Animal Kingdom Blog
The mornings seem to be getting progressively more difficult to manage, we weren’t late but we were moving fast to keep it that way. The first bus to Animal Kingdom was 6:15, we caught the 7:15 instead, and arrived by 7:40. We still got in during the early access time and made a direct move towards Avatar Flight of Passage. This was our first time seeing the world of Pandora, it was being built when we visited in 2017. I loved the concept of the ride, but it made me motion sick and I spent most of the ride with my eyes closed again.
Coffee never fails to fix me up, and Creature Comforts was on the way to the Tree of Life. It is worth it to take a minute to drink your coffee and sit near the tree, with low crowds. I was worried that we would have a hard time with the ride lines today so we opted in for the lightning lane passes. The line for Kilimanjaro Safaris was short as we passed by and we were able to hop right on essentially. Our first lightning lane is for the Na’vi River Journey at 11AM. The ride was really cool, but over quite fast. Making our way through Asia to Expedition Everest.
Reservations for the Nomad Lounge were booked out a little while, so we put our name on the walk up list and headed over to the Satuli Canteen for lunch. For being a quick service stop it was really good. Ben had the combination bowl and I had the cheeseburger bao buns. In perfect timing, we got the text that our table was ready at the Nomad Lounge as we were leaving lunch. They gave us a table outside, right on the river and it was a beautiful spot to have drinks. Taking the time to have drinks and sit for a little while gave us the charging time to tackle the rest of the day.
After break time was over, the Florida heat was full blast. Kali River Rapids was the only reasonable choice at this point. It was so hot out we dried off before we finished walking the Maharajah Jungle Trek. Our final ride of the afternoon was set to be Dinosaur. I’m so sad to see it go. We had explored everything we wanted to at Animal Kingdom, and made the transition to Disney Springs for the evening. There was no bus directly to Disney Springs, but we learned from the other night we can walk from the Saratoga Springs Resort.
Every time we visit Disney Springs we end up going to the same restaurants, but this time we were determined to finally make it to Jock Lindsay’s Hangar Bar. Our timing was slightly off, it was the transitory period between peak dinner hour and bar time. It was seat yourself so we did a couple laps around until we spotted a couple leaving the deck area. Our table overlooked the Boathouse car-boat launch, and the live music area. It was a great spot for dinner and a few drinks.
