Super Bowl? What Super Bowl? First Week of February 2020 Trip Report *Updated 4/2*

[Unca’ Donald]

Hope both of you stay safe and healthy!

Thank you, we're trying our best. Be well.

I love these- they crack me up!

The Figment paintings were great. They would still give guests one of the prize puzzles even if they didn't complete the scavenger hunt, but we were determined to find all of them. Since we got a late start on it, I was glad we were going to have another Epcot day to try to complete it.

Super cute picture

Thanks!

I didn't realize that's what they were doing. Weird.

Yeah, everyone assumed the shows would be on a rotation throughout the day, but instead they were showing BATB from 11:00-7:00 and Impressions from 7:30-9:00. I understand the idea of showing it more since it's new, but 8 out of 10 hours definitely seems like overkill.

 

[Unca’ Donald]

Tuesday, February 4, 2020 - Animal Kingdom


We were up at 5:30 am for our only day at our 2nd favorite park. We had done 2 days at Animal Kingdom on previous trips, but we opted to do 2 days at Epcot for the Festival of the Arts on this trip.

The weather was looking to be nearly identical to what it was the previous day at Epcot.

Our FP to begin the day were FOP 9:05-10:05, DINOSAUR 10:45-11:45, and Expedition Everest 11:55-12:55. We also had a 3:00 ADR for Yak & Yeti. When I initially booked our FP at our 60 day mark, FOP was only available late in the afternoon, but I was able to move it up to the morning, weeks before our trip. The plan to start the day was to rope drop NRJ, tap in at FOP at 9:00, and hopefully be in a reasonable standby line for KS around 9:30.

We were out the door of our room at POFQ at 7:42 and on a bus 11 minutes later. We stepped off the bus at 8:11 and were lined up at the tapstiles at 8:20. 4 minutes later, they began letting guests through.

We stopped for the Tree of Life PhotoPass op.

We arrived at NRJ at 8:33 and walked right in, but they held guests at a point further inside the queue. We always rope drop NRJ since we always have FP for FOP. On each of our previous trips, guests were always held outside before the ride opened. This was the first time were were allowed inside the queue before the ride opened. We were on a boat at 8:49.

I took some pics while we waited to be able to use our FOP FP.

We tapped in for FOP at 9:01 and it had a 75 minute wait posted. In the first pre-show room, we got to the part where you are linked with your Avatar, but there were some technical difficulties. A CM came in and told us we'd have to go in the next available room. So we all walked out and waited for the next room to open. Then we had to watch the first pre-show video all over again. We didn't get on the ride until 9:28.

When I had first planned our morning, I had considered having us go to KS after NRJ, and then going back to Pandora for FOP toward the end of our FP time. When we were stuck having to watch the pre-show all over again, I was wishing I had gone that route instead.

Once I was off my Banshee, I checked the posted wait for KS on the app. It was showing 35 minutes. I was hoping that would hold by the time we got over there, but I wasn't counting on it. We took the path from Pandora that ends up near FOTLK. We had never been on this pathway that early in the morning and we were surprised to see the standby line for FOP stretch all the way down that path and wrap back around on the other side.

By the time we reached KS, the posted wait was up to 65 minutes. There was no way we were doing that, so we decided to get some breakfast. Michelle went to Kusafiri to get a croissant and I got a Lotus Blossom Cupcake and a Starbucks Cold Brew at Creature Comforts. The cupcake was really good. It was yellow cake filled with strawberry mousse.

After we ate, we caught the 10:00 Tam Tam Drummers show.

After the show, we were able to get our picture taken with them.

After checking on the otters, who were nowhere in sight, we got in line to meet Pocahontas. I had trouble deciding if I wanted to wear my button-up Jungle Book shirt or my Meeko t-shirt on this day. I ended up deciding to wear the t-shirt underneath the button-up so I could be wearing it when meeting Pocahontas.

After the meet & greet, we went to watch the 11:00 FOTLK show. We arrived 15 minutes before showtime and got some pretty decent seats.

After FOTLK, it was time to head to Dinoland to use our DINOSAUR FP. We got there at 11:41 with a 75 minute posted wait. We were on the bumpy ride 11 minutes later.

A couple of weeks before our trip, I had read that Dino-Bite Snacks still had the chocolate peppermint ice cream cookie sandwich left over from the holidays. I was hoping they still had it, but it had been replaced with a chocolate strawberry sandwich. I enjoyed the strawberry shortcake sandwich I got there on our previous trip, so I decided to give this one a try. It had mini heart sprinkles with Valentines Day coming up.

After my tasty treat was finished, we went to meet Chip and Dale. Michelle had never met them in their dinosaur costumes.

On our way to use our EE FP, I noticed the popcorn stand in Dinoland had the Simba popcorn bucket. I rarely eat popcorn, so I had never bought a popcorn bucket before, but I was planning to get this one. I decided to get it right then, in case I didn't see it again and forgot all about it. Also, I maybe wanted to use it in the Everest ride photo.

We walked over to Everest and I ate my popcorn before we went in. It had a 30 minute wait posted when we tapped in at 12:55 and we waited only 4 minutes.

We had walked halfway across Asia and then Michelle decided she wanted to get an ice cream, so we had to walk all the way back over to Dino-Bite Snacks, and then all the way back to catch the 1:30 Up show.

We had some time to kill before the 2:15 Winged Encounters so we browsed Discovery Trading Company. We saw Kevin when we came out. In the bottom left-hand corner of my photo, you can see Dug waving to her.

After Winged Encounters, we went to explore Maharajah Jungle Trek before our Y&Y ADR. I ordered the Kobe Beef Burger with Asian Slaw and Michelle got the Lobster Noodles. I have no idea if the burger is really Kobe beef or not, but it was good nonetheless and I would definitely get it again.

I had gotten us a KS FP to use close to sunset, so we made our way to Africa. We went to Gorilla Falls and got a look at baby monkey Douglas.

We went to watch the 5:00 Harambe Village Acrobats and we arrived there just as they were arriving.

KS had a 115 minute wait posted when we arrived. We tapped in at 5:19 and we waited 20 minutes. We saw a good amount of animals, but the ride felt rushed. Whenever we've gone in the morning, the drivers have always stopped in certain areas to allow guests to get pictures of the animals. The driver on this ride didn't stop once, and didn't even really slow down at all. I didn't get any decent pictures because it was too bumpy with the vehicle moving. We were seated in the back of the vehicle. At one point a giraffe was walking toward us from directly behind the vehicle. I thought for sure the driver would stop for a couple of seconds and I would get some great pics, but it didn't happen. Michelle would have to listen to me complain about that for a good half hour after we exited the vehicle.

We made our way to the viewing area for ROL. When we arrived at 6:15, we still had a half hour before the show started. We didn't want to just sit there for that long, so we decided to go to TriceraTop Spin. We waited 5 minutes to get on.

We got a seat for ROL at 6:34. About 10 minutes into the show, it broke down. After waiting a little over 5 minutes, we gave up on it. It started back up when we reached the bridge from Dinoland to Discovery Island. We considered watching it from the bridge, but it was dark and we didn't think it was a good idea to crowd the bridge.

We stopped in front of the Tree of Life to watch Tree of Life Awakenings and we did the PhotoPass op, which included the new evening Magic Shot.

I had to stop here for a photo with my Simba popcorn bucket on our way out of the park:

There was a bus for POFQ when we arrived at the bus stop at 7:48, but it filled up. To our surprise, there was another one right behind it. When we got back to our room, I plugged my phone in, laid down on the bed, and started looking at the pictures I had taken. I was planning to go down to Scat Cat's Club Cafe for some beignets after my phone had charged for a little bit. After a couple of minutes I could feel myself dozing off. I decided to just turn over and let myself fall asleep. I figured I'd wake up after and hour and I'd go down for the beignets then. That didn't happen, I was out like a light.

 

[lvcourtneyy]

Reading about this day makes me long to be in Disney even more. I just love Animal Kingdom and we love Yak and Yeti!

That night magic shot is pretty cool!

 

[Unca’ Donald]

Reading about this day makes me long to be in Disney even more. I just love Animal Kingdom and we love Yak and Yeti!

That night magic shot is pretty cool!

We didn’t really care for AK when we went on our first trip together. It was easily our least favorite park. So much so that we skipped it the next time we went. We decided to give it another shot on or 3rd trip and we enjoyed it a lot more than the first time. After our November 2018 trip, it had become our 2nd favorite park behind MK.


I had read about the night Magic Shots before our trip, but I forgot all about them while we were there. Each park had one in front of the park’s icon, but we only got the AK one. I’m hoping they stick around.

 

[eliseisawkward]

What a wonderful AK day! It looks like you hit everything, and didn't even have to rush to do it. I feel like AK is the most "scalable" park. You can fit almost everything into a single day, but given endless days you could spend them all there!