Well, the good night’s sleep we were hoping for didn’t quite happen. Polly decided to startle me awake in the middle of the night, not by speaking or tapping me, but by moving her face increasingly close to mine which resulted in me finally waking up with a gigantic mush practically touching me. My half-asleep state decided that the best reaction to this would be to scream at the top of my lungs which resulted in me waking both Steve and Winnie (and quite possibly the rest of the building as Poly walls are pretty thin! I’d have felt bad about this but seeing as the room next door let their kids. Run around screaming at all hours the night before, not so much!) Winnie and Polly then starting sobbing as they were a bit scared (I have a very loud scream!) so we spent a long while settling them back down. Still, we were up and dressed in plenty of time to make it to Animal Kingdom for rope drop.
We knew it was going to be our wettest/ coldest day, so had decided to just aim to ride the safari and Flight of Passage, have breakfast at Tusker House and hopefully catch a few of the floats then decide whether we wanted to stay or head back to the hotel. We rope dropped Flight of Passage, quickly jumped on Navi River as there was no queue and then headed straight for the safari (the safari doesn’t open for early hours, so the queue always looks big, but it moves really quickly once it gets going.)
We were way too early for our breakfast reservation, and there were no earlier times available on the app, but we decided to double check as we walked by anyway. The cast member said it was no problem to be seated early at breakfast, and we were called in straight away.
This time we were seated in the room to the left of the entrance, and we didn’t like it as much as the main room as although it was quiet, it lacked a bit of atmosphere. Our server was lovely though, and the food was brought out promptly. At Tusker House the food is served family style at the minute. You get a selection of bread/ pastries (not too sweet) to start followed by a skillet of breakfast potatoes, sausage patties, bacon, eggs, and waffles along with a smaller serving of chicken curry and rice. As I’ve said before, I really don’t love American breakfasts, but if you do you get to each as much as you like (they bring more of anything you ask for). I just busied ,myself with the curry and rice and everyone else ate the rest. I still think it’s expensive for what you get but the characters are what you’re really paying for, and they are great. They come around individually for photos and also come around dancing and set intervals. Donald was brilliant (as usual), but the girls enjoyed interacting with everyone. At the end of the meal the server bought two cupcakes (one for each girl) and put them in a cup so we could take them away with us.
A Lion King show was just starting, but Polly wanted some fresh air, so we decided to walk to Pandora for a Lotus Blossom drink instead. I’m so glad we did as we saw two different floats on the walk to Pandora (the path that goes along the front of the Lion King theatre to Pandora is always a great one to use when the park is busy as it’s always quiet, but now that the floats come down the river it’s even better).
As we got to Pandora the heavens opened, so we took shelter whilst we tried the Night Blossom (you know something is sweet when even Winnie can’t drink it all. My teeth were itching all day after trying it!). We debated watching the later Lion King show or Bugs Life, but the girls weren’t overly bothered and the cold and wet was making my joints really hurt, so we took the decision to head back to the hotel for a few hours and make plans for the rest of the day.
Even though it was a bit grim, the girls still wanted to go in the pool so Steve took them down whilst I had a bit of time to get everything ready for Winnie’s birthday as well as pack up everything we wouldn’t need as we were changing resorts the day after and knew tomorrow would be too busy to pack. The girls came in just as I was finishing, and as we had a few hours spare we decided that we should probably attempt to wash the gunk out of the girls hair.
We hadn’t made plans for teatime, so decided to see what was available. Steakhouse 71 had a 5pm slot we decided to try that as we knew we could just get there and back on the monorail with minimal rain impact. Steakhouse 71 is where the Wave used to be in the Contemporary. I really like the dining options at The Contemporary, but the hotel itself doesn’t really appeal to me. I should probably try it one day though as I’d love to be proven wrong. Anyway, we walked down from the monorail to the restaurant just in time for our reservation.
The steak was really good (we all had the same) although Polly still didn’t feel great so didn’t eat it all. Still, we had a really nice time and would definitely recommend the restaurant as its not as expensive as some places on property but still really nice. I will say thought that the sides are quite small, so unlike Yachtsman, there was definitely no chance of sharing.
After the mandatory birthday cupcake, we headed back to the hotel so the birthday girl could get to sleep before the birthday fairy arrived. Little did we know of the night that was in store!! All three of the others were poorly through the night. Polly and Winnie were never asleep for more than half an hour, and never at the same time. I felt like I was doing the Hokey-Cokey getting in and out of bed non-stop to sort them out, and I’ve no idea who the birthday fairy snuck into the room to deliver the presents unseen (Winnie got very upset at one point thinking she wouldn’t come because she hadn’t been able to sleep but I told her that didn’t count if you were poorly!) I’ve no idea what caused them to be so poorly. The only think they’d eaten that I hadn’t was the breakfast platter at Tusker House, but Polly felt funny almost straight after that so it could have been something else completely. Still, we made it to the morning (very early in the morning) by which time the girls felt a little birthday and we could start the big day itself, and I decided to worry about all the reservations we’d made for that day once we saw how everyone felt. If there’s one thing you always need to remember at Disney is that even the best laid plans can go awry, and there is no point getting stressed about it!
Doodle & Peg Do Disney 