Our Disney Sea & Land Trip 2018 – Day 7
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On our 7th day, we were off to the Animal Kingdom! We got there before 8:30am to attempt a rope drop of Flight of Passage. Around 8:30 they started letting people through the “tap-stiles” and we walked at a reasonable pace to Pandora. By 8:40 we were officially in line for the attraction and at 8:45 they started letting people into the queue. The line moved smoothly and quickly and we were in the preshow before 9:00am! Our plan succeeded! We had a backup FP for FoP in the evening just in case, but now we didn’t need it. We attribute our success to the Toy Story Land effect
After FoP, we headed for DINOSAUR where we basically walked onto the ride vehicle. When Carnotaurus attacked we gave him a friendly wave
Our first official FP was for Expedition Everest, but before that Christy had to get her picture taken with Pocahontas. We were disappointed that they didn’t have any PhotoPass photographers for this greeting. Had we not had a camera, there would be no picture
Of course when it came to Expedition Everest, we had to go for the front row! I’m always surprised at how short the wait for front row on this ride is, unlike with most coasters, on this one it really is the very best seat! No shenanigans for this ride photo, we just enjoyed the ride!
After Everest we caught the show, Up! A Great Bird Adventure. This was our first time seeing the new show. They did a pretty good job with it. It’s still pretty much the same show, but it’s been re-tooled and there are a couple of new feature birds. It was fun to watch, but I noticed a little less use of volunteers from the audience
From there we saw It’s Tough to Be a Bug! and then went back to Pandora, looking forward to lunch at Satu’li Canteen.
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…continued…
We had eaten at Satu’li before and were looking forward to our next visit!
On this day they had chosen to roll out a new dish which we had to try:
Shrimp and Noodle Bowl (Chili-garlic shrimp, lo mein noodles, red pepper, broccoli and green onion tossed in a honey-soy dressing, served with cucumber and mango slaw)
The only thing that was wrong with this dish was that the dressing was rather strong and collected at the bottom of the dish. A cast member asked us how we enjoyed it and we gave our feedback and said it would be fine if they just strained the dressing over it and he said he’d pass that on to the kitchen. Otherwise it’s a good size dish with potential and it’s on the online menu, so I guess it’s showing promise.
We also ordered the beef bowl with sweet potato hash and onion sauce which was just as tasty as we remembered it. We also got the Blueberry Cream Cheese Mousse which I could live off of that and dole whips on any Disney trip
Since we were celebrating our anniversary, they gave us complementary cupcakes with grapes and pineapple wedges! We would get MANY more cupcakes for our anniversary (enough to make me regret wearing our celebration buttons), but these were easily the best! The icing was cream cheese based and oh so good!
After lunch we used our FP’s for a ride on the Kilimanjaro Safari (fun as always!) and left the park and went back to the Polynesian for an afternoon rest
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***concluded***
After a nice rest at the resort, we only had to take the short monorail
ride over to the Grand Floridian for dinner at the Grand Floridian Cafe We had never been to this one before and were interested in seeing what it was like. For the Floridian this restaurant was refreshingly low key with relatively simple offerings on the menu.
Christy wanted to get things started with something a little more vegetable heavy, but she didn’t want a full salad so we split one and our server had it prepared already separated onto two plates
We ordered the Seasonal Strawberrry Salad (Organic Baby Lettuce, Strawberries, Goat Cheese, Pistachios, Celery Ribbons, with Strawberry-Balsamic Vinaigrette). It was a very light and refreshing start to the meal and the strawberries were very sweet!
From our table we had a view of the Floridan gardens (we were exactly below our table at Citrico’s the day before), and while there noticed Chef Scott Hunnel from Victoria & Albert’s going out for a stroll. We’ve never dined there, but have seen him on documentaries.
For entrees we ordered:
Shrimp & Grits (Jumbo Shrimp with Chorizo and Fennel served on top of creamy Mascarpone Cheese Grits) – We’ve had shrimp and grits before, but these truly wowed us! Christy technically was the one to order it, so she let me have a taste, but kept the rest for herself
Lobster ‘Thermidor’ Burger (Artisanal 7-oz Burger Patty and Lobster-Parmesan Thermidor Sauce on a Seared Brioche Bun with Café Signature Seasoned French Fries) – Move over Lego Batman! This beats anything you pulled out of the microwave! Our server informed us as we were deciding what to order that the kitchen makes standard burgers too even though they’re not on the menu, but unless you absolutely detest seafood, I don’t know why you would after having this one. This was, no exaggeration, the very best gormet burger I have ever had! The meat was cooked perfectly and had excellent savory flavor. The lobster thermidor was really good too
We opted out of dessert, but as you can see, they brought us a HUGE complementary chocolate cupcake anyway
We barely finished it, but what was truly amazing was that our server brought over another server to actually serenade us with “So This Is Love” 
from Cinderella 
and she sung it beautifully too! This is Disney after all, where magic is kind of what they do
After dinner, we took a ride out to Disney Springs for some shopping around the marketplace. Then we hopped over to a couple of resorts for some resort specific merchandise before heading back to the Polynesian. We got back just in time to see the fireworks from our balcony
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