I rose at 6:30 so as to get an early start; AK opened and closed earlier than the other Disney parks, and I wanted to be there well in advance of the 8am opening time. I arrived about 20 minutes before the gates opened, and used the time to browse through the gift shop in the Rainforest Cafe for a t-shirt for one of my nephews. After scoring the shirt, I entered the park through the back gate behind the Rainforest, put the shirt in a rental locker, and headed out for Africa to ride the Safari first thing. Then I went to Countdown To Extinction, the other ride in AK with long wait times; this time of the morning, the wait was only a few minutes. Then back to Asia for Kali River Rapids. Since Kali was a new ride, and looked like a lot of fun, I expected it to have a long wait, but it was a walk-on. I was very surprised at this, especially considering the heat of the day, which was already getting a little oppressive, until I actually rode the thing. I had to fight real hard to keep my camera from getting soaked, and resolved hereafter to always have a way to protect the camera, or leave it in a locker before I went on a ride. Kali is WET! It's one of the wettest rides I've ever ridden, and had some great visuals besides. By the time I got off I was dripping as though I had been thrown into a pool. With the day getting into the mid-nineties, though, I found myself drying off very quickly.
I wanted to do a little shopping, however, so I dripped my way into the various gift shops, shivering in the air-conditioning, and bought some toys for my nephews and cousins. This brought me back to the center of the park, so I got in line for It's Tough To Be A Bug; after the show was over, I walked through the Tree of Life Garden, by which time I was hungry.
Breakfast, late as it was, was to be at Tusker House, in Africa. I loved the food there, and it did not disappoint today. I had never had the breakfast at Tusker, and did not realize the large size of the portions, not to mention the great taste.
To digest, I walked the Gorilla Falls Exploration Trail. I was disappointed that the gorillas were hiding in the trees when I walked by, preventing me from getting more than a couple of indistinct shots of them. I also came up against one of my new camera's few drawbacks: I had bought a 28-80mm zoom lens, and 80mm was not long enough! I wanted more zoom. I made up my mind to get a longer zoom lens before my next WDW trip. On the whole, however, I loved the trail; it's shady and cooler than the rest of the park, and the animals and plants that can be seen are beautiful.
I went into Magic Kingdom, intending to hit some of my favorites like Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean, not to mention the Tomorrowland attractions, but I found MK to be so crowded I couldn't breathe. Wait times for all the rides were above 1 hour, and it was HOT, so I decided to call it quits for that park today.
Wilderness Lodge is an awe-inspiring place. I love to visit and marvel at the creativity and attention to detail in the 5-story lobby, with it's carved-wood columns, huge stone fireplace, hardwood floors, and wonderfully cozy atmosphere in such a gigantic space. Then there's the stream flowing through the lobby, out the back wall, and over a spectacular man-made waterfall.
I was getting hungry again by this time, so I went into the counter-service place and had lunch before heading back outside to take some pictures. As I made my way down the paved walk from the Lodge to the pool, I looked at that beautiful waterfall and noticed that it had another admirer; there was a duck perched on top of the waterfall. He wasn't moving, he wasn't doing much of anything, he was just sitting there, in the center of the waterfall, looking out over the pool and the expanse of Bay Lake. I took a couple of pictures of him, expecting him to move along at any moment, but he just kept sitting there, enjoying the view. It was getting into the hottest part of the day now, and I wanted to take a rest, so I went out the front of the Lodge to the bus stop and caught a bus back to AK to get my car. Mid-day as that was, the bus service was pretty slow. I waited for about 40 minutes for a bus to to AK; meantime, I took a picture of some construction going on behind the Lodge. [Note: I didn't know it at the time, but this was to become the Villas At Wilderness Lodge]
Once back in my car, with the air-conditioning on full blast (important tip: when you get into a hot car, open the windows all the way while the AC cools off, thus allowing the HOT air inside the car to get out!), I drove back to CBR for a rest and a water bottle refill. I planned to go to see Fantasmic at the Disney MGM Studios that night, so I figured a half-hour of down-time was not out of line, especially after my time on the skillet of AK's parking lot.
The Fantasmic arena is a huge outdoor amphitheater, with curing stadium-like bench seating partly encircling a stage that is built to resemble a mountain. Between the front row of seats and the mountain is a moat; during the show, water screens are sprayed in the moat and moving pictures are projected on a curtain of water. It is a simple but absolutely spectacular effect. Boats also traverse the moat at several points, and at one point gas jets set the entire moat afire! It's difficult to tell that it's jets, however; the effect is a perfect illusion, turning the moat into a river of fire. Before the show starts (it requires full darkness), as the arena is filling, several Cast Members in ushers uniforms entertain the crowd with a juggling/acrobatics/comedy act that is very enjoyable in and of itself. And it's needed, too: the bench seating in Fantasmic has no backrests, and is the most uncomfortable, torturous seating anywhere in WDW. My back started to hurt after ten minutes, and felt like it was on fire by the time the show started 40 minutes later. The show itself was about 30 minutes long, and I videotaped as much of it as I could. My camcorder's battery died at one point and I had to hurriedly put in the spare; I also had a lot of trouble focusing in the low light (drawback of my camcorder), so many parts of that video are pretty much unwatchable. Video can't do it justice, anyway.
This was one of my favorite times at WDW. The park was closing; it's ever-present theme music was off, all the attractions were closed, and several streets were roped off to prevent the crowd from heading into the park, but the street was still brightly lit and Cast Members with small carts were still hawking lights, glow-sticks, and glow-ropes. Despite the ten-thousand or so people filtering their collective way down the street toward the park exit, there was a hush over everything, a peaceful, contented, quiet atmosphere, mixed with perfect weather (unusually low humidity and temps in the comfort zone around 70 degrees), and I paused for a moment to video a few seconds of this quietest form of Disney Magic.
I was glad I had taken the bus, because I was in no shape to drive. The pain in my back from the horrible Fantasmic seats, plus the near exhaustion and total frustration of inching my way out of the arena, caused me to collapse into a bus seat and nearly fall asleep on the way back to CBR. I was grateful to stumble into my room and stretch out on the bed for a few minutes, but I did get back up to pack for my trip home tomorrow.
I wound up going to bed around 11pm or so.
Walk miles: 21.8
Drive miles: 152