jenseib Posted September 27, 2017 Author #51 Share Posted September 27, 2017 Mickey headed over and it was my turn. ak70by Jenseib, on Flickr And then Donald. ak71by Jenseib, on Flickr And our waitress stopped over again and took one of the 3 of us. ak72by Jenseib, on Flickr Time for some desserts! ak62by Jenseib, on Flickr It had been looking like rain for a while and of course as we were finishing dessert it started to pour. Now we were not upset about the rain itself. We were hot and the rain would feel a bit decent, but I didn’t want to get soaked. But what really was the annoying part is we had planned to go and take the bus back to POR after lunch to take a little rest and freshen up and with this rain people were all running towards the buses to leave. UGH! We finished up our late lunch and paid the bill. This is one pricey meal. Again, we were ONLY doing it for the River of Lights package. Claire is over the character meals for the most part right now, and honestly, for us, the food choices were not desirable…BUT of the 3 choices to choose from for the ROL package, this one is the one I knew would work the best for us. We used the restroom and then we put our ponchos on and covered our valuables and headed out into the pouring rain….and I mean POURING! The water wasn’t draining fast enough and we were walking through some puddles that were a couple of inches deep. ICK! We made our way out of the park and headed to the bus. I totally misread the sign and started down the wrong lane and then had to back track again. We made it to the bus stop and got in line and soon were on a very very full bus. We had to stand, which was fine, but it was the longest bus ride ever. We talked with the people around us. One lady had some anytime fastpasses for AK that would expire in a few days, but they were not coming back to AK again. She asked if I wanted them and I said sure. I was hoping they would be good in Pandora, but of course they weren’t. It was my understanding that they got them from Flight of Passage as they were about to load and the ride went down. I would have thought the fastpasses would have gotten them back on that ride if that was the reason they got them, but they specifically said they were not good in Pandora. I swear our bus driver took the longest possible route back to POR. LOL. It just seemed to take forever..and we were standing with wet feet and shoes….at least I had good conversation. We had to stop at French Quarter first, then our bus stop was to be 2nd after that…..but the bus driver took a poll and asked how many were going to each bus stop and that ended up making my bus stop now 4th I believe. UGH! We finally did get back to Riverside though. I think once the bus left Animal Kingdom, the actual ride time to get to our bus stop was over 40 minutes. We headed back to the room and crashed. We took our wet shoes off and laid them out to start the drying process. We were not too wet, but I think I changed my shirt. Now we were tired and it was a long day already from the heat, but we had the ROL package and I really wanted to see the show. I would not really have a chance …at least in my mind at this point….to see them after our cruise…so it was now or never. It rained off and on and I decided to head up to the lobby and ask if they knew if the show would be cancelled. I also had my docs (which I never opened because I didn’t need anything in it) at the desk waiting for me, so I picked those up too. por7by Jenseib, on Flickr por8by Jenseib, on Flickr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenseib Posted September 27, 2017 Author #52 Share Posted September 27, 2017 por9by Jenseib, on Flickr por10by Jenseib, on Flickr At parts of the path it was deep with water, so I tried to walk in the shallow areas. por40by Jenseib, on Flickr por68by Jenseib, on Flickr por69by Jenseib, on Flickr por70by Jenseib, on Flickr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenseib Posted September 27, 2017 Author #53 Share Posted September 27, 2017 I didn’t get to explore the resort much, but it really is pretty. por71by Jenseib, on Flickr por72by Jenseib, on Flickr por73by Jenseib, on Flickr por74by Jenseib, on Flickr por75by Jenseib, on Flickr por1by Jenseib, on Flickr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenseib Posted September 27, 2017 Author #54 Share Posted September 27, 2017 I headed inside and straight to the lobby. por77by Jenseib, on Flickr por78by Jenseib, on Flickr por79by Jenseib, on Flickr por80by Jenseib, on Flickr por81by Jenseib, on Flickr I got in line for concierge as I figured that was the best place to ask. por82by Jenseib, on Flickr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenseib Posted September 27, 2017 Author #55 Share Posted September 27, 2017 por83by Jenseib, on Flickr por84by Jenseib, on Flickr por85by Jenseib, on Flickr He called over to Animal Kingdom and they said at this point the show is going on. They wouldn’t make the call till 15 minutes before the actual show and it really only would be called off if lightening was in the area. Great! We would head back in a little bit then. He handed me my documents envelope as well and I headed back out. por86by Jenseib, on Flickr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenseib Posted September 27, 2017 Author #56 Share Posted September 27, 2017 I decided I should take a peek inside the general store while I was up here. por88by Jenseib, on Flickr por89by Jenseib, on Flickr por87by Jenseib, on Flickr por2by Jenseib, on Flickr por90by Jenseib, on Flickr por91by Jenseib, on Flickr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenseib Posted September 27, 2017 Author #57 Share Posted September 27, 2017 They have a lot of really cute displays in here. por92by Jenseib, on Flickr por93by Jenseib, on Flickr Time to head back to the room and it looks like it may be clearing up! por3by Jenseib, on Flickr por4by Jenseib, on Flickr por5by Jenseib, on Flickr por95by Jenseib, on Flickr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenseib Posted September 27, 2017 Author #58 Share Posted September 27, 2017 por96by Jenseib, on Flickr por97by Jenseib, on Flickr And then it started to sprinkle again. por98by Jenseib, on Flickr por6by Jenseib, on Flickr When I got back to the room, we got ready to head out once again. We then headed to the bus stop to wait. We did not have good bus mojo this trip. We always seemed to just miss the bus. Claire actually forgot something and had to run back to the room and a bus came and went. UGH! So we waited quite a while for the next one. The sun started shining and we were happy and just about to take off our ponchos when we arrived at Animal Kingdom….good thing we didn’t…we got another rain. ak73by Jenseib, on Flickr It was like the skies knew we had just walked in and wanted to be sure we knew it was the boss. We did find some people enjoying the rain and dancing like they didn’t have a care in the world. ak63by Jenseib, on Flickr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenseib Posted September 27, 2017 Author #59 Share Posted September 27, 2017 One guy really had some moves. ak64by Jenseib, on Flickr We found the spot to enter ROL, but it wasn’t quite open yet, so we headed off to the restroom and each got a pop and then they were just opening when we got back. They told us the concrete seats tend to be dryer than the wood ones, so we headed to those. rol40by Jenseib, on Flickr We really did get a good seat and we didn’t mind waiting for the show to start. rol41by Jenseib, on Flickr There were 2 shows tonight and we were at the first one.The rain really scared people away. This stadium did not fill up, which is rare. Often they have to turn standby people away and tonight most of those sections were open as well as the fastpass and dining package sections. rol3by Jenseib, on Flickr Of course we would have never known that a few months ago when we made our dining reservation. rol2by Jenseib, on Flickr Claire asked if this boat was part of the show….I toldher I thought it was just a decoration….I was wrong. LOL. rol43by Jenseib, on Flickr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenseib Posted September 27, 2017 Author #60 Share Posted September 27, 2017 As we waited for the show to start they would shine shadows of animals walking across the tree line. It was almost impossible to get a good picture, but it was neat. rol44by Jenseib, on Flickr rol45by Jenseib, on Flickr As you can see, the stands across the way are not full at all. rol1by Jenseib, on Flickr As show time got closer, they started putting some floats in place and some were lit up. rol4by Jenseib, on Flickr rol5by Jenseib, on Flickr rol6by Jenseib, on Flickr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenseib Posted September 27, 2017 Author #61 Share Posted September 27, 2017 The show then started. I did video a lot of it, but I think I missed the very beginning …I think about 11 minutes of it. I took a lot of pictures too. rol47by Jenseib, on Flickr video As soon as the boats started to move, Claire was quick to let me know she was right and I was wrong! rol48by Jenseib, on Flickr rol49by Jenseib, on Flickr rol7by Jenseib, on Flickr rol50by Jenseib, on Flickr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenseib Posted September 27, 2017 Author #62 Share Posted September 27, 2017 rol51by Jenseib, on Flickr rol8by Jenseib, on Flickr rol10by Jenseib, on Flickr rol52by Jenseib, on Flickr rol53by Jenseib, on Flickr rol11by Jenseib, on Flickr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenseib Posted September 27, 2017 Author #63 Share Posted September 27, 2017 rol12by Jenseib, on Flickr rol13by Jenseib, on Flickr rol14by Jenseib, on Flickr rol15by Jenseib, on Flickr rol16by Jenseib, on Flickr rol17by Jenseib, on Flickr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenseib Posted September 27, 2017 Author #64 Share Posted September 27, 2017 rol18by Jenseib, on Flickr rol19by Jenseib, on Flickr rol22by Jenseib, on Flickr It was just beautiful. rol23by Jenseib, on Flickr rol24by Jenseib, on Flickr rol25by Jenseib, on Flickr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenseib Posted September 27, 2017 Author #65 Share Posted September 27, 2017 rol21by Jenseib, on Flickr rol26by Jenseib, on Flickr rol27by Jenseib, on Flickr rol28by Jenseib, on Flickr rol29by Jenseib, on Flickr rol30by Jenseib, on Flickr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenseib Posted September 27, 2017 Author #66 Share Posted September 27, 2017 rol31by Jenseib, on Flickr rol32by Jenseib, on Flickr rol33by Jenseib, on Flickr rol34by Jenseib, on Flickr I really was impressed with the show. rol35by Jenseib, on Flickr rol36by Jenseib, on Flickr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenseib Posted September 27, 2017 Author #67 Share Posted September 27, 2017 rol37by Jenseib, on Flickr rol38by Jenseib, on Flickr rol39by Jenseib, on Flickr We thought it was amazing and were so glad we came back and braved the rain to watch it. It was worth waiting the extra year to see it. I would probably compare it to World of Color at California Adventure, but still very different. We looked at the app and Flight of Passage was now showing about a 60 minute wait. Let’shead that way…..except wait…we have those fastpasses so let’s use those to ride Expedition Everest in the dark! I have NEVER been to Animal Kingdom past sunset before and I have always wanted toride EE in the dark. We quickly got in our car and were off and Claire got scared. She said that the ride was way more scary in the dark than in the day. I was kind of surprised…but she had a death grip on my arm the whole ride and it kept getting pinched as we moved around. I told her to let go, but she wasn’t going to. LOL. ak76by Jenseib, on Flickr It was super fun!!! We loved it and would have done it again, but we wanted to get over to Pandora. ak75by Jenseib, on Flickr ak74by Jenseib, on Flickr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenseib Posted September 27, 2017 Author #68 Share Posted September 27, 2017 Taking the new back way over there. pandora111by Jenseib, on Flickr The app had updated to 80 minutes while we were in line for EE, and still showed 80 minutes, but when we arrived it was showing 120 minutes at the actual line. That’s 2 hours. UGH! Claire said she would be willing to wait that long, but I was tired and I knew we had a busy day tomorrow heading over to the port and boarding the ship. In the end I said no. I just couldn’t see waiting 2-3 hours since we had already rode it once. We did walk around and I tried to take pictures, but my camera and phone could not capture the beauty of the place at night. pandora112by Jenseib, on Flickr pandora113by Jenseib, on Flickr pandora114by Jenseib, on Flickr pandora115by Jenseib, on Flickr pandora105by Jenseib, on Flickr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenseib Posted September 27, 2017 Author #69 Share Posted September 27, 2017 Everyone I had talked to said we had to see Pandora at night….they raved just how beautiful it was. I did think it was beautiful, but I was actually underwhelmed. Sadly, I think all the hype others gave it made me expect more. Don’t get me wrong, it really is pretty, but I expected more. pandora116by Jenseib, on Flickr pandora104by Jenseib, on Flickr The Navi River Journey was showing about a 30 minute wait, so we decided to hop in line for that. pandora117by Jenseib, on Flickr We started talking to the family behind us. We found out they only live about an hour from us. Such a small world! They knew some dairy farmers that I believe my husband knows and we talked about some local things. They were such a nice family. The ride was great and I did not take many pictures this time around so that I could just enjoy it all. pandora106by Jenseib, on Flickr pandora119by Jenseib, on Flickr pandora120by Jenseib, on Flickr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenseib Posted September 27, 2017 Author #70 Share Posted September 27, 2017 pandora107by Jenseib, on Flickr pandora121by Jenseib, on Flickr pandora108by Jenseib, on Flickr We just walked around to take it all in and see the different lighted areas. pandora109by Jenseib, on Flickr Again, I can’t stress enough how bad my pictures turned out. This is one place where it would be worth it to bring my 35mm camera. pandora110by Jenseib, on Flickr pandora126by Jenseib, on Flickr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenseib Posted September 27, 2017 Author #71 Share Posted September 27, 2017 We went into the gift shop to look around. pandora123by Jenseib, on Flickr You can make your own avatar doll. I heard later that these babies are like 75 plus dollars!!!! pandora124by Jenseib, on Flickr After looking around a bit….and cooling off…we headed back outside. pandora127by Jenseib, on Flickr pandora128by Jenseib, on Flickr pandora129by Jenseib, on Flickr The extra Magic hours for Pandora were going to start shortly, but we decided to just head out. We didn’t want to wait that long for FoP and we did the River ride and looked around, so it was better to head back. I was hungry and wanted a snack…and found nothing but popcorn available, which was not sounding good, so we headed out to catch the bus. ak77by Jenseib, on Flickr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenseib Posted September 27, 2017 Author #72 Share Posted September 27, 2017 ak78by Jenseib, on Flickr We made our way to the bus stop and it was just a short ride back this time…Yay! I still wanted a snack, so I went in search of a vending machine and found one not too far off. It was in this little room with glass French doors. I got a few things and turned around to leave and there was a guy right there at the door. It scared the crap out of me. It was like a scene from a horror movie. Luckily it wasn’t a horror movie and he was just trying to come in to get some ice....which I am not sure how he planned to do that with me in the room as it was really small. I headed back to the room and kind of packed up our suitcases and got our clothes out for tomorrow. I also planned to do a load of laundry in the morning, so I gathered our things together for that. I then told Claire it was time to turn off electronics and go to sleep. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenseib Posted September 28, 2017 Author #73 Share Posted September 28, 2017 Day 4, June 28,2017, Boarding the Fantasy Today was the day! This was the day this whole trip had been based on….cruising for 10 nights! Woohoooo!!!! I had been messaging between all my friends over the course of the last few days and also had been following the facebook group. You know that rain we had yesterday….it was really really bad in some areas and many of the people who had flown in yesterday were having trouble landing. Some flights had been redirected to Tampa and then either had to have the passengers get a rental car to get to Orlando (or Port Canaveral) or they refueled and waited it out and then flew to Orlando once the storms passed. Others said they had been circling the airport for an hour or 2 before they could land. It made me really happy we had come in the day before. I got up early and showered and gathered the laundry I wanted to do and set off to find the laundry room por41by Jenseib, on Flickr It was basically just around the corner. por42by Jenseib, on Flickr por43by Jenseib, on Flickr por44by Jenseib, on Flickr I headed inside and started my load. por45by Jenseib, on Flickr Just an FYI, they no longer take cash....you must use a credit card to pay for the machines. por46by Jenseib, on Flickr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenseib Posted September 28, 2017 Author #74 Share Posted September 28, 2017 por47by Jenseib, on Flickr I assume this was the towel cart for the pool that just had not been pushed out yet for the day. por48by Jenseib, on Flickr And there is a vending machine to purchase your laundry needs if you didn’t bring any with you. por66by Jenseib, on Flickr por49by Jenseib, on Flickr If you want to sit with your laundry….you can snack as well. por50by Jenseib, on Flickr I headed back to the room and got everything kind of reorganized and packed. I got Claire up and told her to get showered and ready for the day and I went off and put my clothes in the dryer when the time was right. Then I headed up front to wait for the Alamo shuttle to take me to get my car. por51by Jenseib, on Flickr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenseib Posted September 28, 2017 Author #75 Share Posted September 28, 2017 por52by Jenseib, on Flickr por53by Jenseib, on Flickr I went up about 15 minutes or so early. I just had a fear of them coming early and me missing the shuttle. por54by Jenseib, on Flickr So I took a few pictures while I waited. por55by Jenseib, on Flickr por56by Jenseib, on Flickr por57by Jenseib, on Flickr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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