31 Dec

Day 1 – Animal Kingdom

If we are trying to get to Disney before noon, we have to fly out of Denver super super early! Like 6 am early. So, we usually spend the night in Denver the night before to give ourselves a couple more hours of sleep. We still were up crazy early and made it to the airport in plenty of time.

Stephen and I always disagree on how early we need to get to the airport when we have TSA pre. I feel like if we get there and sit for 30 minutes before boarding, that’s at least 25 more minutes we could have had of sleep! Well today was a good 45 minutes even after getting some breakfast at the airport.

Fail.

But we were going to Disney, so I couldn’t really complain!

We landed around 11 and went right to Magical Express. We sat and sat and sat on the bus, but that seems to be the norm these days.

Finally, we were at the Poly! I’ve stayed at the Poly a few times, but Stephen actually hadn’t stayed there since our honeymoon! Whoops!

Our room was ready! Here’s the view:

And our room:

It was Earth Day and we were going to Animal Kingdom. I was hoping for a Pandora soft opening, but I’d kind of given up hope after the AP previews were announced. It was okay, I would see it soon!

But first we had to eat! We were starving! We dropped off our things, I dug out my camera, and we walked out to the stairs. Here’s the view from our building!

I took these three pictures and noticed my battery was completely dead. Shoot!

We went back to the room and I plugged in my battery and hoped nothing too exciting happened the rest of the day! Haha!

We were in Tokelau.

We ate at Captain Cooks, which I love. At this point it was like 1:30 and we had dinner reservations at 5:00. We really really should have split lunch. I wasn’t thinking!

Since I was going to be onsite for so long, I bought a mug:

Stephen’s:

Mine!

It was delicious, but we were sooo stuffed!

Then we were off! The Star Wars races were happening this weekend.

We are here!

They gave us these cards when we came in:

We took some Photopass photos:

Our first step was Dinosaur!

Disney point!

At some point Stephen said how not hungry he was for dinner at Tusker House in like an hour. I agreed.

He said we will just split dinner. I was like, um, it’s a buffet. He said what? I said well we will just enjoy the characters, he said, “There are characters?!” Clearly, we had not discussed this in detail. Haha!

Next, we rode the safari.

Time for dinner with Buddha and Misty!

I filled my plate somehow!

Rivers of Light passes!

They did give us the giant Lotus popcorn bucket which was a nice touch! I could always find room for popcorn!

After dinner we had time for another safari ride, so why not!

It was a gorgeous night!

Then we went and got our seats!

Oh, and I got popcorn.

Don’t judge me.

We all liked Rivers of Light Didn’t love it, but we liked it!

We said goodnight and went our separate ways! We had an early day tomorrow!

How Many Times Can We Change Hotels in One Trip?
Day 1 – Animal Kingdom 
Day 2 – Epcot
Day 3 – Magic Kingdom 
Day 4 – Epcot and the Studios 
Day 5 – Universal, Disney Springs, and Len Testa 
Day 6 – Universal and Ft. Wilderness Cabins 
Day 7 – Ship Tour
Day 8 – Meetings 
Day 9 – Trophies and Epcot 
Day 10 – Universal!