Did I fail to mention that part of the reason for this impromptu trip was to bring some magic and happiness to my 32nd birthday during an otherwise epicly miserable year ? Well, great success ! I highly recommend a birthday in Disney. If you wear a Disney Happy Birthday pin, literally every cast member wishes you a happy birthday all day. Apparently my mom tried to have a cake sent to our room (she’s over the top, but that is ok for my birthday), but “in room celebrations” have been stopped during coronavirus for the time being, so no luck there, but please don’t cry for my stomach in Disney World with the Boardwalk Bakery downstairs 😬.
So Magic Kingdom ! Had to spend my birthday in THE park, right ? It was nice to have a day with no stalling waiting for the park to open in the morning. MKs hours are currently 9-7, so we hopped on a bus at 8:20 or so (no wait again… the Boardwalk buses were really on top of their game). The new buses are pretty nice, as far as buses go. I believe any of the buses with character “wraps” (aka big character faces on them) are the new ones. They have new clean, crisp feeling seats with chargers ! USB ports on a bus ! Crazy. Granted I didn’t have a phone charger on me, and I’m not sure I saw a lightning port, but still it felt fancy to have a USB port on a bus. We entered the park somewhere around 8:45 after no line at the temperature screening, security, or the actual entrance (the park hours aren’t actually when the parks physically open, just when the rides start running), waved to Mickey and co up at the train station, stopped and bought another mask for me so I had an extra clean one for the day, and grabbed some Starbucks (they don’t honor your free birthday drink at Disney Starbucks… just like you can’t redeem any other Starbucks rewards in Disney, or use mobile ordering, which is mind blowingly backwards). Starbucks is still the slowest line in Disney, but it was a little better than when we went in the Fall. I’ve pretty much kicked my Starbucks addiction (spoken like a true addict that literally just said they got Starbucks), but I figured for my birthday I could use some extra fuel with this 3 year old a-hole kicking me in the boobies all night long (what. the. heck).
As far as rides go, not much new to report from July when we did MK. The thing I love about being a DVC member is that there is no feeling of pressure to “do everything” on any given trip. I’m a crazy person so I always feel obligated to do certain “necessary” attractions… but really nothing is absolutely necessary since you know you will always be back again semi soon. It takes some of the stress off and lets it be more relaxing. We rode the Speedway first thing because he remembered it from July. He steered the whole way! I just had to press the pedal ! He was so proud (as was I). Then we hopped over to a completely deserted Dumbo and rode that. We could have just stayed on and rode again. For both of our trips Dumbo has been 100% a walk on, with only one set of elephants running, all the time. The playground inside isn’t open FYI, and the water play area outside (the train themed play area) doesn’t have water spraying, but it isn’t roped off.
One quick note about the Speedway, that you never really think about at normal times. There was no line at all, but we still had a bit of a wait because we had to wait for the cars to come back around the track and let us on. With so few people riding, there wasn’t a constant flow of cars unloading. Sadly (and cutely), a little girl who must have just met the minimum height to ride alone was holding up a long line of cars coming back around the track. She must not have been able to hold down the pedal. The cast members had to go find her and see if her car was broken 😆.
With regards to other wait times: SDMT was 20 minutes when the park opened. Space Mountain was showing up as 10 minutes all day, which means it was a walk on. Splash Mountain had quite a line wrapped around outside, but that doesn’t mean much, since they can’t wrap lines around inside right now. At one point, Pirates had a 40 minute wait because thunder closed several of the outdoor rides, so everyone headed over to Pirates and Haunted Mansion.
At this point, after only 2 walk on rides and a Starbucks, Copper decided to say “back to our boardwalk??” which totally crushed my soul, since I had a big happy Magic Kingdom birthday day planned. I tried to talk him into riding the Jungle Cruise since that is one ride I just can’t get past having minimal to no line, but no luck. Dude had a full on tantrum. I tried bribing him with popcorn (before 10am…. parent of the year over here). I tried to just carry him onto Ariel against his will, but he did the stereotypical toddler thing (and completely not typical Copper thing) and flailed his whole body around while screaming bloody murder, so I gave up. I figured we would walk around and maybe he would fall asleep in the stroller, since he clearly was sleep deprived and had lost his mind as a result. However, we soon walked past Its A Small World, and he said “ride small world maybe??” This kid loves IASM. It’s bizarre. Absolutely loves it. He turned back into his delightful little self the second we sat down on that damn (empty) boat. No wait at all. Only one-two parties being seated per boat. When we were getting off, we saw a service dog boarding a boat, which just blew my mind. I am a massive dog lover and the things they can do just warms my heart. This dog helped his human go on rides ! He sat on the ride like such a good boy!
As soon as we were off the ride, he went back to not-so-politely requesting that we leave the park to go ride the monorail/return to “our boardwalk.” 😡 Oh well. Not worth ruining the day, since the plan was always to come back in the afternoon/evening anyway when it was a little bit less hot. Dealing with toddler tantrums when traveling solo is not the easiest. Dealing with a large, heavy toddler in a stroller in 100 degree heat traveling solo in general is not the easiest. Props to all the single parents.
We rode the monorail for a little bit and got off at the Contemporary for an early quick service lunch around 11ish. We hadn’t had a “real” breakfast, so part of the tantrum was probably that he was hangry, along with being super tired. We mobile ordered two kids meals (lol… one of the perks of mobile ordering) at Contempo Cafe and settled in to watch the monorails. This is honestly one of our favorite things to do right now. I can’t overstate how much my son loves monorails (and trains, trucks, etc), so he could sit there all day shouting “orange monorail!!!!” It probably is better than character dining right now for about 20% of the cost. After that we hopped a bus back to HS and rode the Skyliner back to the Boardwalk. Basically we took the absolute longest, least direct way from Magic Kingdom to the Boardwalk, but we were able to incorporate monorails, buses, and gondolas, aka the best things in the world to a 3 year old boy. He basically thought that that “commute” back to the resort was the most fun part of the day. I can’t help but roll my eyes, because I really wanted this to be the trip where he miraculously loved some of the big kid rides and we just rode rides all day and had a blast. Wishful thinking.
So back at the room for a nap. One thing to note here. I thought this was just a weird fluke on day 1… but then it happened every day… when housekeeping came in to take the trash and do their room check each day, they opened our patio door and left it open. Every afternoon when we got back to the room, the patio door was completely ajar. My only guess is that this is a coronavirus thing, where they are “airing out” the rooms, similar to how they air out the buses for 4 minutes periodically. They must have some sort of research indicating that airing things out is the way to go. Disney always seems to know what they are doing, so if they want to waste the air conditioning, they can be my guest, I have full faith that they are ahead of the game with their research (they were totally ahead with the neck gaiter thing, because now studies have come out saying neck gaiters are the least effective masks… who knew?).
When Copper was done with another marathon nap (his sleep schedule was royally effed up at this point), it was raining out! The forecast had shown 60% chance of rain every day, but we seemed to mostly nap through the afternoon showers every day. This was no exception. By the time we took a bus back to MK, the rain was done. While we were waiting for the bus, we saw the bus come through for the Skyliner resorts, and encountered a mom who said she was told at the back of Epcot to walk to the Boardwalk to get a bus to Pop Century (I thought she was crazy). When the Skyliner closes for thunder, they redirect all the Skyliner resort guests from the back of Epcot to the Boardwalk for a bus to their resorts. I have no idea why they chose Boardwalk instead of Beach Club…. 🤷🏼♀️.
So we ended up back at MK for about an hour and a half before closing. Plenty of time for a handful of toddler-friendly rides, now that he was in a great mood. I would have had to plan much better if we were there with the reduced park hours (MK closing an hour earlier), and I would have had to really nip these crazy naps in the bud, to get back to the parks sufficiently before closing.
I should mention a very important piece of information! When we woke up on day 3, Copper said “pew pew woody ride ??” Which was a huge positive change over “no more rides!!!” but unfortunately it meant he wanted to ride Toy Story Mania again, which went against my plan to go to Epcot on our 4th and final park day. So basically I decided to stick with our HS park reservation for day 4 and try to let the park redeem itself after such a failure of a day 2 (cmon characters !). The reason I bring this up now is because AGAIN on the bus to MK in the evening he said “pew pew woody ride?” and I had to explain that we weren’t going to that park, but then I realized …. buzz lightyears space ranger spin!!! That ride is basically an old school Toy Story Mania!! Copper had never ridden it yet either, so we got to do a new ride! I love introducing him to new rides, which MK never disappoints with thankfully. So we headed straight over to Buzz when we got in the park, and walked right on. He loved it, even though there is a slightly darker noisier part at one point, it was no problem.
We wrapped up the park day by riding the Speedway again, Winnie the Pooh, the Carousel, and It’s a Small World again. We were headed over to Aladdin, but he can’t go past IASM without riding it, and it takes forever to physically ride, so that was the end of our park day. We were pretty giddy at that point. He loves the Carousel. I just love getting him to cooperate and go on rides and have some fun.
With the park closing, we headed to the buses for our dinner reservation at Sana’a. For anyone who is unfamiliar, Sana’a is a constantly raved about restaurant at Animal Kingdom Lodge -Kidani. I knew beforehand that food-wise, it probably wasn’t a great fit for me, as the worlds oldest 7 year old eater. I call myself the worlds unhealthiest vegetarian. I don’t eat meat, but I don’t particularly eat vegetables either. I’m all about pizza and fries basically. People who rave about Sana’a definitely have more refined and worldly tastes than I do. It is a menu of African food. I’m sure the meat is delicious. I bet my non-fiancé would love it. The vegetarian rice option that I got was just a bit too… weird…. for me…. no offense intended (I eat white rice or microwaveable “garden vegetable” rice…. I fully acknowledge this is a me issue, not a Sana’a issue). Copper was able to order pizza off the kids menu, and I was so jealous. His meal was free again for anyone keeping track. Honestly it netted out to be pretty fair since I barely touched my meal. I did get a wonderful little birthday cake though! Hooray! Excellent service too! The real amazing thing though, and the reason we chose to eat there, was the view of the animals. Our table was by the window (without asking), and a giraffe walked right up to the window ! It was amazing. My logic with this restaurant choice was two fold: 1. We didn’t do Animal Kingdom this trip, so I wanted to sneak in a tiny bit faux Animal Kingdom time without using a park reservation on it, and 2. There are only 2 character dining options right now… we can’t eat at Topolinos every day… so I need another gimmick to make it a fun Disney meal, so why not try animals. We booked our reservation really late in booking window, so only 8pm was available, but it was thankfully still light out for the first 20ish minutes of our meal. Once it got dark, there is absolutely nothing to see, so don’t go into it expecting there to be lights on the savannah to show you the animals. Be aware of when sunset is at your time of travel.
So here is the tricky part that worried me a bit…. getting back to the Boardwalk from AKL at 8:45pm. Hollywood Studios closes at 8pm, otherwise we would take a bus there and walk or ride the Skyliner back, easy peasy. Buses do run for an hour after the parks close, but they typically only take guests FROM the parks, and will not take guests TO the parks. My back up option (that I really didn’t want to use) was going to be to take a bus to Disney Springs, then take another bus back to the Boardwalk. As a bus hater, and a waiting hater, I was praying to avoid this option. Thankfully a Hollywood Studios bus pulled up, and I asked if we could get on. The driver initially said no, he couldn’t take people to the park. Then I said, really we can’t just get off and walk to the Boardwalk? He hesitated and said ok! I was so happy! Then, plot twist, he actually drove us straight to the Boardwalk!! In retrospect, maybe he seriously is not allowed to bring guests to the park after a certain time, so he had to take us to the Boardwalk, but I like to think he was just super nice. I thanked him profusely and made sure Cooper knew that we got some pixie dust.
So that was that, last full Disney day in the books. Sadly we had to start packing up our room and head to bed.