Trip Report - July 2013 - Day 0/1

Day 0

For the past week, friends from Australia have been visiting New York City - the beginning of a multi-city US adventure. This evening, they head to their next destination, Walt Disney World (WDW) in Florida. Naturally my wife and I don't need much of an excuse to visit WDW (and our daughter and son-in-law), so this afternoon, we too are flying down to Orlando.

We park at our usual offsite parking facility and are driven to the terminal, clear security and have time to relax at the gate before our flight boards and leaves early - arriving in Orlando 20 minutes ahead of schedule. I let my daughter know we have landed and proceed to pick up our luggage. She and her husband meet us and we proceed to Pop Century and check in to our room before going out for dinner.

Our friends arrive later in the evening, and it is after midnight when they check in to their room at Disney's Art of Animation Resort. As you can see from this shot, they are quite close.

Day 1

Since we have no agenda when we come down, while our friends are here, we will try to be in the same parks as they are. They have a four day ticket, so will spend one day in each of the four theme parks here. Today they choose Disney's Animal Kingdom (DAK).

Since they arrived so late, they will not be getting to the park until much later. As it turns out, they like to have the same type of schedule that we do while we are here ... very relaxed ... no commando days. Arrive late and leave early - just as we do. This is going to work out fine.

Our daughter picks us up at our hotel and we arrive at DAK well before our friends, so we head back to Kilimanjaro Safari and find that the stand-by line is quite short. We are soon on our way.

As we get off the safari, we encounter what - until the very end of our trip - will be the only little bit of rain all week. We decide to head back to Rafiki's Planet Watch. We just arrive and enter Conservation Station when we get a call that our friends have arrived at DAK. I explain where we are and wait for their arrival. When they get to Conservation Station, I show them around, including a trip into Affection Section.

At this point, we decide that while they go on to the Safari, we will head over to Restaurantosaurus for lunch, and then see Flights of Wonder before we meet them for Finding Nemo - The Musical. When it is over, we head off separately, after deciding which park they will be going to the next day. We see It's Tough To Be A Bug before heading out and back to Pop Century.

That evening, my daughter, her husband and I meet our friends at their resort pool for a swim. It was a fun and refreshing end to our first full day in WDW.

You can see some more photos from today by clicking here.