So after a good night's rest, we get up by 7am and start collecting our belongings and prep to check out of Pop Century. We take our luggage to the Magical Express counter, where we make our arrangements for our ride back to the airport. Our flight is not until 6pm. After confirming with Magical Express, we catch a bus ride to the Animal Kingdom.
Its just after 9am. I'm wearing a grey tank top with grey shorts. Its hot. I mean its HOT. Its a sunny day. I don't see any clouds. I hope it doesn't rain because our rain jackets are packed away in our luggage.
As we enter the park, we are greeted by older cast members. They are handing out small plastic American flag pins to everyone. I thought that was fitting and kinda cool that Disney would do that. As we make our way in, I decide the 1st thing we need to do is to get Fast Passes for Expedition Everest. But somehow I get confused and we are headed toward the Kilimanjaro Safari. So we check the wait time. Its only a 10 minute wait, so we get on. I love the Safari ride. We see plenty of animals out this morning and my niece really seems to be enjoying it.
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After the Safari, we now head towards Expedition Everest. We see its only a 15 minute wait. I was kinda surprised by that. So in we go. My niece totally enjoys riding this coaster. When we exit, my niece wants to ride it again. As we make our way to the entrance, I see that the wait time is now only 10 minutes!! I don't think I have ever seen the wait time DECREASE for an attraction. So we head on in right away just in case it was some weird mistake. But it wasn't. We are quickly back on Expedition and enjoying the ride again. After this, we head to It's Tough to be A Bug!
As we enter the theater, I warn my niece about some of the special effects. She seems OK with that. We really enjoy this 3D film and my niece is really laughing at all the special effects. Its almost close to the end of the film, and I tell my niece to lean forward if she doesn't wanna get 'stinged' by the bugs. We laugh as we see everyone else getting stung by the bugs. Its pretty funny.
After the film, its now time to get some breakfast. We decide to head over to Restaurantosaurus, but it does not open until 11am. We had about 15 minutes to wait. But since it was really hot, the manager let us into the restaurant early so that we can be out of the heat. Now that's how a manager is suppose to manage! As we enjoy our breakfast, I hear what I think sounds like rain. Then I start seeing people enter the restaurant all wet. My heart starts to sink. Now what are we gonna do? Well, we finish our breakfast and then decide what we should do next.
At this point, we really only have one thing left to do and that's catch the next performance of The Festival of the Lion King. But we need to walk over in the rain and I'm not happy about that. So we run into a nearby shop and I doing what I hoped I would never have to do: I bought rain ponchos! Well, it really wasn't that bad. I just considered it another Disney souvenir. As we make our way to Camp Minnie-Mickey, I see people are now entering the Lion King theater. We go in and get seated. Soon enough, the show begins. This is just an amazing, funny and colorful show. We got seated in the Lion section, which was cool. I can watch this show over and over.
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As we left the show, we see it has stopped raining. So by this time, its time to say good-bye to Disney World. We take some last minute Photo Pass pictures. Hopefully we have taken enough pics to justify the $150 price tag for the photo CD via Disney's Photo Pass website.
We get back to Pop Century, and I am just so sweaty from the heat. I really wanna take a quick shower before heading back to the airport and flying home. What can I do? At first I was thinking maybe I can still can get into our resort room, but I think that's kinda pushing it. As we walk over to the Hippy Dippy pool, I see a building that looks like its the restroom. As I get closer I see that its also has showers. You don't know how happy this makes me! So I see the cleaning maids are still making rounds to the rooms. So I go to one of the linen carts and quickly grab a bath towel. I head back and take a much needed shower. I wished we could have done more swimming on this trip, but Mother Nature was NOT helping. After the shower, I feel so much better!
So afterwards, we head back to the Magical Express counter and get our luggage and wait for our bus ride back to the airport, since we have plenty of time to waste. We go around the resort and take some last minute photos. I also film the main lobby of the resort, especially the 'Wall of Pop Culture'. Here is the video of the Pop Century main lobby:
As we are waiting for the bus, I kinda get the feeling that alot of time has passed. So I go check with the Magical Express cast member if the bus will be arriving soon. He asks had we checked in for the return trip. I said yes and that we have been waiting for almost an hour now. Then he tells me that we just missed the bus. I ask him how did we miss the bus, we were waiting in the lobby lounge. He says that he came into the lobby and announced that the bus was here to pick up passengers. I say that never happened because we were seating in clear view and sound of the main entrance. I ask him when is the next bus to the airport. He says in 30 minutes and not to worry about getting to the airport and missing our flight. Since it was around 3:30pm, I thought we did have enough time. So we go back to sit down and wait for the next bus.
Around 4pm the bus pulls up and he head onto the airport. Since we already have our boarding passes, we head on to security. That goes fine without any problems. We still have a good hour to wait before boarding our flight. We do some last minute shopping at the Disney store in the airport. Its now time to board our flight and head home. This is the saddest part of every Disney trip.
We land in Chicago a little after 8pm. My sister picks us up at the airport and we head back to my Mom's house. My sister is happy to have her daughter back home. My Mom asks how the trip went and I tell her it was hot and wet. Its now time for me to head back to my place. Thank God I still have Monday July 5th off from work to rest and recover.
All in all, it was a very special and wonderful trip to Disney World. It was great spending one-on-one time with my niece. She kinda suffers from the 'middle child' syndrome, so I think the trip made her feel very special. Even with the bad/hot weather, we were able to get a lot done and we never had a truly bad moment.
Next on my plate: an early October trip to Disneyland to celebrate by partner's birthday. We already booked a World of Color dinner package for October 7th. We are also attending Disneyland's Mickey's Halloween Party for October 5th. We are also visiting friends & family in California. We plan to do the Warner Bros studio tour and attend a taping of The Ellen Show. And the trip will end with a relaxing weekend in Palm Springs. Yes I know, that' a lot to do in 10 days. We'll see what happens. Have a Magical Day!!
John
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