Day 8 was designed to be a “make-up” day, allowing us time to go back and catch any attractions we hadn’t visited yet that we wanted to hit, or to revisit attractions that we enjoyed and wanted a second (or third) go-round on.

The boys and I decided to get a jump on the day, and try to catch a ride on the sneak-preview of Expedition Everest, so we were up early and off to Animal Kingdom. We caught a bus from the hotel directly to the park and arrived about 20 minutes before park opening. The wait wasn’t log before the gates opened and we streamed in with the smallish crowd. Once over the bridge after the turnstiles and biometric readers, the crowd began to thin out as people went various directions, but we headed directly towards Asia. By the time we came around the corner to Everest, we were practically alone, which didn’t seem right since we were headed for a headliner attraction.

As we came upon the entrance for the attraction, I noticed A) no guests and B) several cast members manning ropes across the queue entrance. Not a good sign, seeing as there were approximately 1,000 people in line for the ride just a few days ago. Upon conferring with a cast member, it turns out that the ride was closed for the day for additional tweaking and tuning. ARGH!

Needless to say, the boys and I were a bit disappointed — we weren’t going to get to try out the newest attraction on this trip. Ah well, we got over it pretty quickly, and decided to head over to the dinosaur area and catch a few rides there before leaving the park.

The nice thing about being in Animal Kingdom on a Tuesday during value season is the crowd is practically non-existant. The dino area had maybe 50 people in it, so there were no lines for anything. We quickly located Primeval Whirl, a runaway mouse-type coaster with a twist (literally) — the cars spin around! We walked right on and took a spin, and had a blast. So much so, as soon as we got off, the boys wanted to go again, so we ran around to the entrance again and walked right on.

After our second ride, we wandered around a bit, trying to find the Dinosaur ride. We ended up finding it, and as expected, there was no line. The attraction is essentially a dark ride on a free roaming motion simulator. While the story line is interesting and all (go back in time to capture a baby dinosaur before the meteor hits and wipes everything out), we found the ride to be way too rough and way too loud.

After our ears stopped ringing, we had a short conference and decided that we’d make our way back to the Magic Kingdom and hit the big rides there. We headed towards the exit, stopping by a breakfast cart on the way out for pastries and juice. Afterwards, we walked out of the park and over to the bus stop. After waiting for several minutes, we determined that the bus directly to the Magic Kingdom would take entirely too long, and opted to take a bus to the Transportation and Ticket Center instead. From there, we took the Ferry across the lagoon to the Magic Kingdom.

After entering the park, we trucked it over to Tomorrowland and picked up a fastpass for Space Mountain. Then we headed across the park to Liberty Square and got in line for the Haunted Mansion. The boys were a little nervous that it would be too scary, but ended up loving it, especially the end where the ghost “hitchhikes” in your doom-buggy.

Next we took a run on Big Thunder Mountain, and then on to Splash Mountain. I got soaked. By then, it was time to cash in our fastpass on Space Mountain, so we did. All three mountains in 30 minutes. Cool.

Around the time we were coming out of Space Mountain, we heard on the radio from Cynthia that she and Madison were in the park, so we headed to Fantasyland to hook up with them. We found them on the teacups, taking another spin. After they finished their ride, we all walked over to Toon Town and toured Mickey Mouse’s house. Then we caught the train around the park to Frontierland for lunch. We had burgers at Pecos Bill’s.

After lunch, we went for a ride on the Jungle Cruise, a classic. Then a tour through the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse. We decided to head back to the hotel at that point, to relax and go swimming. We took a boat back to the hotel.
Swimming was nice, we spent some time in the big pool, and finished up with 15 minutes in the “little hot pool”, as Madison called it (the hot tub).

We planned that evening to head over to the Boardwalk and see what was up. It took a series of transportation maneuvers (monorail to the TTC, bus from the TTC to MGM Studios, ferryboat from MGM studios down the canal to the Boardwalk), but we finally arrived at the Boardwalk around sundown.

We walked up and down the Boardwalk, looking at the shops and looking for a place to eat, but everything was pretty busy. Turns out the Boardwalk at night is more geared towards adults, so we decided to hitch a bus over to Downtown Disney.

The first objective was dinner, so we found a little sub shop called the Earl of Sandwich. Afterwards, we walked by several of the shops, and then decided to visit DisneyQuest. Turns out our tickets for the theme parks included admission for DQ, which is essentially a five-story virtual theme park.

The neat thing is the admission to the building gets you into all the games and rides, just like at one of the regular theme parks. We took a ride on virtual Aladdin’s Carpets, where you wear helmets and ride around with 8 other people through a virtual Agrabah. Next, the boys and I did more traditional video games, while Madison tried her hand at a virtual paint game.

Next, Michael and I tried out Virtual Space Mountain, where you build your own roller coaster in the computer and then ride it in a simulator. We built a killer coaster, but it turns out I was too big to fit in the simulator so we didn’t get to ride it!

After that, we all strolled down a level or two and found a virtual Jungle Raft game. Cynthia and the kids did that one, where they all got on a raft and simulated rowing with a big screen showing them going down a river. It was a hoot!

We played several more traditional video games, and then took a turn at the Buzz Lightyear Astroblaster game. In this one, you get in what are essentially bumper cars and shoot dodgeballs at one another. I remembered that one being slightly more fun than it turned out to be, but maybe that’s because our dodgeball gun had problems shooting.

Everyone was getting a little tired by that point, so we went ahead and caught a bus back to the hotel and called it a night.