The “Why’s It Taking Long” Tour 2022 – Day Seven

I feel that I’m becoming a bit of a sleep bore, but it’s probably because I wasn’t getting much. I was awake at 6am again after what I noted to be a very bad night’s sleep. It was a very low energy morning. That’s what a rest day does for you!

Rebecca was also struggling with a lack of sleep and aches and pains. Like me, her protruding stomach was probably the root cause.

I spoke to Louise and had to try and talk her through some TV and washing machine issues as if I was in some call centre thousands of miles away. I left her on hold for forty minutes and then wasn’t much use before cutting her off, just to give her the authentic experience. Today was one of those days when Louise seemed to be struggling with everything which did not help my mood or condition.

Unsurprisingly we were very slow to get up and out today, only setting off at 9.40am. We were headed for the theme park closest to us, in Animal Kingdom and we arrived fifteen minutes later, parking in Giraffe 41.

Yet again, no trams were provided. Having since read several blogs on the subject of crowd levels at the start of 2022 breaking all sorts of records, I am bamboozled by the lack of trams. I can only guess a lack of CMs was the cause.

Christmas refused to die, despite it now being January 9th.

Rebecca’s struggles led her to the stroller rental place. Having established that absolutely nobody was willing to push her in a stroller, an ECV was rented for the day.

With our later arrival and the billion people at WDW, everything was stacked already so we headed up to It’s Tough To Be a Bug. There was no wait as such, just the walk through the entrails of the tree and the wait in the lobby.

Despite its often forgotten very dark and very loud bits, Freddie did well and enjoyed all of the show. Emily, at 26 still does anything she can to avoid the “exiting bugs”.

Off to Dinoland now.

Being all of something past eleven now, we of course wanted lunch. I mobile ordered from Restaurantosaurus.

I had nuggets once again which may explain my aches and pains. I also had some chicken to eat.

Hot dogs for almost all with an Impossible burger for Emily.

One of Emily’s all-time least favourite rides is Dinosaur. Unluckily for her, the app was telling us that this was the only thing with a tolerable wait time. You will have noticed that I had not purchased Genie+ today.

By the time we had parked Rebecca up and got to the entrance, it was a 30-minute wait. Still, in we went.

All I will say is that we were seeing parts of the queuing systems we had never seen before if that can be seen as any sort of positive. Finally, we got into the bits we recognised.

Here, we saw the remains and commemoration of my first telling of the turtle head joke from circa 2003.

We rode. Emily hated it. Freddie enjoyed it. He seemed to be unscareable.

Rebecca and Tom then took Freddie on a ride more traditionally suitable for his age in Triceratops Spin.

Emily and I did not ride, instead, taking a seat by the side of where Primeval Whirl used to be. It’s always sad when rides are taken away. They inevitably have memories attached and this one certainly does. As ever, we have to be patient and trust that WDW is going to add something new that will be better, or at least as good.

We invested in some drinks whilst Tom and Freddie played some games and won some cuddly toys before we walked past the closed Nemo show and the also closed Everest. It will not shock you to learn that the rapids had hardly any wait. This was due to the very cool temperatures today. We had little choice as nothing else was easily available, so we enhanced our “we live in the North and don’t feel the cold” reputation by riding.

There was still a bit of a wait and I was disgusted and intrigued by a young lad in the queue in front of us with what looked like his two sisters. He was around ten I think. He seemed to have a very bad and frequent habit of spitting. You know that thing where people spit through their bottom teeth? He did that, onto the floor, about once every ten seconds.

Being mid-pandemic and Omicron wave this was not ideal of course. I stared incredulously at him and we kept our distance from his emissions. Dirty little bastard. Thankfully we did not ride with them or it may not have been the water from the ride getting us wet.

With it being a bit chilly we were hopeful that the tame nature of this ride that we had experienced before would hold. It did not, we got soaked, much to a very dry Rebecca’s amusement, who we returned to in a soggy manner. We got a drink from the place opposite Yak & Yeti and Freddie had an ice cream.

This killed sufficient time to get us into the next bird show. This thing had had more rebrands than the Sugababes. I have no clue what it’s called now, but it was fun. In our house, it will forever be called “Birds of Flight”.

We left, heading for the safari.

It was a walk-on, which was pleasing. Rebecca took the advice that pregnant folks should not ride and waited outside. Whilst we saw some animals, Rebecca spotted a vlogger, Mr Morrow and exchanged a wave and a hello.

Meanwhile, on the ride…..

Sometimes it’s the little things that you could never predict that make the little ones happy. Freddie was obsessed with and delighted to spot which animals he had seen and mentally cross them off the spotting board above us in the truck.

You may remember that I was all up in your grill earlier saying I had held firm and not got Genie+ today, like some sort of Disney martyr. That’s mainly because I had forked out for the paid-for LL for Flights of Passage instead. It was, I had to come to realise, the only way you could ride these headliners with crowds like this. It stuck in my throat, I felt used and abused, but I wanted Freddie, and everyone else to be able to do it. I just want to be sure my resentment is duly noted.

Once again, Freddie’s excitement levels were off the scale. He couldn’t keep still, as the blurry photo confirms.

We only waited about five minutes but there was a whole load of “Why’s it taking long” before we entered the pre-ride briefings.

He was measured about four different times before we actually rode, which shows how close he was to being able to ride. He absolutely loved it. Well, we all did. It almost made the bitter pill of forking out what I think was $80 for us to ride it. Almost.

We were out by 4.30 and a little bit behind schedule to get all the way out to the Rainforest Café for dinner and our ADR. We arrived at 4.45 and were seated within five minutes, which gave us time to admire some fish.

We last ate here over twenty years ago and nothing seems to have changed.

Tom and I both had….

Cocktails were had….

Along with other fun drinks….

Rebecca had a Turkey wrap….

Emily another Impossible burger…Florida seems not to have yet embraced the vegetarian lifestyle it has to be said.

Freddie had something pasta based.

We went for the dessert, just to re-visit the Volcano thing we had over twenty years ago.

It seemed smaller and less impressive after all this time, unlike myself, as I am larger and less impressive. Whilst the adults shared that, Freddie had his own dirt and worms.

The bill was over $200 but I didn’t note it down exactly. Rebecca and Tom returned the ECV and we all trudged back to the car again bemoaning the lack of trams. Unaided by said trams we got a bit lost but did then find our way back to Giraffe 41. We were home in fifteen minutes and it was early nights all round. Had I mentioned that today was a bit low energy?

Till the next time…..