DAY 5 – Animal Kingdom, Disney Springs – 15,343 steps

When Sean was doing his at-home Disney planning, he had figured we wouldn’t make it through all the things we wanted to at Hollywood Studios, and so his intention had been to spend our Wednesday morning there in hopes of catching whatever must-do attractions we hadn’t caught the day before. Due to our break-neck pace, paying extra for lightning lanes, and his careful planning, we did well enough the day before, that we decided to use that morning to see a few more things at Animal Kingdom instead.

It could go either way, honestly.

We started our day though with a breakfast down in the Contempo Cafe. Sean had already placed our order while we were still up in our room, so we just had to pick it up and take it to our table. The monorail runs right through the Contemporary Resort, and so a portion of the building is open to the outside. Maya was delighted to find that little birds had flown inside to nibble at the crumbs left by restaurant patrons. Both kids got a kick out of sitting and eating breakfast, watching the monorail zing into the hotel.

No monorail for us that morning though – we took a bus over to Animal Kingdom. Both kids were jonesing to ride Expedition Everest again – Maya because she loved it, Ian because he wanted to conquer that one too. And honestly, Sean had been so worried about Ian’s glasses, he didn’t really enjoy it the first time through. After a wait in line, we stowed the kids’ glasses, made sure nothing was between their backs and the seats, and had a thoroughly enjoyable ride. Ian loved it! Maya loved it again! It’s a fun coaster. [Sean: Ian and I got to ride in the very front this time and it is a very different ride from being near the back.  The back is definitely “rougher”, lost glasses aside.]

Simba can fly

After stops for souvenir buying and pin trading, we made our way over to Discovery River Theater to watch the Kite Tails show. We found seats and relaxed a while, watching Santa, musicians, and various characters motor through the water. Kite Tails, whose kites for this show were Lion King-centric, was pretty neat to watch. Think enormous, character-shaped kites pulled quickly enough by people on jet skis that they stay aloft.

We had only maybe 3-4 hours at the park before we had to go make our late-ish lunch reservation, so we really didn’t have time for much else except a bit of walking around and last-minute photo taking. We managed to find an octopus hiding in the Tree of Life for Maya. And then for parity, we found a snake for Ian as well.

Octopus in the Tree of Life

We took a short Uber ride and a long walk to get ourselves over to Disney Springs to hit Wine Bar George for lunch. Mom and Dad enjoyed well-earned cocktails and the kids had  Shirley Temples. We started our nibbling with a Saganaki on Fire – which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Cheese is flambeed till melty on the inside and crusty brown on the outside. It was heaven. Thankfully when hungry kids relieved us of most of our toasts, the servers unquestioningly replenished them. We splurged and got a giant meat and cheese board to split amongst the four of us. The kids are ambivalent about cheese, but they’ll tear up some cured meat and crackers. It was a weirdly civilized break in what had been a vacation chock full of craziness.

Sugar cures all woes

We dropped by The Ganachery, where the kids selected Minnie Mouse chocolate pops, while Sean and I chose more carefully from a lovely display of artful and flavorful truffles. Before we wandered on, Sean added us to the virtual queue for a place called Gideon’s Bakehouse.

Lion King themed tree

We had an appointment to keep with Santa Claus. On our way over to him, we passed by giant lego sculptures, including one of Fantasia Mickey. We got to check out a few of the areas plethora of themed Christmas trees. And we got to both window shop and actually shop, which the kids were avidly looking forward to.

Socially distanced Santa Claus visit (sure beats Flat Santa!)

Our visit with Santa was actually really good. It was a socially distanced meeting, but Santa took lots of time to chat with the kids. Toward the end of their conversation, after the kids both requested Pokemon cards, Santa pointed out that his favorite Pokemon was Charizard. Ian’s eyes bugged – that’s his favorite too! After he excitedly told him so, Santa responded with, “Are we best friends now?” So yeah, Ian bonded with Santa over Pokemon.

We wandered back after seeing Santa, doing more shopping and more gazing at Christmas trees. And then finally, it was time for our virtual queue time at Gideon’s Bakehouse. As we waited in our now actual queue, the grownups were each given a menu to peruse. Sean’s was labeled “Nice.” Maya seemed to take it as a personal affront that mine was labeled “Naughty.”

Naughty or nice?

I loved the whole look and feel of Gideon’s. I think Sean knew I would. It’s dark and broody, but not gory or scary. The decor is kind of Addams Family meets Alice in Wonderland. The curving bookcases loom over you and the distinctively drawn portraits stare at you, all while you’re admiring at the loveliest dessert case you’d ever care to come across. The cakes looked incredible, but we really were only able to safely transport cookies, so we purchased a chocolate chip cookie and a triple chocolate cookie. They were huge – I checked their website just now, and the cookies weigh nearly a half pound each. We bought two to split between the four of us, and we couldn’t even manage that before our next destination.

When Sean and I went to Disney World for our honeymoon, over 21 years ago, one of our favorite experiences was the Cirque du Soleil show we had seen (La Nouba, if anyone’s curious). We waxed and waned over whether that sort of show would keep the kids attention, but in the end we went for it. The Cirque du Soleil show that’s running now is called Drawn to Life, and was much more Disney-centric than La Nouba had been (which was not at all, in my memory).

So silly!

As I understand it, this is the first time Cirque and Disney have collaborated on a project, and it’s a stunner. The costumes are brilliant and captivating. The blue fairies on unicycles and the paintbrush-headed people were particularly eye-catching to me. The characters are engaging. Maya had fun basketball-tossing crumpled paper into one of the performers’ trash cans during the pre-show shenanigans.

The story was sweet and sad. The main character is a girl named Julie who has just lost her dad, who had been an animation artist. He’s left her an animation to finish and she spends the show battling a creative block, no doubt exacerbated by the loss of her parent. A particularly exuberant pencil urges her along. A crumpled up wad of paper plays the villain and appears to represent the girl’s self-doubt. All of this is carried along by Cirque’s brilliantly costumed and choreographed acrobatic sequences. The tension was lightened by clown-like characters. Maya laughed herself silly at these five performers who found themselves caught in sort of a giant rubber band. There was a whole projected sequence surrounding Julie’s emergence from her writer’s block. Traditional Disney animations as well as those particular to Julie’s character arc were projected along what appear to be giant paper surrounding the stage.

There were a couple of slight sour spots. One, there were no programs to purchase so we could remember the show. There was no music to purchase either. The one that got me is that partway through one of the acrobatic sequences, they had to stop the show for technical difficulties, and when then restarted it, they had moved past the act we were in the midst of watching. It promised to be thrilling, and I was sad that we didn’t get to see it. All in all though, the show was great. And I just checked with the kids, and they both nodded their heads vigorously when I asked whether they enjoyed it.

Star Wars themed tree

The best part was that as we were leaving the show, we spotted Lolli in her bright orange sweater, and Pop right there with her. It was all we could do to keep the kids from diving over the balcony to get to them. They were so excited to see Lolli and Pop that I think for at least a little while, they forgot how tired they were.

Lolli and Pop in Disney World!

We wandered around for a bit chatting and checking out Christmas trees (there were so many of them!), and eventually made it around to remembering that we had to feed our children dinner. Maya got chicken (AGAIN) and the rest of us wound up going to a pizza place. I don’t remember hanging around too long after dinner. I think we all took the bus back to our hotel, and Lolli and Pop hung out with us in our room for a bit, opening the Christmas ornaments the kids had brought for them and unwinding, before everyone tried to rest of up for the massive day the next day.