March 6 – 13, 2021 – Kathy birthday trip – day 6

Thursday 3/11/21

The alarm woke me out of a dead sleep this morning again! I was out hard! Showered and had muffins in the room before heading to the AK bus stop. It was another early morning with an official 8:00 open so we knew the buses would be there just before 7:00. Man, the line just got huge behind us! Pretty soon two buses rolled in and we got to AK just after temp checks opened so it was nice to walk right on through. Didn’t have to hurry too much to FoP either, getting to the loading lines by 7:30 without stressing or pushing too much. Got on the ride in short order, sat next to a first timer who absolutely loved it! Could tell it was a busier morning because they were funneling people out of Pandora and around Pizzafari to Africa instead of the back pathway. We were able to ride the Safari with no wait though, just basically walked up to a truck pulling in. One of the African dogs was having so much fun chasing the vultures around! The mandrills were really active too, something we don’t usually get to see. We also saw one of the elephants right up in the ditch, really close. And the flamingos on and around the island were really hollering at something, maybe the sun, maybe it was for mates, who knows. But they were loud! Just as we were passing the cheetahs we could hear the lion start to roar, and roar, and roar. It was so cool! Then he decided to follow us around and poop! You definitely don’t see a lion poop every day! One of the lionesses was awake but the other was sleeping, so soundly it looked like she had morphed herself into the rock! I feel her every work day! Kathy sent me on to Everest since I’m faster and I was able to get on with just a 5 minute wait, almost all of which was walking the queue. We did have about a 20 minute wait for Dinosaur. We could really feel the crowds building earlier today. After leaving Dinosaur we got our AP magnets and saw Pluto on the bridge in Dinoland by the Boneyard! It was so cool! Not a lot of people around so he played with us quite a bit. We headed over to the Gorilla Falls Forest Trail where Kathy’s meerkats were really active and having fun playing. We also saw a couple zebra up close and there was some really good bachelor gorilla viewing. After that we figured we might as well hit the other trail so we headed over to Maharajah Jungle Trek, pausing for a few minutes to watch the Siamang gibbons who were so vocal and always fun to watch! We got some super good views of the female tiger on the trek. She was laying down but with her head up, so majestic! We also saw a really cool pheasant in the bird area on a bench, trying to get some females over to him. Just a huge, beautiful bird! We decided to do something we haven’t done in quite a while for lunch, Restaurantosaurus. Kathy got a chili dog and I got a delicious burger. One the way over we could see the EE queue was using the Nemo show queue and the Dinosaur queue was wrapping through where they characters would meet. Yep, it was busy. So glad we got there early! After lunch we headed out for a break because we were going to head to EPCOT for dinner and to stroll WS and meet up with Steve.

After a break and a rest of Kathy’s foot, we got ready and headed out. The Skyliner had no wait at either Pop or CBR and we were to EPCOT shortly after 5:00. We stopped for fish and chips for dinner mainly because they had no line and we didn’t feel like walking over to Mexico. After dinner we saw Mary Poppins in the U.K. behind the Tea Caddy. She was doing an actual meet, such as they are now, still distanced but she talked to us a bit and told Kathy she’d have Bert put together a tea party for her birthday! It’s the closest we’ve seen to an actual meet and greet in this time period. We leisurely walked around WS for a date night stroll, stopping anywhere we wanted, with no agenda. We found a really fun photopass in Norway with a cool magic shot! Ice crystals coming out of Kathy’s hands like Elsa! We worked our way up via Test Track way and met Steve @steve who was on FB live at the front of Spaceship Earth. The lights at the entrance area were really cool! We strolled and talked with him and the viewers and rode Figment as a total walk on. We went into the Land Pavilion and saw that Soarin wasn’t too bad of a wait. I really wanted to get Kathy on it a second time of the trip, it wasn’t too bad, just about a 30 minute wait. But that wasn’t the best part. Oh no, the best part was the ride controller was hilarious! He was almost like a Jungle Cruise skipper! Some quotes: “If you’re old enough to have a mortgage, you don’t need to use the center strap.” “In case of emergency, oxygen masks will drop down. Securely fasten….oh wait, I see you already have them on! Please keep those oxygen masks on at all times.” “In the event of a water landing your seat can be used as a floatation device, or the person next to you, whichever floats better.” “If you ordered fish for our in flight meal, we are out. You have the choice of beef or chicken. If you chose beef, you’re in luck because it tastes fishy.” All kinds of jokes like that. It was such an added bonus! We met back up with Steve and got to ride Imagination with him as a total walk on. He broadcast it and that was fun. Man, the pavilion was so eerie empty and at night though! Kathy let us have a nice visit while she went back home to rest her foot and get some things around so we wouldn’t have to much to pack up the next night and could enjoy an evening at MK. Steve and I closed out the night by seeing them test a fountain arm in the Lagoon, that was so cool at night, and enjoying some snacks. We saw the Mickey and Minnie topiary outside World Showcase which was really cool! We hadn’t made it back there this trip so I would have missed that had we not gone in. We worked our way back to France before taking our leave of each other. It was a great way to close out the evening and I really enjoyed getting to spend some time just Steve and me. We don’t get to do that nearly enough! Skyliner had a pretty good line even though it wasn’t quite closing, but it moved really quickly and I was on in 10 minutes and home in short order.

Steps: 31,803
Miles: 14.33
Calories burned: 3978
Spin: 5