"I eat dinosaur chicken!" - a November 2018, AKL trip report

MrsSaraG

Mouseketeer
Joined
Feb 18, 2015
Welcome to my first ever trip report! We've been back to reality for a solid six months now, and I'm getting the itch to book another trip (but I'll save that for another post). Some of the details are starting to get fuzzy, so I figured I'd better get this show on the road! Never fear, I took copious notes and between myself and the photopass photographers, I have about 900 photos! So before I go any further, you may be wondering who went on this trip? And what are all the details? (Well, if you read my pre-trip report, I guess you'd already know? :confused3 And if you didn't, it's here.)

But now, let me introduce you to my family!

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I'm Sara! That's me in the Minnie ears. Taylor is dressed like Rapunzel, she was 5 for this trip. And my DH, Kenny.

We rented DVC points from David's and stayed at Animal Kingdom Lodge - Jambo House for 8 nights! November 10-18, 2018. We had a Standard Studio room, but I sent in a room request (first time!) and got exactly what I asked for - near the lobby, partial Savannah view! That was super exciting. We were on the 5th floor of the Kudu trail, room 5220.
Here's our view:
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Can't complain about that right?! We didn't see much during the day (not that we were in our room during the day,) but at night there were several animals that would sleep right there! Which is awesome, because we could put Taylor to bed and we would sit on our balcony and relax before going to sleep (aka upload the day's photos to Facebook.)

This was our second trip to WDW as a family. Our first trip was in 2015 when DD was 2 years old. We had a magical time then and I magically talked DH into going back in 2018. I'm not sure how I did it. He enjoys Disney but isn't obsessed with it like I am. I guess there will be a few mother-daughter trips in our future. Taylor is into Disney as much as I am!

Trip Stats:
70.63 miles walked
60 characters met
51 rides
9 shows
3 fireworks shows
1 dessert party
1 princess makeover
1 Christmas party
1 Early Morning Magic

So grab a glass of wine (I did,) sit back, and prepare to be exhausted!
Up next: Travel Day!
 
TRAVEL DAY!

Let me back up to the day before Travel Day. The closest airport to us is the Philadelphia airport, but we found a great deal flying out of Dulles and back into Reagan International (or maybe it was vice versa, I can't remember now.) We have family in the Baltimore area, so we asked if we could crash with them the night before and night after. So Friday, November 9, we drove down to Baltimore and stayed the night. The traffic wasn't too bad:
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Taylor thought we were just going down to visit family, as the entire trip was a surprise. We managed to plan this for 11 months and she had no idea!

Saturday morning, we got up stupid early and began the drive to the airport, getting dropped off by DH's cousin. Here's Taylor looking confused as to why we were at the airport.
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We took our first fake-o-rail of the trip at the airport in DC.
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After we got through security and ate breakfast, we finally told Taylor where we were going! I do have a video, somewhere, but it's super long and it was the super excited reaction I was expecting. She was very excited, I just think it was too early in the morning for her to have the energy for a freakout. But I wrote letters for the trip from various characters and we read them to her every day. Mickey "wrote" her a letter explaining where we were going. She loved it.

We made it onto the airplane and promptly made her do homework (we pulled her out of school for the week - it was kindergarten, she didn't miss anything.)
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Our flight landed, wheels down, at 10:39 AM. We got our bags, hopped on our second fake-o-rail of the day, and DME was leaving by 11:49 AM.
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(Taylor was looking much more excited now that we were in Florida and she was more awake!)

We were the 2nd stop for DME that day. We had gotten the text that our room was ready at 11:22, while we were still standing in line for DME. So not too bad!

After we got checked into our room and dropped our bags off, we went straight down the Mara for lunch. We activated our refillable cups and inhaled our food. So much that I forgot to take pictures. That's probably a theme for this trip. We were so hungry that we ate without taking photos. Oops!

After lunch, we walked around and explored the resort a bit.
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We went over to Kidani and used their swimming pool until it was time for our ADR for BOMA! I was looking forward to this meal so much. (But don't ask me what I got, I didn't write it down! I did get photos, baby steps!)
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After dinner, we grabbed an Uber (because they do car seats!) and went over to Winter Summerland for mini golf! Taylor loves mini golf and it was nice to take advantage of some of the other things to do on Disney property.
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I know this mini golf park is always decorated for Christmas, but it helped to put us in the mood for all the Christmas decorations around the park.

After we finished playing golf, it was time to go back to the hotel and get some sleep! We had an early morning the next day! Did we make it? Stick around to find out!
Up next: Our first park day!
 

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