September 2024 Trip Report - Day 2 - Animal Kingdom and EPCOT

We continue our trip report with a day at my two favorite parks: Animal Kingdom and EPCOT, and we eat some really delicious food. But first...

A note about weather in September...

We realize we might not have addressed fully what one can expect from September weather at Walt Disney World. By this point, we were realizing that it would be hot and muggy pretty much every day. Some say the worst humidity in combination with heat is during late August and the early part of September, and I think that may be true. But while we were hot, I didn't find it completely unbearable. The moisture was the worst part for me. During this trip, my phone refused to charge several times with the charging port claiming there was moisture in the port, and my Fitbit outright stopped working. Now, I wasn't dunking anything in water, and I was keeping things well protected during rain and water rides, but if it wasn't raining, it was humid, and there was no escaping moisture.

Speaking of rain, I was used to traveling in summer in the past, when a 3 o'clock thunderstorm would roll in like clockwork. My trip experience this time wasn't like that. Rain would come, but it was anyone's guess when and for how long it would last. Some days, it came around noon. Most days, it came around 5-6pm. Some days, it would torrentially rain, blow, and thunder. Other days, it would steadily drizzle. And it was anyone's guess for how long this would last because these rainclouds were literally developing on top of us and moving randomly. The radar was no use. Where I live, I am used to watching storm systems move in a systematic fashion towards us, therefore having some predictability. This is just not the case in Florida in September.

Speaking of unpredictability, one of the reasons September is less crowded and a value season at Walt Disney World is because not only are the kids back in school, but it's also peak hurricane season. I've said before and will say it again - I would not cancel a trip to Walt Disney World just because there is a chance of a hurricane. The frequency of a hurricane going through Orlando AND causing the parks to close is maybe a 1 day a year, if even that. They are slim. And we got lucky this time because it was a quiet week for hurricanes in general.

A typical rainy evening at Walt Disney World during the time we were there in early September

In terms of the heat and humidity versus value and low crowds, we really did enjoy the low crowds. I had an excellent time using Lightning Lane (single AND multi pass) and getting what I wanted, but I don't feel I can say whether it was due to the system or the low crowds. Walt Disney World is never uncrowded, but I also don't recall encountering a time where I felt like I wanted to leave a place because of the crowds this trip. In fact, there were a few times walking around World Showcase in the morning, or walking around Fantasyland in the morning, that I was able to get pictures without anybody else in them, which is really unusual and honestly, delightful. I don't really have a lot of other ways crowds impact me because I do use Lightning Lanes when I can and I usually mobile order at quick service restaurants, but I didn't notice lines for restrooms, quick service, and rarely for transportation, so that was nice.

Despite it being nicely uncrowded, though, the period of time between about 11 am and 4 pm was brutal in terms of heat, and that's because, until the rain came, the heat started radiating upwards from the pavement and it just felt like walking around on a baking sheet. We coped by taking breaks during the day, but then that break usually left us with a rainy evening that we just had to put up with in order to get our value out of the parks. Speaking of rainy evenings...

Back to the Trip Report!

We started our day at Disney's Animal Kingdom, which is my home away from home. We originally had ambitious plans to rope drop Flight of Passage at early opening, which was at 7:30 am at that park, but we didn't get there on time, and arrived shortly before 8 AM instead. I had prebooked Lightning Lanes for Na'Vi River Journey, Kilimanjaro Safari, and It's Tough to be a Bug. Na'Vi River Journey remains one of my favorite rides. The queue is nice and mostly air conditioned, and the ride still has the best animatronic, in my opinion, in the shaman, who was working nicely this time. Also, that song is super catchy.

Lions hanging out on safari

After Na'Vi, we stopped at Pongu Pongu to get a Pongu Lumpia (a spring roll-like thing with mango and cream cheese inside) and Blooming Nightflowers, and proceeded to get several brain freezes in a row as we sipped our frozen drinks in the heat. We made our way to Africa along our favorite path that runs from Pandora to Africa, and got on Kilimanjaro Safari. We had a great safari! We even got to see the cheetah walking around, which is rare, a baby elephant, and a male and female lion both lounging. This is in addition to what I would say are our normal sightings such as the crocodiles, hippos, rhinos, giraffes, elands, antelope, and gazelles. I really appreciate that the ride changed from a manufactured story about Big Red and Little Red to a more informative and more impromptu chance to learn about the animals you encounter. It makes every safari different, which I appreciate.

After the safari, we walked around Gorilla Falls, which I still call Pangani Forest. There wasn't a lot happening here because the heat was starting to set in, but I did get to see some chimps grooming and adoring a baby chimp, so that was really cute. I swear at one point, one of the chimps counted the baby's toes.

There is a shop in Harambe Village that we really like, so after this, we went to the shop to see if they had any cool shirts. Animal Kingdom has a really nice design I haven't seen before that's popping up on Mickey ears, spirit jerseys, ornaments, and Loungeflys and I really love the new design. Saw a Loungefly and a spirit jersey with the design and debated internally splurging on them, but decided to stick with an ornament for now. I do hope this design stays around because it's one of the better ones I've seen and the first time in a long time I've seen cohesion in designs across products for Animal Kingdom. While at the shop, we decided we needed something cool, so I got my first chocolate covered frozen banana, which is one of my favorite treats from the ice cream carts.

I had an "is this real?" moment looking at this bird sitting on a hippo that is floating with colorful fish in the Gorilla Falls trail

Headed over to our Lightning Lane at It's Tough to be a Bug and watched that show. It's always cute, and honestly, was a nice respite from the heat. Keeping in theme with respites from the heat, we then headed over to the Nemo show and enjoyed that, and this was the first time my phone started acting up about moisture in the charging port even though it hadn't been rained on all morning. After some blowing on it and switching cords, I did finally get it to charge. We walked through Dinoland U.S.A to say our goodbyes. I have to say, I won't really miss Dinoland that much because I hardly spend time there, but some of the theming back there is spot on, so I wanted to get a few last pictures. Did you know many of the plants back there existed or are relatives of plants that existed in the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods?

"Welcome to Diggs County, where fossils are our way of life" signage in Dinoland

It was already approaching 1pm somehow. This happens to me at Animal Kingdom. I'll say I want to get out of the heat by noon, but then I keep finding other things I want to see and do. We tried to see if they had space at Tiffins Lounge, but they didn't because it was prime lunch time. The Cast Member said to come back in about 90 minutes and it wouldn't be busy, but we wanted to eat and get out, so we headed to Satuli Canteen, which, in my opinion, is no big loss. I love Satuli. We mobile ordered different bowls and a chocolate mousse dessert (metkayina mousse on the menu). Trust me when I say the shrimp bowl is the way to go.... it is just always so good and while all the bowls are good, the shrimp bowl is some of the best food I eat at Walt Disney World each trip. The metkayina mousse was also amazing. Very pretty in presentation and delicious. It definitely is an improvement over the previous chocolate mousse they had which tasted good but wasn't very inspired in terms of presentation.

The metkayina mousse at Satuli Canteen in Animal Kingdom

We left Animal Kingdom close to 2 pm for our afternoon rest, which wasn't much of one on this day since I had a lightning lane for Guardians of the Galaxy in the early evening. So after showers, a change of clothes (for me... I don't like putting my sweaty clothes back on), and a nap for me and an explore all around Caribbean Beach and the Riviera for my mother, we headed out again.

We decided we wanted to see the Lion King section of Art of Animation because while we've explored the Nemo and Cars sections, we've never really gone that way, and we like the gift shop there, and I wanted to see Pop Century since I'd never really been there, so we rode the skyliner over there. As we rode, it started to thunder, and sure enough, when we arrived at Art of Animation, they were shutting down the skyliner due to lightning in the area. We asked a Cast Member how we might get to EPCOT later if needed, given our plan had to been to ride back to EPCOT on the skyliner, and were told that busses run to EPCOT pretty routinely this time of year, and they add more busses when the skyliner is down. So, assured we could get to EPCOT, we headed to Pop Century first.

I had a hankering for some ice cream, so I wanted to check their quick service and get a treat, but the quick service was under construction. It was very strange... there were no counters where one could order food. Everything was just mobile order, and Cast Members were bringing food out to a table, like a catering table, in bags for people to pick up. And there was no ice cream on the mobile order menu. Oh well. But we went through the lobby to look at the pictures from different decades and found a Cast Member who was also from Wisconsin who we got to chatting with about the neatest pictures and artifacts in the lobby. She had a whole thing she could access on the iPad she carried that described every single picture in that lobby, making her practically a museum docent, so that was really neat.

The Lion King section at Art of Animation

We continued to Art of Animation, and at this time, it started thundering and raining again, and the lifeguards were out evacuating the Big Blue pool as they do when lightning is near. A lot of kids in their swimsuits and water wings looking kind of sad were encountered. But we also encountered some guests with really imaginative costumes heading to the Halloween Party that night at the Magic Kingdom.

Once again, I was unable to find "true" ice cream, as in a sundae or something, and settled for a Mickey bar. It was raining steadily, so we took the bus to EPCOT, where it continued to rain. Security felt like it took forever at the front of EPCOT, probably because we've gotten used to going through the International Gateway where there are far fewer guests entering. Hot tip: If you have a metal water bottle or an umbrella, hold it out in front of you when you walk through the scanner. Umbrellas are the most flagged items by security, and we both had umbrellas.

We made our way over to Moana: Journey of Water and just as we were about to enter, they closed it. Again, due to lightning in the area, which just kept coming and going. My mother might have shouted a really loud expletive in the stroller parking area at that moment because she really wanted to see Moana, and at this point, it was really starting to rain on our parade. To bide our time, we decided to go ride The Seas with Nemo and Friends. When we came out, the rain had stopped and Cast Members were milling around the entrance turnstiles to Moana, which seemed to signal they would consider opening again soon, and sure enough, in about 5 minutes, they opened again and we went through. I always like this walk-through attraction.

The geosphere from Moana: Journey of Water. In the upper right, you can see the water leaping over me.

After this, our Guardians of the Galaxy time was here, so we headed over to Guardians and rode. I can't remember the song we got. It wasn't "Conga" which is good because that's our least favorite, but it also wasn't what we'd hoped for, which was "September" or "Everybody Wants to Rule the World". I never get those songs! Guardians is always super fun for me. It is either one of the best or THE best ride at Walt Disney World, in my opinion.

Unfortunately, on the uphills of the Guardians queue, my mother started noticing her ECV battery would dip dramatically. She hadn't charged it for very long back at the resort because of her little explore, so we were starting to worry that we were about to run into the same issue we did on our last trip where her battery died suddenly and I had to push it all the way from Animal Kingdom Lodge back to the Riviera (via bus and skyliner). So we decided to head over to our ADR at Spice Road Table a little early and see if they had any outlets we could use to charge it.

I have to tell you the Cast Members at Spice Road table were so kind they almost made me cry. Unfortunately, I didn't get all their names. There were three ladies working at the check in counter, and the one whose name I caught was Fatima. They were so kind. They took the ECV inside by their podium because it was threatening rain again, and let us plug it in there. Then, it was still about a half hour before our ADR, but they let us sit early. Our plan was to catch the fireworks from there, and this was a bit early, so we told them what our plan was, and they said it was fine to linger and that they wouldn't be that busy on the patio because it was a rainy evening, even though the patio was covered and sheltered from the rain. So, that's what we did.

Spice Road Table is a neat experience because most of the food is small plates, so it was an easy meal to draw out. We would order one or two things at a time, and we got to try a really wide variety of things. We shared tiropitakia, which is cheese-filled phyllo, peri-peri shrimp which was spicy but the sauce was AMAZING, dolmas which were just how I like them, and hummus fries which were like square falafel. Then we had the dessert platter which included almond cookie, almond cake, and baklava. I always love baklava, but the almond cake was also a winner for me because it was soaked in some sort of syrup, and my mother liked the almond cookie because it was like marzipan. I also had a lovely drink which was mint tea and gin. After my drink, I attempted to order a normal mint tea (without alcohol) but got another one with gin, so I was, uh, happy that evening. Just before the fireworks, our server came and offered to seat us inside right by a window so the people in the fireworks viewing area on the patio in front of us weren't in the way, but after looking at the window and the view, I actually preferred the patio. It was a good view of Luminous. I still think there is something to be said for being able to see the whole sky during fireworks, but since it was a rainy evening on and off, being covered was much appreciated in this situation.

As far as Luminous goes, I give it a 4/5. It's better than HarmonioUS but not better than Reflections of Earth. I appreciate that Disney has brought storytelling back to the EPCOT fireworks, and I do like the addition of the fountains and the way the show syncs to magic bands.

Caribbean Beach Resort at night sure is pretty.

Since we're rating things, I also give Spice Road Table a 5/5, and Satuli Canteen a 5/5. Skyliner in an ECV after fireworks, though, I give a 1/5. It was not a good experience. The ECV line moved very slowly that evening. For some reason, at the EPCOT station, they were only loading one car at a time in the ECV pullout when it can accommodate 3 cars at a time. Their process seemed to be to work through the normal line first, and then slow the entire line to load all ECVs, which.... is a process... but it's not exactly fair to ECV users and was very frustrating. Add to this that lightning in the area also made them pause loading, but only for about 5-10 minutes, which is not their fault. All of this meant, though, that it took us an hour from when we left EPCOT, to actually get on the skyliner. Luminoous was at 9, and we weren't in our room and in bed until about 11 PM, making it a later night than we wanted.

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Next time, we'll be talking about our Disney Hollywood Studios day. Until next time...