Okay okay you guys....I'm going to do it! I'm going to finish this baby up right. I promised you
Grand Gatherings and a
year of Disney dining so here ya go! I'm not real sure where I left off in here, but we're going to start back up with the
Animal Kingdom's GRAND GATHERING experience!
We attended this event with our DIS friends out of New Jersey. This trip was the first time we had met this family in real life! Colleen had been following my trip reports here on Dis for a while and this time we'd be vacationing at the same time. Turns out we all got along great, and I think it's safe to say we'll be lifelong friends. Thank you Disboards!
This was the second (maybe third, it's been a while so I may have the dates mixed up) Grand Gathering I attended at WDW. The first was the
Good Morning Breakfast that's held at
Tony's in the Magic Kingdom. I forget how to add links at the moment but it can be found earlier in this dining report.
This is how it all went down...
When we booked this meal park hours were later than they were by the time vacation rolled around. This made for some excitement within itself. We were able to tour the Animal Kingdom a couple of extra hours while we waited for the party to start. Extra time inside the AK? Sure! Bring it on! At a certain time we were told to meet at Flights of Wonder. There we would sign in and wait for our group to be called. The wait wasn't too bad. Next cast members made the rounds handing out GG safari pins to all of the guests. (Even the little kids under 3 were given a pin) We had a lady, whose name escapes me now, come out and talk to us.
After the pep talk we were called out by our animal named groups. Seems like we were first to be called. Maybe Colleen remembers. I asked her to come on later and fill in anything I may have missed. Anyway, we were called back out and our tour guide led us to our Safari tour. This takes place in the regular trucks like the ones used in the ride. You are seated with other groups you don't know unless you have enough people in your group to fill your own truck. Not sure why I expected to be in a different type of truck with just our little group but I thought this at first. Unfortunately you are not. Same ol' truck w/ people you don't know sitting behind ya! Anyway...
It's pretty much the same tour you get any other time but it's almost dark out and there's no track playing over the loud speaker. You have two tour guides and one person sits there and answers whatever questions you may have. It's a little more laid back than the regular ride but you don't do anything special. I was a little disappointed in this part of the gathering. I just expected more in my head. As you can see from these pictures it was very close to dark out so that was different than what we had seen before.
You don't always see these hippos out running around and on this night they were very active!
After the safari was over our tour guide gathered us up and took us back over to Tusker House. Once inside we were taken to a table filled with yummy breads, appetizers, etc. We had a wonderful server who took great care of us. There was plenty of food. Wanna see?
Our boys were like velcro. We couldn't tear them apart!
Yeah, yeah. I know....more food pictures!
Con't in next post....