September 2024 Trip Report - Day 5 - Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, and Animal Kingdom
We started our day at the Magic Kingdom. Mom was doing a little better, and my leg was fine. I had a Single Lightning Lane for Seven Dwarves Mine Train for 9 AM, so we did not bother with rope dropping and rode that first. My appreciation for that ride is growing at the same time my loathing of the tightness of the ride seats is growing. Later, we had a flight with tiny seats and compared the seating to Seven Dwarves Mine Train as far as which was most uncomfortable.
From that, we headed toward Tiana's Bayou Adventure for a 10 AM Lightning Lane. The second ride was better than the first. Pretty soon, I will have forgotten the scenes of Splash Mountain. After Tiana, we went over to Golden Oak outpost to get the beignets. I also saw they had a frozen lavender lemonade. The beignets were very good. 4/5, only because they aren't quite as good as we remember the ones at Port Orleans French Quarter being. We aren't the only people who have that opinion. The lavender lemonade was fine in that it was ice cold, but I could not detect lavender. Maybe it was just meant to refer to lavender color, but there wasn't much of that either. But it's fine. We were able to take our food inside Pecos Bill and get some AC while eating, so that was good as it was a brutally humid morning, and hot.
Country Bear Jamboree
After this, we headed over to Country Bear Jamboree to see the new version of the show. I liked the refurb, though I must admit I do miss "Blood on the Saddle" and the song about mama beating on Buford. It's still a diversion to me, along the lines of The American Adventure show at EPCOT, but it's Disney-worthy. Upon exiting, we caught the Adventure Friends Cavalcade.
We left the park around 11:15 AM for our Kona Cafe ADR at 12:15 AM. Yes, the Polynesian is right next door to the Magic Kingdom, but I feel like one should always allow extra travel time. And sure enough, we decided to take the boat launch over to the Poly. Because my mom has an ECV we had to wait for the larger boat (which alternates with a small boat), so that added some time. We arrived at the Polynesian about 10 minutes before our ADR, so we zoomed to Kona to check in.
Flowers in the landscaping at Polynesian Village resort
Side note: A lot of cast members were in training, which is no surprise. Early September is the beginning of the College Program. We encountered Cast Members training other Cast Members with a lot of frequency, and I think it was a good thing. The new Cast Members are very excited to create magic and you can tell. And the Cast Members training them are among the best at their jobs and are modeling great performance. Such was the case on our boat where our pilot was in training. Since there's really only room in the wheelhouse for one person, the other Cast Member would mostly just stick his head up there sometimes and give some advice, especially during docking and undocking. But at one point on this ride, we were talking to the Cast Member who wasn't piloting when the boat's engine suddenly stopped. Even the Cast Member couldn't stop his eyes from flashing with alarm, and he went back up to the wheelhouse to see what had happened. Apparently a guest in a pontoon had created cross traffic and got in the way of the larger boat and the only way to stop was to kill the engine. Both of them were shaking their heads.
Kona Cafe was great. I give it a 5/5. Mom gives it a 4.5/5 only because her main dish was bland, but I think that's because of what she ordered. It's an easy ADR to get and I'm not sure why more people don't dine there. We had potstickers as an appetizer, which I would recommend not missing because they are fried together into almost a pancake and while that doesn't sound appetizing, they are really good. I had tuna poke which was small, but quality. Mom had a dashi bowl which was a larger portion but was mostly veg, noodles, and a light broth so it was bland. For dessert, we had a molten chocolate cake, which was amazing, as usual at Disney. Mom also had a lava flow drink, which is my usual go-to but not this time. It's a pina colada with strawberry puree. I had a backscratcher which came with an actual backscratcher. At about this point, the server was getting used to us giving her funny looks when she put something on the table with the unexpected pancake potstickers, and the backscratcher. The couple next to us was awesome. The man next to us ordered a drink that came in a pineapple which he was very excited about. When we admired his drink, he noticed mine had a backscratcher and he was excited about that too. Then the server came by and said they could put any drink in a pineapple and his eyes lit up. From their attire (bride and groom ears), I believe they might've been on their honeymoon so it's my best guess that he did fulfill his dreams of pineapple drinks from there out.
Our truly insane potstickers at Kona Cafe
After a wonderful lunch at Kona, we took a walk around the Polynesian Village resort. The landscaping here is so lush and wonderful. We walked to the TTC as it started to sprinkle, and got on the monorail to EPCOT, hoping it could redeem itself as the last monorail both of us rode on separate trips smelled like a cattle car. Nope. I guess that's just how the monorail smells now, which is sad. Also, our car was not very air conditioned at all and I'm not sure what was going on with that as I remember the monorail being frosty.
We entered EPCOT's front entrance specifically to ride Spaceship Earth and then walk through to the International Gateway to get back home, and that's what we did. I couldn't miss my nostalgia ride at EPCOT.
We took a very short rest before heading back out to Animal Kingdom. Once again, Animal Kingdom was closing at 6 PM (I guess these are Fall hours now), which was a bit annoying, but we decided we needed to at least do some of the exploration trails and then we'd call it an early night for a change. We got there around 4 PM and did the Maharajah Jungle Trek and Tree of Life Gardens. I fit in my last Animal Kingdom Frozen Banana as well.
Maharajah Jungle Trek is one of the best themed places at Walt Disney World in my opinion
I do feel on this trip we somehow did not leave enough time for Animal Kingdom. This is partly because we had planned two evenings there thinking it closed at 8 PM, meaning an additional 4 hours in total there. And partly because Magic Kingdom had some very new rides as well as rides reopening that we wanted to check out and it was a park where Lightning Lane strategy was very important, favoring early Lightning Lanes. I don't regret much. I still feel like we spent the right amount of time in each park, given the limited time we had, but I could've done with another Animal Kingdom day entirely.
Anyway, we left once again on the closing busses back to Caribbean Beach Resort and I really was hankering for a drink and sit down at the pool bar, Banana Cabana, which I'd not yet tried. In the last few years, I've been coming to learn pool bars are the hidden gems of dining at Walt Disney World and Banana Cabana was no different. We shared some coconut shrimp which was really good, and seafood fritters, which were just okay. I see that they were trying to create conch fritters, but with unidentified seafood. I don't remember the drinks I had but I feel like I tried two drinks (they were both pretty weak). But I think the best part was that a few minutes after we sat down under the covered dining area, it started to rain. And it rained for about two hours, at times torrentially. The skyliner stopped running as lightning rolled in. Not only was I pretty glad not to have been in a park that evening, but also, it made for a lovely atmosphere at the pool bar where we could just sit in shelter and watch and feel the storm. Once it let up briefly, we made our way back to the room, showered, and called it an early night.
Rainstorm while at Banana Cabana at the Caribbean Beach Resort
Next time, our last full day, in which we visit the Riviera again, visit Hollywood Studios, take a swim that proves to be a bit of a mistake, and head to EPCOT to do Food & Wine. We hope you're enjoying this trip report. Until next time...
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