DAY 3: A WILD DAY OF ANIMALS AND REUNIONS - WALT DISNEY WORLD SEPTEMBER 2022 TRIP

*ALL VIEWS ARE MY OWN AND NOT OF THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY, CENTRAL MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY OR YUMMY JOBS*

Hey there, pals!

Well, what a wild time I am currently having at work getting everything ready for Halloween, but in reality my sister and I were having an even wilder time in Florida! If you haven't guessed by the puns, the reason my sister and I were up incredibly early on Day 3 was because we were rope dropping Animal Kingdom. Plus, the reunion countdown was finally over for catching up with some of my Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique friends... All of that is coming up in this week's blog post from our September 2022 Walt Disney World trip, so read on to find out!

Like I mentioned in my intro, my sister and I were up extremely early on this morning - 6AM to be precise! From all my experience working at Animal Kingdom during my Disney Academic Exchange Program, I knew that Animal Kingdom was a morning park. So, we planned to get the earlier shuttle bus to Walt Disney World. Unfortunately this shuttle bus was at 7:10am and the next shuttle wasn't until 10:20am, which was a bit too late for us! Anyways, we arrived at the Transportation and Ticket Center where the shuttle bus dropped us off and thankfully I knew exactly how to get to Animal Kingdom from where we were. There were loads of families around us who were stuck, so I didn't mind giving them a helping hand. We all got the monorail to the Polynesian Village Resort, got off on the 1st floor, walked down the stairs, I inhaled the smells of the Polynesian (ahhh I love it so much!), and headed out to the bus stop to get a Disney parks bus to Animal Kingdom.

After our little adventure of getting all the different transportation methods we could think of to get to our destination, we finally made it to Animal Kingdom shortly after park opening and it wasn't looking that busy at all!!!

The first thing my sister and I wanted to check was whether our theme park tickets included the Lightning Lane privileges because our travel agents had told us on a couple of occasions that they were. But, when we logged into the My Disney Experience app, it was asking us to pay $30!? So, we stopped off at Guest Services only to discover that Lightning Lane wasn't included in our theme park tickets. So, UK peeps, if you're buying the 14-day Disney and Universal combo ticket, know that it doesn't include Lightning Lane!

My sister and I were on our way up to the Tree of Life when we walked past an Anteater, who was obviously out for its morning stroll or out for breakfast, which was so adorable to see!

We then made a left towards Pandora as those wait times were incredibly low and my sister hadn't experienced either ride. Our day started with Na'vi River Journey, which was literally a walk on! A cast member, however, did trick us into getting a free Lightning so we weren't too impressed about that! But, it was great to get back on Na'vi River Journey and it will remain one of the most visually beautiful rides to look at, especially the animatronic at the end!

Initially, we were going to skip Flight of Passage this trip because my sister suffers from motion sickness really easily! However, on a 25min wait, my sister said "f*** it, let's do it. What's the worst that could happen?". And, we were straight in the Flight of Passage standby queue line, which ended up being a total of 15mins! Thankfully, we were given quite central seats when we were grouped into the pre-show room - always a bonus with these types of rides. I had forgotten just how magical and innovative Flight of Passage was and the best part was that my sister found the ride really relaxing without feeling the effects of motion sickness!!! A win-win situation!

My sister and I spent some time soaking up the morning atmosphere in Pandora, which was absolutely awesome before it got too busy with guests. In doing so, we got some fantastic photos from the Photopass photographers in Pandora and on our way back to the Tree of Life.

Next was Expedition Everest - a personal favourite of mine! Again, the wait wasn't too long and we were straight onto the middle part of the train. I thoroughly enjoyed riding my favourite ride in the entire world; on the other hand, it was a little too much for my sister. So, we took a gentle stroll and stopped for a sit down in order to catch our breathe again.

I thought the next best thing was to head to Kilimanjaro Safaris. This was by far the longest wait of the day... it was advertised at 55mins and we ended up waiting 35mins - not bad in my eyes! The safari was majestic and there were so many animals out too! It was incredibly tough to try and get some picturesque images... There was a lot of going on on both sides of the truck and the vast majority of the time I had taller people stand up to the side and in the rows in front of me during the safari. Nevertheless, I got some amazing shots of the animals, which you can see in the images below:

Our last stop on our journey in Animal Kingdom was in Dinoland. The area does look a little worse for wear right now, especially as Primeval Whirl (the spinning rollercoaster) is no longer there anymore. We looked around to see if there were any carnival games that took our fancy, in which we just bypassed them all. But, my sister had never done Dinosaur and she decided that she wanted to give this underrated attraction a go!

I gave my sister absolutely no spoilers and we only waited 10mins for Dinosaur too! Boy was it worth every minute for the reason that I forgot just how funny the ride was. Every turn my sister and I were screaming and laughing the whole way round. Dare I say, it might have been the best part of our trip to Animal Kingdom!

As my sister and I made our way to the park exit, we caught glimpse of one of the barges with drummers on, which was a load of fun as they were waving at all the crowds from the waters of Animal Kingdom. We also caught a glimpse of the kite show that we hadn't seen before and yeah the show doesn't really fit outside Expedition Everest! I'm glad that's being replaced!!!

We grabbed a load of photos outside the Tree of Life, saw some golden 50th anniversary statues of different Disney characters and even caught a glimpse of Kevin from UP. And then we made our way to Disney Springs, as my sister and I worked out our Uber fare would be cheapest back to the hotel from here. A Starbucks treat was certainly on order, so I picked up a Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino and my sister had a coffee with oat milk.

Whilst on our way to the taxi run, I pulled up my phone to some breaking news about our monarchy from back home in the UK. Straight away, I knew that for the remainder of our trip we would be asked loads of questions by the people of the USA about our Queen and monarchy. And, that was exactly what happened as soon as we got into out Uber back to our hotel. Our Uber driver was incredibly talkative and open to conversations about our trip so far, what the UK is like and of course our opinions on what was happening in our country.

The afternoon at the hotel was spent catching up on some much needed rest. It didn't come in the form of sleeping, but more just putting our feet up while scrolling through social media or watching Netflix in my case!

I then started to get butterflies in my stomach as I knew that it was almost time to leave for a planned dinner at Terralina Crafted Italian with some Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique friends.

My sister and I quickly got ready and as soon as we went to book our Uber, we realised there was loads on traffic on the I-4 and we were going to arrive at Disney Springs after our reservation time. I had to very politely ask the girls I was seeing to get the table for us, so I didn't incur a penalty fee on my card! Thankfully, the girls got the message and they'd already got the table 😇

As soon as I saw all the girls' familiar faces again, I was beaming from ear to ear while I hugged every single one of them! In turn, my friends were also smiling because they didn't think reuniting would actually happen! Of course, they all straight away asked about our Queen and I was so overwhelmed with reuniting that I thought the girls were talking Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique language not the monarchy. I was such a buffoon 😂🤦🏻‍♀️ I mean, I was glad that I could create some laughter and reminded all of the girls of my comedic (yet idiotic) character. In fact, nothing had changed with any of the girls I met up with in the two and a half years+ that we've all been apart!! I was so pleased that everyone was doing so well - some are still cast members and some have just left and are going back to their home state routes.

AND, now being over the age of 21, I got to have my first alcoholic drink in the United States!!! Dinner was absolutely delicious and I got myself a grilled salmon. A couple other girls got the same dish as me and it was sooo flavourful! The only downside was that the price was incredibly high for what I'd say is a really easy dish to cook at home. But the company that we were with made up for it all!

Unfortunately the hangout came to an end and I had to say goodbye to all my friends again. However, this time around was so much easier, compared to March 2020. The reason being is that I know I'm going to be saving for more trips in the future and I know my long distance communication is strong with all my friends. The night of Day 3 was drawing to a close and so to is the end of this week's post.

Thank you so much for taking time to read my blog post this week and I hope you enjoyed reading about mine and my sister's exciting Day 3 of our September 2022 Florida trip 😊 Stay tuned for all the future posts coming about our trip, as we are only just getting started with all the exciting things to come!

Have a magical day!

-Hannah

DISCLAIMER: this blog is my personal experience on the Disney Academic Exchange Program (DAEP) 2019-2020 and may not reflect everyone’s experience. Other programs and future participants on the DAEP may have slight adjustments to their programs that may not be featured in any of my blog posts. That being said, if you do leave any questions, I will try to answer them as best as I possibly can 😊