Instilling a
sense of urgency in teenaged girls is, well practically impossible! At Magic
Kingdom we were almost late twice… in fact I threatened to change the Be Our
Guest lunch from 4 people to 2 people if they were late!
Our plans
for this day was …swimming, shopping, hanging out, Beach Club Resort for a
Kitchen Sink and dinner at Boma. A
relaxing, enjoyable day.
The girls
wanted to eat at Earl of Sandwich for lunch, so that meant we needed to allow
for an hour to get from our resort to Downtown Disney and an hour for them to
eat. And we needed to leave Downtown
Disney by 12:30 to make our 1:30 ADR at Beaches and Cream. If you do the math you will see that we
needed to leave the resort by 10:30. And
that is hoping the buses are on time and not a long line.
At 10:30, my
granddaughter and I are waiting in line for the bus. The girls are nowhere to be seen. Of course, there was no need to worry since
another bus did not come until after 11.
(so much for a bus every 20 minutes!)
By 12 we
were at Downtown Disney… my granddaughter and I decided not to have lunch but
do a few minutes’ worth of shopping, while the girls went to wolf down a
sandwich.
By 12:30 we
were on a bus headed to Beach Club Resort .
We arrived right at 1:30.
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| Birthday girls with Kitchen Sink. Doesn't she look happy? |
The Kitchen
Sink was amazing! And no, we could not
eat it all! But it was well worth every
penny watching those girls, who were trying not to eat too much, try their best
to eat every single bite! I believe this
is something everyone should try at least once!
By 3 we were
back on the bus to Downtown Disney. More
shopping. Way too much shopping, or at
least way too much spending! With all
the construction going on here, I really would not have come if we were not
using the bus system. That being said,
most of the construction is on the road, with very little disruption in the
shopping areas itself. When we were
there in February there were wall everywhere,
but most of them are down and it had a much more open feel this time…but still
a lot of construction is going on and not expected to be finished any time
soon.
By 4 we were
back on a bus to Art of Animation. This
is when I realized that our dining reservation for dinner is at 7, at
Boma. Which requires two more bus rides
to get to! Another 2 hours of buses… and
you guessed it…we get back to the room at 5!
This is
where two bathrooms really come into play!
Two teenaged girls getting ready
for dinner cannot be done without at LEAST two bathrooms. Somehow we make it and…uh oh…the Downtown
Disney bus has a line a mile long…so using quick thinking I decided to head to
Animal Kingdom Park. No wait and the bus
was there! We hopped on and arrived at
Animal Kingdom Park at about 6. Not bad!
Of course,
just as we get off the bus there is a thunderstorm hitting! And of course, the bus we need to get to is
on the other side of the bus lot! So off
we scramble to try and get there before we drown. Of course, the jokes start about how we didn’t
need to take showers after all since we are all soaked to the skin. (TIP!
Even if rain is not in the forecast, take ponchos with you every time
you walk out of the room…especially in June!)
Luckily, we
didn’t have too much of a wait for the bus, so we were at Animal Kingdom Lodge
by 6:30. Plenty of time to make our
dining reservation!
Boma was
superb as always! It is quickly becoming
one of my favorites. While there is a
lot of things I can’t eat, the chef on duty is usually pretty good about making
things just for me. For instance their
hummus is not gluten free, and we all know that pita chips are not either. If you get a good chef, he will whip up a
batch of gluten free hummus and pita chips!
YUM! And they always make me a
few special desserts…like the zebra domes!
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| The girls enjoying a view of animals after dinner |
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| Animal Kingdom Lodge as viewed from the savanna |
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| Fire pit |
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| View of the savanna from the lobby |
After a
dinner where we all ate way more than we should have, we spent a few minutes
shopping…and then headed to the bus. It
was about 9pm. Unfortunately, it is now
several hours since Animal Kingdom Park has closed, so we are left with few
options to get home. First to Downtown
Disney, where we passed Art of Animation on the way. Since it was so busy at Downtown Disney, we
sat for over 20 minutes waiting to get inside and to a stop to get off. It is now 10:40.
Onto a bus
for Art of Animation and home by a few minutes before midnight.
I di d a
rough calculation of how much time we spent either on a bus or waiting for a
bus…just on this day…and it came to almost 8 hours! Had I been driving, I would have spent maybe
an hour tops in transportation mode.
So, TIP#2,
do not schedule dining at a different resort than you are staying at if you are
relying on Disney transportation to get you there!
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