Day 3-Animal Kingdom
This was the earliest day of them all because I woke up bright and early to get ready for my photoshoot! I booked myself a Capture Your Moment Photoshoot at Animal Kingdom for 7:30am, which also happened to be when early magic hours began, so the park was pretty empty! I got ready and made our first Lightening Lane reservation for the Safari and then we headed 25 steps outside of our building to the bus stop (again-so convenient!). The bus ride itself only took about 12 minutes and we were inside the park by 7:10am. We went over to Creature Comfort and got drinks before I went back to Island Mercantile to meet up with my Photopass photographers.
Yes, that’s photographers-plural! You’ll have one with you to take the actual photos and the other there as a support, whether that’s posing ideas or just your hype person. This is also a major plus if you’re a family taking photos in order to help keep everyone together and be able to take pictures of just kids/adults while the other hangs out with the secondary photographer. I was paired up with John as my photographer and Tucker as my hype man and they were both amazing! The session is slated to last 20 minutes, but we went a little over. Since I chose to do it at Animal Kingdom, we took advantage of a lot of the cool murals in Africa as well as getting some classic Tree of Life pictures. One thing to note is that the session is $99 and can be for up to 8 people, but the photos from the session are NOT automatically included. I purchased memory maker for our trip, so I had immediate access to all the digital downloads, but just keep that in mind when deciding if it’s right for your family. I do highly recommend doing it though!
Afterwards we went over to the Safari and had a wonderful time with Delaney from Wisconsin as our guide. She even said some facts that I, a very seasoned vet of this ride, had never heard before! When you get off the Safari, it puts you right at Gorilla Falls trail, so we decided to walk around and see all the animals. Then it was time for one of my favorite things-going on the train to Rafiki’s Planet Watch. Once there, I did an animation class. These were held every 45 minutes between 10:00am-4:00pm and the characters changed each time. We happened to get Maleficent and it was a little challenging, but so much fun! Then we went outside to the petting zoo area of the Conservation Station to see all the pigs, goats, cows, and other animals you can love on.
We made it back from the train just in time to get a snack (I finally got the popcorn bucket for the 50th anniversary) and a drink (mom got a margarita) and made our way over to the Festival of the Lion King. This performance is about 30 minutes long and show times are typically every hour on the hour. I highly recommend booking a Lightening Lane or getting in line at about 30 minutes prior to showtime to make sure you make it into the theater for the time that you want-it can fill up very quickly! Festival of the Lion King is a MUST DO at Animal Kingdom. It is a live Broadway-style show in a 360 theater that has everything from Lion King characters to acrobats to tumblers to fire jugglers and has incredible singers too! I tear up every time at this show-it’s truly that good! Plus it’s a great break in the air conditioning.
After the show, mom had to do some work, so I made myself a Lightening Lane and went to meet Safari Mickey and Minnie by myself while she talked to some clients on the phone. I always love this meet and greet because the theming in the whole building is amazing and I love getting to meet them together. By this time, it was around 1:00 and we decided to go back to the Polynesian to rest and get ready for Ohana at 4:00.
If you haven’t been to Ohana before for breakfast or dinner, you should definitely add it to your list of things to do on your next trip to Walt Disney World! Thankfully it is located at the Polynesian resort, so it was only a few steps away from our building. The food is always delicious and if you go for breakfast, you’ll get to meet Lilo, Stitch, Pluto, and Mickey! My personal favorites at dinner on this trip was the salad, beef, and the poly noodles (which I’m pretty sure are everyone’s favorite). Our server was so kind and helpful and even brought me out a Rice Krispy treat desert since I can’t eat the bread pudding due to my egg allergy! I highly recommend this restaurant for anyone looking to do a sit-down meal.
We were exhausted and stuffed at this point, so we decided to go back to the room and get packed and ready to get up before the sun to make the drive back home. I ended up watching the fireworks at Magic Kingdom from our room before crashing for the night.
Overall it was a really great, go with the flow, Disney World trip! I got to try out Genie+ first hand and get some experience as well as get my first character hug in soooo many years! It was also great to have the weekend with my mom-just the two of us. If you’re ready to book your Walt Disney World vacation, click on the vacation quote tab on my website and I’ll help you get started!
