Current Location: Fort Wilderness Campground, Bay Lake, Florida (Disney)

This morning we arose early-ish. The official Big Country Weather Station showed the outside temperature as a balmy 36 degrees. We bundled up and headed to the boat landing area to eat a hearty (warm) breakfast at the campground restaurant.

The Disney ponies all had their blankets on this morning.

From there, we caught the campground bus back down to the bus waiting area and hopped a bus over to the Animal Kingdom park. Since there is more walking and indoor activities there, we figured it would be a better cold weather bet. We did a few indoor/sit down type activities and, of course, shopped. Malcolm and David wanted to ride the Expedition Everest roller coaster, but it was down for service when we walked back there.

Tree of Life in Animal Kingdom park.

Val’s artistic rendition

We headed generally towards lunch and ate cheap (comparatively) at a pizza place before heading back over to the coaster, which our Disney app told us was back open and running. Malcolm and David got in the regular line and while waiting, Malcolm got a Fast Pass set up to ride it again right after they got off. Once they rode, the came out and got in the Fast Pass line to ride again.

Expedition Everest coaster.

We wandered around a bit and Malcolm and David rode a couple other rides before deciding they’d like to tackle Expedition Everest again. They rode twice more before we decided we’d head towards Downtown Disney to stroll through the shops and grab dinner. So, off on the bus back to the campground to catch a bus to Downtown Disney.

We arrived at Downtown Disney around 4:00 PM and strolled through a few stores. Malcolm spied a big paddle wheel boat with a sign that said “Fulton’s Crab House”. We looked it up on our app and the food sounded good. Malcolm made a reservation for 6:00 with his handy app. We got tired and a little cold by 5:30 so we headed there to wait for our time to eat. They seated us right away. The food was delicious.

Fulton’s Crab House

Malcolm got curious at dinner time and checked to see if by some stroke of luck there were any camping spots available here at Disney for Saturday night. When we first made our reservations, Friday night was the last night we could book. So, we were going to have to find somewhere to stay Saturday night since our reservations at Lazydays in Tampa don’t start until Sunday.

Our friends Hogan and Donna Cooper got us a reservation at a place where they are currently staying between Orlando and Tampa. However, Malcolm found by looking at Disney’s reservation website that it appeared there were sites available on Saturday here. He called and verified that there were and made a reservation for Saturday night.

A call to the campground office verified that we wouldn’t have to move to a different site. Also, we upgraded our 5-day park tickets to 6-day tickets for only $10 a person. So now we can hang around one of the parks on Saturday, as well, when the weather forecast is showing temperatures in the 80’s and sunshine.