Bornieo goes to Disney World - The Official Trip Report

[lashbear]

My Goodness !!! I'm glad I never got to see that, or I would have been almost as emotional as during the MSEP...

[Bornieo: Fully Loaded]

Yes, and we get to cry over "For your shoping conveniance, Main Street will remain open for an additional hour."

[figment1986]

Originally Posted by lashbear

My Goodness !!! I'm glad I never got to see that, or I would have been almost as emotional as during the MSEP...

I'm a local, and I've never had the pleasure of seeing that before... no wonder people get emotional about that if they see it.

[Stan4dSteph]

I'm looking forward to reading what you thought of the Food and Wine Festival. I think it's great, and I may consider taking a trip down during that time again. Between that and the great MNSSHP, I had a fantastic time.

[Bornieo: Fully Loaded]

Well, here we are at Day 4 and I am off to the Animal Kingdom - first, unfortunately, I have to check out of the All Star Sports Resort and transfer to the Port Orleans: French Quarter where I’ll be staying for the rest of the time. I am intrust my luggage with them (hahaha) and I am off and running to Animal Kingdom.





PUSH has a twin tree out front of the Animal Kingdom!!

I have breakfast reservations at Donald’s Breakfastsauras, which for the afternoon becomes a McDonalds. It’s a character meet & greet, which was fun and the food was average buffet style - afterwards I braved Expedition Everest and taking advantage of the Single Rider line. I got seated in the 2nd row for my first time and was very excited - this was one that I was really looking forward too.


Me & Mickey!





Wow! What a short ride! It was a great ride, with a great view and some nice thrills. But, it’s so- so- short and the thrill don’t come until you’re in backwards mode. The Yeti is cool for the 1/8th of a second you see it - (I tried to High-5 it) - I rode it 3 times that day and I thought the back had the most thrills, IMHO. The Que is just spectacular - almost as if they went to all the Yeti stores across the globe and bought EVERYTHING and put it into the Que area. Even the short Single Rider Que had amazing stuff.

I then headed to the Safari with a wait time of 60min. All the fastpasses were gone so I waited - what a long wait. Ugh. But I got on in the front seat of the vehicle and got a great view of the vistas which were just spectacular - very much like being transported to the real African savanna or so I would imagine.




Sadly I didn’t take a lot of pictures, mostly because I was just in wide-eyed stunned mode. It was a ton of fun.

Next was the Festival of the Lion King, and like everything else, I had an idea what to expect, but nothing prepared me for it - so I found out. Wow - the second the show started and the floats came in - the whole place came alive! It was just a fantastic show. The singers were great and the performers just enthralled me and the audience. For me that was the best show, and the next one I saw was the Finding Nemo: the Musical show - which I am less than enthusiastic about. The theater was packed and I got a seat way up top, which was fine. The look of the show and the puppets used were just wonderful - as were the performers. My problem was that I hated the music. Now, we know I’m not a huge musical fan, but I just thought it was terrible - nothing catchy, just annoying "In the big blue world" song - I think it really was low on the scale of music I’ve heard from these type of shows. If there was a highlight it was Crush’s part of the show, with a "Beach Boys" type number that was moderately good. It was beautiful in looks but just fairly soulless.

Kali River Rapids was nothing more than the baby brother of Grizzly River Run. It was fun and I got soaked but it was extremely short. The look, like Grizzly was just phenomenal in the details including the burning trees. The difference was the drop was just a little slide into a gush of water and that was about it.

I then wandered over to Dino-land (aka DCA) to check out Primeval Whirl which had intrigued me because of the spinning coaster aspect. The area was beyond cheesy and is as cheaply put together as you may have heard. Here I got my first encounter with a bad castmember who directed me to the Single Rider line that was up the exit - only there wasn’t a single rider line - only a surprised grouper. They were kind enough to fit me in, which I do regret now because this is the worst ride in a Disney park I have ever been on. It is the same basic track as Mullholland Madness with the same jarring curves and drops - only this time around you’re seated next to the other four spots and are literally thrown from side to side with nothing really to hold onto but the lap bar, which was being shoved into my **** with every turn by the others who had nothing else to hold onto. The spinning part wasn’t bad - that was the fun part, just when the corners or drops would come you’d either slam in to the sides or the lapbar. It was not good.


Worst ride EVER!

So, after checking to see if "all" were still there I limped my way over to the Tree of Life seeing that the park was closing at 5pm sadly. Just a beautiful part of the park - nothing like I imagined it would be. Just a lush, green everywhere you looked. Just stunning.



I said farewell to Animal Kingdom and headed to my new hotel to settle in before my dinner at Boma. Sad to say, my luggage was nowhere in site and when I called to see where it went - I learned it was still at the All Star Sport Resort. #1 think I learned - the luggage handling at wdw SUCKS!!!

I was told it would be about a half hour for them to deliver it and since I had about 2 hours until my dinner reservation, I waited ---- and waited. I called again "Sorry, it’s not hear yet."

"Can you bring it to my room when it does?"
"Only if someone is there."
"Well I’m off for dinner, I guess I’ll see if its here when I get back."

So, I was running late to my dinner having waited for the luggage to arrive, but lucky me had our friend Louis already waiting at Boma and got our table. I was only about 15 min. late.

Everything I had heard about this meal was true. It was the best meal of the trip. I can’t begin to tell you the names of the dishes I ate because I tried just about everything - but the flavors and the freshness of the food was just fantastic. The dishes at the Buffet line were presented in small containers - I assume to keep them from sitting too long, thus the freshness. It was just a wonderful meal. The deserts were great too, with a couple having "Contains Alcohol" signs posted. The hotel and restaurant itself was just amazingly done and the atmosphere was so very cool. After dinner we walked around seeing the animals out in the back areas and the lobby, which seems to be the Grand Californian with African themeing, where I sat down for a while to watch.



So, I called it a night and headed back to the hotel to find the Luggage room closing. Literally lights off and key being turned. The lady, who I assumed I’d spoken too, was nice enough to get my bags and fearing they would be lost between there and my room, I dragged them myself.

Up next - a whole day at the Magic Kingdom!!

[MouseWife]

Originally Posted by Gemini Cricket

Am I the only one on this board who immediately thought "How do you like it? How do you like it?" after this post?

LOL Nope, that is exactly what I thought and the tune went through my head....

[LSPoorEeyorick]

Originally Posted by Bornieo

After dinner we walked around seeing the animals out in the back areas and the lobby, which seems to be the Grand Californian with African themeing,

Technically, I think the Grand Californian is the Animal Kingdom lodge with art deco theme, and the Animal Kingdom lodge is the Wilderness lodge with African theme. But yeah, they're all built in the same style (Wilderness was first.)

By the way, I'm enjoying your report so much that we actually looked at ticket prices yesterday...

[BarTopDancer]

Awesome report! You're making me want to go back!

[lashbear]

What? no Dinosaur ???? Indy with Jaws ??? I'm surprised !

[BDBopper]

Great report so far man! Sorry about all the luggage and ticket issues you had. That stinks man!