happy new year!

Happy New Year!

It's a new day, a new year, a great excuse to make changes, start fresh, or break a habit.  My resolutions are to be more mindful, more in the moment, and more authentic...to get more organized, make better use of my time, be a better parent, and take better care of my body...to be more grateful and gracious, fearless and fierce, and choose happiness.  These are essentially the same resolutions I make every year, and every year I become a little bit more of who I want to be...if I live to be 102 I am gonna be awesome.

What are your resolutions?  Where do you want to be on January 1st 2013 (provided the world doesn't end in 2012)?  What do you want to accomplish?  What would make 2012 your best year yet?

And now back to 2011, and day 6 of our trip...

Day 6 required checking out of our standard room and into a Savannah room and also was the start of our Deluxe Dining.  I didn't know how the check out/in would go or how long it would take, so the plan for that day was to go to Animal Kingdom, since it was the closest and easiest park to get to from Animal Kingdom Lodge.

I woke up that morning fully aware that I did, indeed, have a cold, and laryngitis.  I literally had no voice at all, which the Pea found hilarious, but was quite frustrating for me.  I was very glad that I had thought to pack a medicine bag, complete with zinc lozenges and Advil cold and flu (the good kind, that even though is OTC you have to get from the pharmacy, show ID, and sign that you don't have a meth lab in your basement) because I would never have been able to hit the parks without.  I normally would have stayed in bed, drinking tea and being lazy, but since that was NOT an option (I was not gonna lose ANOTHER day), I sucked it up, packed up all our stuff, drug it downstairs, and got our new room keys.  Our new room wasn't ready (it was 8am, I would have been very surprised if it had been) but the check out/in process was painless, and afterward we headed to the park.

Waiting for the bus

In front of the Tree

We had only 5 things on the agenda: Safari, Tusker House brunch, the Nemo show, Lion King, and the parade.  We headed for the Safari first and grabbed a fastpass, then to Tusker House.  Navigating was exhausting because it was wall to wall people, and moving from place to place seemed to take forever.  I was glad to get out of the crowd and into the restaurant.  We had a quiet table in a corner, away from all the action, which for some would have been disappointing, but was perfect for us.  Donald is outside and does a quick photo before you go inside (which you have to buy, and probably because I was delirious from the cold meds, did) and then Daisy, Goofy, and Mickey came to our table. 

They also do a parade around the restaurant where the kids get to play a musical instrument while following a character and dancing around.  The Pea liked Daisy the best and loved being in the parade.

After the parade, a hug from Daisy.

These are all giant puppets, very cool.

A shot of the stage at the end of the show

After our meal, we did the Safari and grabbed another fastpass so we could go again later in the afternoon, then headed over to the Nemo show.  The show is fantastic...I love the puppets, the puppeteers are amazing, and the Pea was mesmerized the entire time.
  
It was back to the Safari after that and then we grabbed an ice cream and a spot and waited for the parade. 

Waiting for the ice cream.

We staked out our spot a good hour before the start of the parade to ensure good viewing, and right before the parade started a guy squeezed in next to us and proceeded to record the whole thing on his Ipad, which he held up right in front of my face.  I wanted to punch him in his.  If I had had any voice at all I would have told him to cool it, unfortunately I didn't, and turned out he was Asian and didn't speak English anyway, so it probably wouldn't have done any good.  He also kept reaching out and trying to touch the characters, which made them hightail it away from us and as a result no high fives or interaction for the Pea.  I wish a CM had made him stop. 

After the parade we had to navigate through a sea of people moving in the opposite direction and felt like salmon swimming upstream.  I knew that day would be tough for me and I would struggle because I don't like crowds or people in my personal space, but I had no idea how truly difficult and exhausting it would be.  Had this been my first visit to WDW or Animal Kingdom, I would have vowed to NEVER go back.  I'm glad our first visit was magical and with much lower crowds. 

We ended the day with the Festival of the Lion King.  I was afraid there would be a huge line by the time we got there, but we were one of the first and it wasn't long before they let us in.  We had a great seat, right behind the handicap seating, in the giraffe section, and sat back and enjoyed the show.  We love, love, love all the performers and it was the perfect way to end our day at the park.

This was one of our two days having 3 dining credits so for dinner we did a signature (which "costs" 2 credits).  I made reservations at Narcoosses so that we could watch the fireworks from our table and because I wanted us to have a "fancy" dinner.  The place itself is beautiful, and we had a table right by the window with a perfect view of the castle.  Our server was awesome and treated me like a queen and the Pea like a princess. 

The view from our table.

Didn't use flash at all at dinner so the shots are a bit dark.

I dug in before I took this shot, it's a bit mangled.

The food, however, was a disappointment.  I had the cheese plate as an appetizer, and it was fine, but I've had better at our local Tapas restaurant, followed by the Surf and Turf.  The lobster tail was delicious and perfectly cooked, but the steak was meh.  It tasted like pot roast made with one of those packaged gravy things (that are mostly salt and msg).  I know my taste buds were compromised with the cold, but it really wasn't good.  I expected better quality ingredients and more flavor than salt.  I had the cheesecake for dessert and while the presentation was beautiful, the cake itself was just ok.  Again, given my cold, I may not have been the best judge.

The reason we ate here.

 We took a cab back to the lodge that night, got settled into the new room, and decided we would sleep in the next day.