Thursday, August 8

The best laid plans are always thwarted by the need to visit Guest Relations. This is a Disney maxim, yes?

It certainly was for us on this Thursday. Our intentions were simple – spend our obligatory half a day at Animal Kingdom, using our FP+ reservations since…why not? We rarely ever ride anything at AK (or do that much, really), but FP+ gave us something of an incentive.

Of course, doing things at AK would require actually getting into the park. Which, of course, we were unable to do yet again. So, of course, we once again acquainted ourselves with a roving team of Guest Relations Cast Members. And, of course, were once again escorted to Guest Relations. Of course.

To be fair, these Guest Relations CMs were young. Technologically savvy. They sympathized with our problems and gave them more than just lip service in return. The IT team was called, twice. I was walked to a turnstile to test my band, which didn’t work.  The IT team was called for a third time. We were issued some extra FastPasses. We waited. And waited some more. Only to find out….our APs wouldn’t work during the test.

Uh…..

Yes. Apparently, APs were not included in this test phase, a fact woefully under communicated to frontline CMs, or to test guests. We had no idea. No Cast Member to this point had suggested this was a problem, or suggested that we stop participating in the test. As to my room charge problems, the Cast Member acknowledged there may be an issue, and that the IT team was still looking into it.

So, no real answers, but I have to give the AK Guest Relations team some props- they were the most understanding, helpful, and sympathetic Cast Members we had yet encountered on MyMagic+ issues. While they didn’t (really couldn’t) offer us any fixes, just having people say to us “yes, this is a major and unacceptable vacation disruption) really made all that difference.

Issues (un)resolved, we continued on with our day. First up was a ride on Expedition Everest, where again our FP+ worked seamlessly. Since our Guest Relations diversion had eaten up most of that FP+ hour, we were able to proceed immediately to Kilimanjaro Safaris to use our next FP+. Honestly, we haven’t been on the safari in years, so I have to give FP+ a bit of credit for heading us in that direction. It was really pretty great.

I’m clearly not very good at this “redneck” photo thing.

Such an unremarkable photo. Pretend it’s great.

After an hour at Guest Relations and riding two rides, we called it a day. NOT REALLY! But it had felt like a full day – I blame the heat. So what was the solution to our world-weary anomie? Drinking for lunch, of course.

Sugar cane mojito from Dawa Bar. A bit sweet, but quite tasty.

Sometimes, you just need to have a tasty liquid lunch while sitting in the shade to regain your composure. It seemed to work for us, anyway. Catching up on Twitter, drinking a stiff drink, taking cover under an umbrella – these are the things that make a long day at Animal Kingdom bearable.

Rejuvenated, we headed across the park to use our third FP+ for a ride on Dinosaur, another attraction we visit maybe once every 3-4 trips. Good lord it was hot outside. If nothing else, Dinosaur provided some needed air conditioning. (Also, why does the queue always smell a little bit like foot cheese? It’s concerning.) After exiting Dinosaur, we realized there was no way in hell we could stick around to use our courtesy FPs. It was just too hot.

Back at AKL, we freshened up, spent some time checking with e-mail and Twitter, and decided we were in the mood for some ice cream, specifically a sundae from Ghiradelli. First, however, we had to check in on the animals on the savannah.

Zebra butt.

Of course, me being a glutton for punishment, I decided to stop in to Guest Relations at DTD to push our issues a bit further. After learning from Twitter that some annual passholders had, in fact, used their bands for park entry with no issues whatsoever, I figured it was worth seeing what answers we would get if we asked about this at DTD.

The long story short is that we spent nearly an hour and half at Guest Relations, but at least this time it was worth it. A Cast Member named Jay – and several others whose names I didn’t catch – were patient, kind, understand, and truly committed to getting our problems figured out. By liaising with some MyMagic+ police that were on hand – as well as by staying on the line with the IT team for nearly 45 minutes -we left Guest Relations feeling pretty confident that we’d have some solutions within the evening. In fact, Jay even took our phone numbers so that he could call and give us updates, relieving us of the need to visit Guest Relations again. We did learn that the touch-to-pay issue was  “known problem,” so we were told not to bother trying to use my Band for payment – there was no known fix to the issue as of yet.

Tired but sufficiently mollified, we headed to Ghirardelli to grab some ice cream. It was too hot to sit outdoors – and too crazy to sit inside Ghirardelli – so we wandered back over to a bench inside Guest Relations to people watch while we ate. Being MyMagic+ guinea pigs is tiring work, let me tell you.

If it had been spiked, it would have been an even better reward for our troubles.

Back at AKL, we debated our evening plans: go out to a park and not get in again, or at least not without another trip to Guest Relations? We weren’t into that. We actually settled instead on a quiet night in, getting some laundry done and repacking before our move to the Polynesian the next day.

Feel the excitement.

MyMagic+ Problems Today: 2. Our MagicBands wouldn’t work for park entry, and my room charging problems continued.  Trips to front desk/guest relations: 2. Total trips to front desk/guest relations to date: 8.

FastPass Plus Reservations Used: 3/5. Five because we were given two “bonus” FPs for our trouble to use at Animal Kingdom, but neither of us felt inclined to stick around in the AK heat to see some shows with needless FastPasses. Of our three normal FP+, however, we used all three.

Up next: The Polynesian soothes our suffering, and we eat some meals that don’t make us want to vomit. (The tide is turning!)