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WDW Day 9: Animal Kingdom, Epcot, Magic Kingdom
December 26, 2013
I was still feeling sick (congested, mostly) on this, our last full day of touring, but like the previous day, loaded up on cold meds and went forth. It was our last full day of touring, after all.
We started our day at Animal Kingdom, which sort of got short shrifted this trip in our schedule. I blame FastPass+ for that; since you can’t split your FP+ reservations between parks on a given day, and Animal Kingdom doesn’t have as many attractions that form long lines as other parks, we only had one day of FP+ for Animal Kingdom. Also, it’s not open as late as the other parks, so hopping to it in the evening like we often do for the other parks is not an option. At any rate, we did get ourselves over there this particular morning and accomplished my goal of seeing the Flights of Wonder show, which I’d wanted to do the last time we were down but didn’t manage on that trip.
After Animal Kingdom, we headed to Epcot, where we’d finally gotten a dinner reservation for Le Celier, the table service restaurant in the Canada pavilion. We hadn’t eaten there since way back in the day when it was cafeteria. The meal was fine but certainly not worthy of the hype and hysteria that this eating establishment engenders on some Disney message boards. While we were in the park, we did some attractions, of course, but instead of staying for Illuminations as we might have done if I were feeling better, we headed back to the hotel and watched the end of the show from our balcony at the hotel (we would have been able to see the whole thing, including the fire at the beginning, except there was a problem with monorail that we didn’t know about until it was too late to take an alternate mode of transportation). Then we went down and walked out by the convention center and watched the Magic Kingdom fireworks. As we were coming back in to the hotel, we spotted the Electrical Water Pageant and went out to watch the end of that from the dock out back. I was getting a second wind at this point, so we went into the Magic Kingdom for the second Electrical Parade; we got a great spot at the rope line in the hub. Mr. Karen was wearing the silver Mickey ears with the flashing lights that we’d gotten on a previous trip, and they attracted a lot of interaction from the characters in the parade; that was extra fun we hadn’t expected. After the parade, we did a few rides, finishing up the day with the TTC in Tomorrowland. When we got off, the park was officially closed, and the cast member who’d taken Mr. K’s balloon and tied it to a railing before we got on the ride was gone, as was the balloon. We’re hoping that the balloon went home with a child who would enjoy it rather than being taken and popped and thrown out by maintenance; since we’ll never know, why not believe the former.
On this date in 2012: Most of the Monkeys
2011: No entry
2010: Christmas Sock Monkey
2009: Post Holiday Slump
2008: Shhhh
2007: There and Back Again
2006: Not Quite Matchy Matchy & Red Scarf Three
2005: Wait ‘Til Next Year
2004: Alaska Quilt
2003: I’m Dreaming of a Quilty New Year
2002: The Secret Revealed
