July 21st, Sunday, Animal Kingdom

This is the last park that we will visit, which means we have hit all four major parks. I’m already exhausted.

Late start today, we left the hotel at 8:30am and got to the park a bit before 9am. This park closes at 18:00 so we will definitely get back early tonight. 

We decided to do Dinosaur first. I’m a bit nervous about that one – it is like the Indiana Jones ride that I’ve done before and that was hard for me. This one says it has sudden drops and I do not do well with sudden drops. I have taken Dramamine though so maybe I can do it. It turns out that Momo really doesn’t want to do this ride so Alan and Lisa went first. With only 5 minute wait time they said we don’t need to do parent swap. Momo and I waited in the gift shop. 

According to Lisa I would not do well in this ride. Dark, sudden movements, dark drops. Nope, I’m out. Alan said he might do it again so that’s good. Not with me though. 

We took pictures with Safari Donald and then rode TriceraTop Spin. Im fine with the rides like this – around in a circle and controlled up and down. Same as Dumbo or Aladdin’s carpets. No problem. Well, Alan was on altitude control and kept jerking us up and down, probably because I told him that wasn’t my favorite. 

Next we went to Expedition Everest. Based on what it looks like this is an absolute no-go for me. I did Matterhorn once, and it was very hard. Took like two hours for me to feel normal again. So I passed. Lisa went with Alan who was apprehensive. Alan came out crying so that was no good. He is really shaken up and won’t talk. Nods ok though, so he still has higher executive functioning. 

Momo and Lisa stopped at the Boneyard  playground since they have a slide and a sticker. They spent a lot more time there than I thought they would. To get the sticker Momo had to dig around in a sand box to find Dinosaur bones, which was pretty fun for her. Then pictures with Daisy Duck, and Dinosaur Chip and Dale.  

We stopped at the clinic and Lisa talked with the staff here for a while. Then off to Kira River Rapids (Lightning Lane). This is a river raft ride, similar to the one in California Adventure. I got some Meclizine at the health station since they had that. 

We headed over to the Kila Rapids ride and stored our stuff in a locker – the small ones were free and fit out backpack and stuff. Momo was very apprehensive, but she was brave and rode it. The ride spins and has one larger drop. The drop is smooth and you can see it so I had no problem with that. I might have had a problem if I was facing backwards at the time, but I wasn’t. The ride was really easy after that. I did get pretty wet though. When it was Momo said she didn’t want to do it again but didn’t seem upset at all. It looks like she had a bit of fun. Alan said he wants to do it again which is a relief that the Everest ride didn’t turn him off of all thrill rides. 

While it was nice to get wet, by the end of the day I was regretting that I had worn jeans. So definitely something that can dry quicker if we do this again, or do it later in the day. The heat is really tough in Orlando though, I don’t think we will be coming back in July again.

Momo wanted to do pizza for lunch so we went to Pizzafari in Africa. You can guess what we ate (Lisa did have a salad).  

After lunch we went to Feathered Friends in Flight. That was a fun show! Alan wanted to do that one, and so did Momo. We may do a singing show later. Then we headed to the Na’vi River Journey on lightning lanes. 

That ride was nice – a two by two slow boat trip through an air conditioned fake Na’vi environment. Zero issues, slow and easy. Momo fell asleep, even though it isn’t that long. 

After that Alan wanted to try the Na’vi Soarin’ equivalent, Avatar Flight of Passage, so Lisa and him queued up for that while Momo and I made a dash to the Finding Nemo: The Big Blue… And Beyond! show. Momo promptly laid down on my lap, which is fine by me because the theater is air conditioned. 

Momo slept through most of the play but it was nice. Lisa and Alan finished up at about the same time the play ended, so I suggested we meet at Kilimanjaro Safari and we did that. It was pretty cool. 

Alan really liked Avatar: Flight of Passage. It sounds like it has more up and down and is more intense than Soarin’, which has me a bit worried. Sometimes Soarin’ can get to me. Alan liked this one so much he wants to do it again. 

Then we did the Gorilla Falls hike. That was hot and exhausting. We went to dinner at Triffins, the signature restaurant, and I asked about using our meal plan. This place takes two tickets, and we have 3 left. They can’t use part of an entitlement so we will be left with one kids and one adult dining ticket. Maybe we can use that tomorrow. Our 17:30 dinner ended at about 19:15, a nice relaxed and delicious meal. 

Finally we get back to the hotel at a reasonable hour! Assuming the rain lets up – we had great luck these past 5 days with no rain, but there is a thundershower now that is really going hard. It’s supposed to let up shortly so we will wait for a while. We did end up walking through the rain a bit, but didn’t get too wet – we already were damp from the Kali River Rapids anyway.

We got back to the hotel at about 8pm, which is the earliest we made it back this whole trip. We’ve been leaving the place at 7:30am and coming back at 10pm for the most part. Ending on Animal Kingdom worked out well.

Tomorrow we plan to take a relaxed morning, leaving the hotel at about 9:30am. We will check our luggage with the hotel, then go to the Disney Springs Shopping area on their free bus. We return to the hotel at 1pm to get a bus to the airport for our 4:45 flight, which should arrive in San Diego at 6:45 or so.

Overall, a fun and very exhausting trip. I don’t think we will ever be back to Florida – certainly not in the summer, maybe I could be convinced in some other non-melting season – so I’m glad we hit all four parks. I’m also glad we ate at the signature restaurant for each park. I’ll take some time and write up a summary later, but first I want to put together a spreadsheet of all the rides we went on, how tough they were for me from a motion sickness point of view, and a repeatability score with explanation.