Disney Day 1 - Livin' the Safari Life

Sorry for the radio silence.  It's been a crazy few weeks--prep for travel, the vacation itself, coming back and all that came with that, including work, take #2 on moving to the apartment, cleaning up the house from that chaos, and anticipating a fun day on my birthday.  After feeling pretty good while we were in Florida, I feel like my brain has been extra scattered since we got back, but that's most likely a result of house chaos, annoying work projects, and being just plain tired.  I didn't sleep great on the trip for some reason, and my body has been trying to wake up too early ever since.  I appreciate its efforts getting ready for the school year, but I have zero doubt it will revert to normal as soon as I'm supposed to get up that early for real.  Yay.

ANYWAY...let's go back over two weeks ago.  I knew working on Tuesday would likely make it difficult to get on the road to Buffalo when we needed to, but I had so much work to do that I pretty much had no choice.  I struggled to cram everything in, and then the second I could shut my computer down, I was off to finish packing.  I had done pretty well packing most of Carter's and my stuff ahead of time, but there's always last minute stuff--final laundry items, toiletries you needed that morning, charging cables, etc.  It took a while to wrap up and Jacob was insufferable through all of it, because he had big plans for what we were doing that night before settling in at my parents'.  He wanted to go to the outlets for additional Florida-friendly clothes, and he wanted to go to Kith and Kin, the delicious gluten-free restaurant in Lockport.  Well...by the time we got on the road, it had to be one or the other, but oddly we discovered the outlets closed at 7pm, which ruled that option out immediately.  Off we went on the northern, non-Thruway route to Lockport, where we got to the restaurant just in time to order and eat before they closed.  The food was delicious as usual, and Jacob got a few treats for his breakfast, as well.  Since we couldn't go to the outlets, Jacob wanted to go to the Dick's House of Sport in Amherst.  That felt so far away, but thanks to a well-placed highway between the two spots, it wasn't bad.  He got a couple things there, and then we had one last stop before getting to my parents' and going to bed--Walmart, for a couple tech items and some snacks.  

Craig and I slept in the basement and the boys were upstairs in the bedroom.  It was easier for us to sleep downstairs instead of the office because I wanted my mom to keep the inflatable mattress up for us while we were gone, just in case our return flight was delayed and we had to sleep there one more night.  Predictably, I didn't sleep great during my "extended nap" that night.  I think I was all hyped up from a busy day and nervous about getting to the airport on time, all while sleeping on an air mattress (a comfortable one, but still) with another person and not having enough hours of sleep to take my sleep meds.  I think I took melatonin, but that only got me so far.  It was a restless night, and before I knew it, it was 3am and time to get up.  We got ready relatively quickly and my dad drove us to the airport around the time I figured we'd get there.  We had a little more at stake this time because Jacob needed to go through an additional screening process.  He didn't have a real ID to use to fly, which he needed because he turned 18 in June, but he never got his permit and didn't get his passport in time (though it was waiting for us by the time we got home).  About 15 extra minutes of scrutiny and $45 dollars later, he got through, but they honestly didn't provide much optimism on how his return screening might go.  Spoiler alert: it was fine and way faster than this round, possibly because his passport info had made it into the system by them.  We needn't have worried, I guess, but Jacob kept acting all week like their drive all the way home was inevitable, which was pretty annoying.

While we were waiting to board, I ran into Craig's cousin Matt and his wife and kids.  What were the odds, same airport that early in the morning?  At first I wondered if they were going to Florida, too, as they love Disney, but they were off to Mexico with her parents.  After proper caffeination, we got on board without issue.  We took off just as the sun was rising and the rain was starting, but soon enough we were up above the clouds and back to sun.  I ended up watching the movie "I Am Sam" on my tablet during the flight.  I hadn't seen it since it was in theaters 25 years ago, and I remembered loving it then because both Sean Penn and a tiny Dakota Fanning were fantastic.  It killed the time nicely, and before we knew it, we were landing in Orlando.  And just in time, because I had to pee SO badly.  I was going to go on the plane, but just as I was unbuckling, they put on the seatbelt sign and I was stuck for the rest of the flight.  That was pretty miserable, and I was never so relieved to get off a plane.  First stop was the bathroom, but even after my body took a while to recover from that wait!

We headed down to our shuttle and got on pretty quickly, but unfortunately, we were the last stop after the All-Star resorts and Coronado Springs.  

We look pretty happy here, although Jacob was being such a pain during the ride, taking awkward pictures of Carter and then editing them weird.

I saw this sort of odd bird wiggling its way up an embankment on our drive.  Gotta love Florida wildlife.

We finally arrived and confirmed one of our (minor) fears, that the main lobby at our resort, Kidani Village, was almost completely closed off.  Not that it was awful, but it was a bummer to miss out on that experience, and it made navigating the resort and accessing a couple things a bit awkward.  But Animal Kingdom Lodge was a first for us, and it was exciting to experience something new.  The entrance was so pretty, with lanterns tucked in alcoves all around the (non-functional) entrance.

The lobby was loud and walled off, but at least these gorgeous Chihuly-like light fixtures were visible.

You could also see out this large window, where we could catch our first glimpses of the animals.  There are views of animals all over the resort, which was pretty neat.  Our room wasn't ready yet, as it was only late morning, so we dropped off our luggage and headed to Disney Springs.

We headed pretty much directly to lunch at one of our favorites, Chef Art Smith's Homecomin'.  The food is always so good!  For the first time in many visits, we got to eat inside, which was helpful since the heat was pretty oppressive.  After lunch we needed to do some shopping.  Jacob left his sunglasses in Craig's vehicle back at my parents, and he also realized he didn't have enough shirts to get him through the trip.  We made a couple stops to look at overpriced sunglasses, and eventually he got sunglasses and a few other things at Under Armour (fortunately 40% off).  He wanted to do more, but I was carrying a super heavy backpack because I kept it with me since it had anything I might need before we got our room.  With the weight and the heat and a failed first attempt at wearing new sneakers I got the day we left (they were rubbing my ankle bones), we cut that trip short and headed back.  Along the way, Jacob figured out that the sunglasses he got weren't fitting right--they were literally crooked--so that annoyed him all over again and meant another trip to Disney Springs later.  

Our room was ready by mid-afternoon, just after we got back to the resort, and it was really impressive.  It was a one-bedroom villa, which I didn't love at Saratoga Springs a few years ago, but this one felt a bit more roomy and had some amazing details.  Check out Zazu on the curtain rod!
  

The kitchen is smaller than what we're used to at Old Key West, but it was still much better than a standard room.

Our bedroom was large, with its own giant bathroom.  Note the adorable Simba and Nala carvings on the headboard!

The bathroom had a separate toilet, a large vanity, really cool African-style tile, and a deep soaking tub.  Not quite as fun as our usual jacuzzi tub, but very luxurious.

The boys had their own smaller bathroom, which was a very nice bonus.  They stayed in main room.  While that's not ideal, it's better than a one-bedroom at Old Key West as this room had murphy beds instead of pull-outs, which meant real mattresses.  These pictures were from our check-out day (once it was slightly less chaotic and on the road to being cleaned up).

Dining area and Carter's bed when it was down

Jacob's bed in the down position - notice the cool wall art

What it looked like with Carter's bed put away

Jacob "modeling" the couch with the murphy bed up - wall art is now a map of the resort

Once we were settled, we probably wasted more time than we should have just sitting around and cooling off.  We also had to track down our luggage, and once we had that, we finally decided to head down to the pool.  We got there just as it was closed for lightning in the area...of course.  We wandered around a little while we waited and got a nice view of a few animals around the corner from the pool.  I loved seeing so many gray crowned cranes while we were there.  They're so pretty and regal.

I was slightly obsessed with this light nearby.  I never got to see it lit, but I loved the colors.

There weren't nearly as many flowers as the last time we were at Disney, but I'm not sure if that was because we were a month later, or if the landscaping had changed significantly in a year.  I noticed a lot of changes around Old Key West later in the trip, and I couldn't help but wonder if it simply got overgrown and replaced, or if the bad freeze they had last winter did a lot of plants in (which I did hear was the case).  But I did love these little purple flowers that were around the resort.

We also saw this ground hornbill.  It was a bit creepy, but neat to see up close.

We happened to be there for feeding time so a lot of animals came close while we were standing there.

We eventually had to give up on the pool as the lightning and coming rain seemed like it might stick around for a while.  We discussed going over to the other side of the resort, Jambo House, for dinner, but decided to go back to Disney Springs...except while we were heading to the bus I forgot what we decided and we accidentally ended up on the shuttle to Jambo.  That wasn't terrible as we could scope out that section, and what did we find in the store?  A hippo, of course!

And yes, much to my dismay (and concern with luggage space), one of those did come back with us to join our "bloat" back at home.  Say hi to Stone!

Back at Disney Springs, we went to D-Luxe Burger for dinner, and they happened to have the same super fancy fun burger special I loved last year with a tasty biscuit bun and a fried green tomato.  We did some more shopping, changed out Jacob's sunglasses to a new style as the other ones in stock had the same crookedness, and eventually ended up at the Lego Store (of course).  The only good new build this time was a fancy, light-up Pikachu.

While we were in there it started monsooning pretty good.  Wind, pouring rain, tons of lightning.  While I tend to write that off as just Florida, there were a good amount of branches and debris scattered around the next day., which doesn't happen as often  It slowed down enough for us to venture out with changed shoes and ponchos, so we could get back to the resort for the night.  The entrance at night with the lanterns was even prettier.

So ended day 1.  I was very happy to settle into our room after a 19+ hour day, but aside from a couple hiccups, it wasn't a bad start!