Day 13 - Wednesday, September 12, 2018
Our final morning at Animal Kingdom this trip was a beautiful one!
Gotta love a when Tink shows up ;)
We began our day in a beautiful and relaxing way, with a journey on the Na'vi River in Pandora.
I never tire of the beauty of Pandora!
More of those pavement prints I adore! Disney details always make my heart happy!
My hubby and girls simply cannot resist the opportunity for a silly ride photo, even in the face of roaring dinosaurs! I'm always just having a good time, smiling away! Ha!
Next up, Primeval Whirl...
Jason doesn't do too well on rides that spin in circles so he had avoided this ride for about the past five years. However, on this particular day we all rode together. Our girls have always loved this ride so I'm talked into going on it pretty regularly. While the whirling does make me a bit queasy too, if you happen to watch the video of this day on our YouTube channel (linked at the bottom of this post) you'll see that spinning makes me laugh more than anything!
Then we moved on to a ride that will forever hold a special place in this mama's heart, Tricera Top Spin. This was the first ride my youngest daughter ever rode at Disney World and the first Disney ride we enjoyed all together as a family of four. Those precious memories come flooding back to my mind each time we board what is basically a dino version of Dumbo. :)
Time to walk around and inside the Tree of Life for a showing of It's Tough to be a Bug!
I love walking around the Tree of Life looking at my favorite animal carvings and looking to see if there are any I've never spotted before.
Lunch at Flame Tree BBQ
One last lunch of the trip at our favorite quick service restaurant in Animal Kingdom! If you ever find yourself dining here, I highly recommend the shaded waterside tables with a beautiful view of Expedition Everest!
I loved this baked macaroni and cheese with pulled pork so much I ended up having it thrice during this trip! It normally comes topped with coleslaw but I request it without as I'm not a slaw fan.
Love my family!
That completed our final visit to Animal Kingdom this trip! Seeing all these "20" banners in celebration of Animal Kingdom's twentieth anniversary as we exited the park had me so excited knowing that Jason and I would return two months later to celebrate our 20th Wedding Anniversary there! It was so awesome to have honeymooned at Disney World the year this park opened and return to celebrate our 20th during their celebration as well! I plan to recap our November couples' trip here too. So, stay tuned for that! ;)
We made the short drive back to Animal Kingdom Lodge. Our girls settled in for an afternoon break. Jason and I had other plans, which I had long anticipated!
For years I'd hoped to shop at Disney's Character Warehouse. All of our previous vacations we had flown to WDW and taken advantage of their complimentary transportation. This was the first time we drove and had the ability to easily leave Disney property to shop here!
There are two Character Warehouse locations in the Orlando area. We visited the one located at the Orlando Vineland Premium Outlets. There are several high end retailers at the premium outlets and finding a parking spot can be difficult. (We returned in November and were unable to find a single open spot. So, just be aware that it is a busy area.)
Disney's Character Warehouse is basically a Disney Parks outlet store. They sell official Disney items that were previously sold in the Disney Parks at a deeply discounted price.
The store was much smaller than I expected, but packed with everything from apparel to home goods and toys.
From what I've seen both on YouTube and in person, the lines can be pretty long, so be prepared for that if you pop by this shop too. I scored such fantastic deals that I found it to be worth the wait!
Here's my haul! I ended up with over $160 worth of Disney merch for only $65! For starters, I admired this pretty Minnie top while shopping at the Parks the year before, but passed on it with its $54.99 price tag. I was delighted to see it at the Character Warehouse! I scooped it up there for just $24.99! Much better!
I couldn't resist trying on the top and jewelry right away! Here's a close up that shows the gorgeous gold necklace I scored a deal on!
Maleficent socks for my oldest daughter
"Scrump" (the doll that Lilo made) for my youngest daughter who love Lilo and Stitch!
This case had my name all over it! Okay, technically it had Minnie's name, but you know what I mean! ;)
Mickey washcloths, because you can never have too much Mickey at home!
A pillow to remind us of our Disney Vacation Club home resort when we're at home.
After returning to the resort and passing out those little gifts to the girls, we grabbed a quick and inexpensive dinner of pizza from The Mara. This freed up our park time for more rides.
While I haven't included this in each trip report (mostly because I didn't have a photo or video until this day to prompt my memory to mention it), nearly every day that we spent Animal Kingdom Lodge "Little One" and I took an afternoon walk from Jambo House to Kidani Village. This girl of mine has an endless amount of energy and can never get too many steps in each day. So, even though we average 10 miles of walking every Disney day, she was eager for more! I couldn't refuse a request for a mom/daughter walk with my sweet girl, so our "break time" also included more exercise each afternoon.
Glad we snapped a selfie on this particular day which prompted me to capture this part of our daily Disney routine this trip!
It's about a ten minute walk there (give or take) which gave us about 20 minutes or so of one on one time to chat about our favorite parts of each vacation day.
An Evening at Magic Kingdom
There's something extra magical about being at the parks at night! I love the glow of the lights and the water reflection in this snapshot...
We splashed and rode our way through a fun-filled evening!
We watched a bit of the fireworks from a very different vantage point, near Under the Sea - Journey of the Little Mermaid.
Gotta love the low to no wait times during fireworks...
Regular and black lit ears :)
Time to share a sip with my sweet family at Gaston's Tavern...
We'll have some refreshing LeFou's Brew, please and thank you!
Ending an evening with pirates is always a good idea!
Thanks for being here today to read my day 13 recap! I look forward to sharing all the deets of day 14 (which was MY 40th BIRTHDAY) in next week's Trip Report Tuesday post!
You can check out the video footage from this day on my family's YouTube channel,
Eat, Sleep, Dis, Repeat!
Direct Link to the Video of Day 13:
Day 13 - Is Primeval Whirl Fun?
Eat, Sleep, Dis, Repeat!
Day 13 - Is Primeval Whirl Fun?
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
Previous Trip Reports from this Vacation:
A sneak peek at what's to come...
Day 5-15: Walt Disney World
+ my 40th Birthday (September 13th)
Day 16: Georgia Aquarium
Day 17: Homeward Bound
We used to always go to the Disney outlet but I haven't been in awhile now. I used to find great buys on trading pins there!
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