Beach Club Getaway - Park 3

It is a much nicer day today and will actually reach into the mid 70s - perhaps low 80s so I dress in Capris and a 3/4 length top. For the morning, I bring a denim jacket with me but I will be able to take it off by lunchtime.

We have muffins to eat for breakfast and are going to make coffee in the room but my spouse says the coffee pot is gross so he walks over to the Marketplace to buy coffees for us. We pre-ordered on his phone but, as I usually handle this, he forgot to hit the key saying he was there and they should prepare his order so it took a little longer than it might have.

With breakfast behind us, we get in our car and drive over to Animal Kingdom. Like the other parks, parking lot trams are not running to we hike over to the gate. We haven't noticed this at the other parks but this park has retained its annual passholder entry gate so we use that.

It's been over a year since we've been in this park. We head directly to Kilimanjaro Safaris. The line is close to an hour wait and our spot in line is way over by the The Festival of the Lion King Theater. While we are initially outdoors, we are guided into the theater itself where we meander back and fort across the performing floor. Slowly, we make our way back outside, across the bridge and take a left towards the ride itself. We are loaded into the second row of our safari vehicle. It's quite a good ride with many animals in view. The zebras are out and the cheetahs are alert and much closer than they usually are. We even see a rhino charge though, thankfully, not towards our vehicle!!

We were going to walk the Gorilla Falls trail and actually enter this area. When we arrive at the first primate exhibit, there are lots of folks there so we think we can walk around them and continue on. As we move to the left, we see what appears to be a continuous line for as far as we can see and I suspect that this crowd of people continues all the way to, at least, the close-up gorilla viewing area. Okay - change of plans. We reserve direction and leave the Gorilla Trail, Instead, we walk over to the Maharajah Jungle Trek. This is much easier to navigate and nowhere as crowded as the gorilla trail. The tigers are quite alert and one is busy cleaning himself/herself just like your kitty at home!!

For lunch, we pre-order to Flame Tree BBQ. We need to wait about 15 minutes or so before finally being notified that our lunch is ready. We find a table to enjoy our meal. We see musicians floating back and forth on a barge. I had read they were doing this but had forgotten.

After lunch, we head into Pandora and get on line for Na'vi River Journey which is listed at about 50 minute but, actually, we are on the ride more quickly than that. We decided not to ride Expedition:Everest on this day so, after this ride, we wandered through some of the shops and headed back to our resort.

Back in our room, we spent some time on our balcony - the first time this trip we were able to do so. We have a view of the back of The Land with Spaceship Earth beyond that building.

During that afternoon, I did most of the packing for our return home.

When we had checked in, I was happy to see that we received a listing of in-room dining options so this evening we order room service. The food was good and was delivered promptly. For delivery, all food is placed into paper bags. Included in the bags are paper plates, plastic utensils, napkins, and condiments. When the server arrives at your room, he/she knocks on the door and stands across the hall. All of your items are on a rolling tray and you collect the bags from the tray to bring into your room. The room service slip is also on the tray so you can sign it and put it back on the tray for your server to take with him.

The next morning, we finished our packing. We had reservations for Disney Studios but canceled them. After we made our reservations, we also needed to book a vendor to come to our house for a repair and this day was the first day the vendor was available so we got home before the vendor's arrival.

It's certainly not the way things used to be but I do have hope that we will be able to move closer to what was during the course of this year!!

Thanks for sharing - that is a crazy line for the Safari! I'm glad it was a good one after all that. We haven't eaten at Flame Tree in years, we always mean to, but we seem never to be in the area at lunchtime. Glad it was good.

Wow, sounds like your visit is really busy! You were brave to do the rides. And Disney Springs sounds horrible. Still glad I didn’t do rides but I missed my favorites. One thing about dining,I really like the Mobil app dining right now. You can order from some really great places and bring back to room. Two of the places I ended up not going to were The Yachtsman and Sanaa for the bread service. I STILL haven’t made it to either place and they were high on my list. Nice that the English pub has reopened. I just get the fish and chips anyway, so when I went it was fine.

One of the things that has changed that I really like is not having to have security paw through my bags. Just walking through the medal detectors is so nice and I like not having to stick my finger on the entry pad.

I never thought of the bath bombs being better with the jets. We have always just used them in regular tubs. Wonder how they would work in a small hot tub ?

Hope you get some warmer days to go to the parks!

The Disney experience definitely sounds muted from the pre Covid days. Now I am glad I went as many times as I did in the past.

Faline, thanks for sharing. If you’re a WDW veteran (which you are,) the protocols in place right now can really have a dampening effect, regarding expected enjoyment. It seems you guys are doing your best to make the most of it.