Doesn’t everyone get up at 5:00AM on vacation and iron?

In retrospect, we probably could have slept another 30-45 minutes.  But our alarms were set and Marie jumped into the shower.  I’d seen last night how her skirt was wrinkled, so I decided to iron the skirt she’d made herself last fall.

I also discovered our coffee drawer!   It was really nice for a budget level hotel!

We had packed our own toaster and some breakfast foods.  Marie fashioned her own “hidden Mickey” for breakfast.

We had some time, so we meandered around the property before leaving for the park.
6:29AM

We were parked and in line for entrance by 6:45AM.  Sadly, we were not as close to the front as we had anticipated we’d be.

Eventually, we were allowed in and were able to queue near the pathway to Avatarland.  There weren’t  a lot of photos for the next bit of time.  We were absolutely HERDED to the Flights of Passage ride once the park opened and our steadily moving line had us on in about 31 minutes. 

We headed then to Navi River, and then to Kilimanjaro Safaris where the animals were very active, but the ride did take a lot of time.

It was very, very hot and humid.  I can usually stomach this really well, but I think the sleep deprivation was aggravating me, as well.

We were able to meet Safari Mickey and Minnie.

We refreshed our sunscreen and then headed to Dinosaur!  I grabbed another Lightning Lane while we waited.

The ride always scares me so much!
We stopped for a LOT of Photo Pass photos.  I am only going to post one.

While waiting in line for Expedition Everest, John texted me that Roe vs. Wade was overturned.  We both stopped, praised, prayed for peace, and plunged on.

We realized there really wasn’t a lot left we wanted to do at Animal Kingdom.  But it was only 11:04 AM!

We decided to ride out to Conservation Station and do the Animation Experience.
11:27AM

We drew Pua from Moana.

We wandered around looking for special treats, and we found a candy shoppe.  We also shopped in and out of stores and stopped for more photos.  We thought about hanging around until 2PM to see the Finding Nemo show, but we were really just ready to leave.  So weird.

We had 8PM reservations for MiniGolf, so we figured we’d head out and chill for a while.

We did some more exploring at our hotel, and went for a swim, and rested.

We got cleaned up and went to the main reception/store/food court.

And I had some surprisingly good braised roast beef.  Marie got smoked salmon.

And the deluge began!
It rained, and rained and rained.

We shopped, rested, waited out the rain, AND I waited on hold for over 40 minutes to cancel our golf reservation.  The last thing I wanted to do was drive all the way over there and find out they were closed.  I also didn’t want to get charged as a no show.

We decided to get dessert and take it back to our room.  They make ice cream cookie sandwiches at this, and other “Value” resorts.  You select your two cookies, and three scoops of ice cream.

It is much bigger than it looks.  Neither of us could finish them.

They were very reasonably priced.

We headed back to our room with our snacks and snuggled in and watched commentary on today’s SCOTUS announcement.  We did our bedtime prayers and were in bed early.