Trip Log:

Started off the morning with breakfast at the Mill and then hopped on a bus to the Animal Kingdom.  45 minutes later we arrived at the park.  Hiked out to the Safari and grabbed a Fastpass then doubled back to the Festival of the Lion King.  After the show used our Fastpasses.  Once back walked over to Asia, by Everest and out to the Theater in the Wild.  They were taking standing room only for Nemo so we continued on.  Ended up looping around and eating lunch at Pizzafari.  After lunch decided to take a bus over to the Swan and walk to the Fantasia Gardens and play the Fairways.  Once our round was complete we walked back to the Swan and hopped on a boat over to EPCOT.  Strolled through International Gateway and World Showcase on our way to Future World.  Stopped by the Coke samples and then went into Innoventions.  Walked around a bit and then headed over to the other Innoventions (East).  Decided to stop by the Universe of Energy and then strolled out to World Showcase again.  Stopped by Canada (did not go to the upper level the other day) and then continued on to France.  Stopped to watch the film and then continued on to the American Gardens theater to catch Chubby Checker.  As the show was wrapping up the weather started to turn and a storm rolled in.  I ducked out early and stopped by the Liberty Inn for dinner (the rest of the group bailed early on the concert and headed for the Land and the Sunshine Seasons for dinner).  After eating hung around waiting for the rain to stop, caught a song of the 2nd concert then headed for the Friendship Launch and Future World.  Rejoined my group at Spaceship Earth then they decided to head back to the Resort and I returned to World Showcase.  Listened to Off Kilter for a while then back out to hear the end of the Flower Power concert.  After the show continued around past Italy and Germany.  Stopped at the Outpost for some ice cream and then continued on.  It started to drizzle again so I picked up the pace and made my way around to a spot for Illuminations.  It was about 10 minutes to show time.  The drizzle stopped and I headed out to watch the show.  After the show joined the masses exiting the park and headed for the bus, resort, and room to call it a night.

Notes: This trip we took advantage of the free Dining Plan Promotion Disney had. So we had a standard DD plan.

Thoughts & Observations:

• We saw the signs warning about traffic from the Ironman and figured by heading to the Animal Kingdom we would be out of the way of the event... well we should have paid more attention to the maps we saw at Fort Wilderness the other day. The Ironman had traffic all messed up. It took over 45 minutes to get from the Riverside to Animal Kingdom. It took almost half that time to get from near the AK parking lot entrance to the bus stops. Our bus driver never made an announcement or anything.. people kept complaining and wondering what was going on (I explained to several around me what was going on). One more annoying note about the bus route.. we were full, no standing room even, after the South Depot (first stop) but the driver still went all the way around the Riverside going through each stop, but not stopping. This made the route longer for us and seemed to upset those waiting at the other stops for a bus. Also kind of surprised Disney did not have their busses using an alternate drop off and using the regular parking lot entrance, this would have lessened the traffic substantially.
  
  
• Nothing to report from the Animal Kingdom. The park was not very crowded at all.
  
  
• After lunch we decided to head over to play some golf at the Fantasia mini golf course. We hiked out to the course from the Swan (only a 5-10 min walk). I was extremely disappointed to see that most of the sand and water had been removed from the course. It is still hard to play but that really added to the atmosphere.!
  
  
• I caught a couple sets of the finale Flower Power concert of the year, Chubby Checker and the Wildcats were the performers. I watched parts of three sets and all seemed about the same.
  
  
• I managed to time dinner right and headed into the Liberty Inn right before the skies opened up with a thunderstorm (first of the trip). Luckily I had my food and a table before the heavy rain started and the masses entered looking for cover. I ended up sharing my table with an older, local couple. It was fun to talk about how the Flower and Garden festival has changed with them. One other note about the Liberty Inn, they will let you get an ICEE as your drink if you are on the dining plan. So I got that to drink and then dessert too!
  
  
• I saw several people with the D23 Flower and Fireworks badges on, hard to tell the size of the crowd at the event. I opted not to go to this one as I thought you got a lot less for the same price as the Magic and Merriment event. I did not see any of the D23 CMs (usually they have their blue shirts on.. guess I just missed them), I did see they had the same photographer following them around as the last event.
  
  
• I waited around to get some monorail shots and noticed that it was closed. Seemed to be down from after the rain onwards.
  

Pedometer Information for the day:

Enough with the text.. onto the pictures

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