold and wet, but still smiling.
Once I finished my ride (still my favorite!), we squished back to our bus (with Adelie still jumping in puddles) and headed back to the resort. While the kids all took hot showers and put on dry pajamas, Zach went to the food court and came back with a pizza and some breadsticks so we could have a dry, warm, hotel room picnic. Then Zach worked on drying out our stroller with towels and a hair dryer while I took our sopping wet clothes and shoes and bonded with the other wet travelers hanging out in the laundry room by the pool.
Finally dry and warm after a cold, wet day
I'm glad that our cold, rainy day was our first day and not our last...and that it was the only one we had. On day one, we were still fresh and excited and were able to make the best of a bad weather day.
A little rain isn't going to keep this family from enjoying their first Disney park day.
