Summer heat and summer treats- day 6 and lots of ups and downs

Started out the day looking forward to my Kona coffee and macadamia pancakes. Took Pop bus to Disney Springs after I made sure they were running at 9 to the Springs. Had two huge bags of stuff to send home and didn’t want to go through security. Every other resort had bus back to resort EXCEPT Poly. Took awhile to get info no bus going to Poly until 11:30. .??????WTF?.........???? So hopped on next bus to pull up- Key West. Called Poly and told them I couldn’t get there so they waved my no show fee. Went to Olivia ‘s which is almost good and the pancakes were even better than Kona.

Went to a Poly to get the requested Kona whole bean coffee.

Took monorail to GF to go to mailing center. I had my 3 haunted mansion buckets/sippers, 2 Illuminations mugs and various other small purchases which weren’t quite as bulky. Sending all my stuff home was $40. If I had taken on plane I think an overhead bag is $50 or more. Plus I didn’t have to drag all that stuff to airport.

Relaxed until time for a quick meal. Got a wedge salad at Poly fast service. It was ok but I thought it was really expensive for what I got. Expected more bacon. I don’t think there was even one slice crumbled on the salad and the roasted tomatoes were really chewy.

Starting raining, hard, with lots of lightening. Continued from Poly bus stop to Animal Kingdom. And got even crazier with lots of lightening booming. Waited under the bus stop roofs and talked to a nice Japanese couple. The young woman didn’t speak much English but she said she loved Disney and was trying to go to every park in the world.

Finally could walk to AK entrance. Steady rain. Went on 2 safaris. Didn’t see as many animals because of rain and night but got to listen to a heyna crunching on some bones, the lion and females were sitting up my first safari, the second the male was up and walking and roaring. He kept it up for about a minute. Very cool. A lion roar is not that loud and can be heard up to 5 miles away.

Saw the new nighttime show- it is ok. Had some ice cream and popcorn treats. Saw a Tree of Life projection- the hummingbird one. Love it. Made my way to Pandora and ride river ride a couple times. No wait. Flight had a 20 minute wait. I didn’t want to ride it but I wanted to see the queue. That part wasn’t open but the cast members talked and then the guy said follow me. He took me on a private tour and talked about all items of interest along the way. He was really nice and I really enjoyed my personal tour.

Made my way out of AK and was in room a little after midnight.

Thunderstorms in Florida can put on quite a show!!

We saw Rivers of Light this year and I wasn't overly impressed with it.

Some of those bus schedules are a little crazy. I think we were once told that buses don't run back to the resorts from Disney Studios until around 11 in the morning - can't figure out why that would be so!

First, I can't believe Flight had only a 20min wait! And then you got a private tour of the queue? That's AWESOME. That's a great way to close out your evening. This sounds like it was a great trip overall. And doing mostly night time events made for a cooler trip as well.

It was very cool doing the After Hours events. I don’t think I would do the AK one again - there just isn’t enough to do. But if you want to do the Avatar rides over and over..... that is the big draw. And that private walk through was really cool and he was so nice. He probably spent at least 30 minutes with me. I felt like I was a celebrity or something!