Hey, just so you know ... this post is now about 5 years and 7 months old. Please keep that in mind as it very well may contain broken links and/or outdated information.

We’re taking it easy this weekend, so no getting up early to do any Extra Magic Hours. After waking up around 9:30am, we walked over to the French Quarter to pick up fresh beignets for breakfast.

At 11:30am we were getting off the bus at Animal Kingdom when my daughter announced she had forgotten her MagicBand back at the hotel! Rather than having to bus back, we went to guest services at the front of the park to inquire if we could get her a replacement. The cast member (Ryan) informed us that our Passholder card was also actually a valid park ticket! We’re so used to the MagicBands we had completely forgotten the “old school” plastic credit card-like ticket (which luckily we had with us). It did turn out that my daughter’s name was incorrect on the ticket (we had never used it so never noticed) so Ryan corrected that and also gave us each two “generic” FastPasses good for any attraction in the park (except Avatar: Flight of Passage, of course). Nice!

Ryan warned us to use the general FastPasses outside of the time ranges of our existing scheduled FastPasses (as his would take priority) so we walked to the back of the park to use our FP for Everest. We got to ride in the last car, which means technically we were in the “front’ car for the backwards portion of the coaster. After that, we decided to use one of the generic FastPasses for the Festival of the Lion King. While we were waiting in line, it suddenly started pouring outside. Luckily the queue was covered and by the time the show was over the rain had stopped so we didn’t get wet at all (perfect timing!). The sun was back out and it had cooled down nicely just in time for our safari FastPass. We were in the last row of the truck, which gave us some cool unobstructed views out the back. A lot of the animals were up walking, as opposed to lying down as we normally see them, which we attributed to the rain and cooler temperature, so that was a nice benefit. It turned overcast again but the rain was holding off as we used our last (scheduled) FastPass for Avatar: Flight of Passage and the last generic one for Dinosaur!

The Food & Wine Festival beckoned so we took the bus over to Epcot for a late-afternoon lunch around 4:00pm. As we were working our way around the World Showcase the rain started again. It wasn’t a heavy rain like earlier in the day so we were able to get away with just our small umbrellas as we sampled the available food and beers. On the way over from Animal Kingdom, my daughter had managed to get us FastPasses for Test Track, but it was shut down during the rain. Once the rain tapered off, however, it resumed operation just in time for us to ride it with a minimal wait. Timing was everything today, apparently, as shortly after we got off the ride it started raining again and shut down. We were about to head back around the World Showcase for more snacks when my wife realized she didn’t have her iPhone! We went back into Test Track and spoke with cast members at the different lost-and-found areas but no one had seen it and no one had turned it in. According to Find My iPhone it was still in the building so from my iPhone I turned on lost mode and set the message with my mobile number. At this point there was nothing else we could do about it so we took another loop around the World Showcase. About half an hour later, my phone rang and the caller ID was my wife’s phone! The gentleman on the line explained his son had found the phone on Test Track and he was going to turn it in to Guest Services. We made our way back to the front of the park and were able to retrieve my wife’s phone (which also had her ID and credit card attached to it!). Unfortunately we weren’t able to reward the boy who found it, but hopefully their good citizen karma was paid forward somehow.

During the hunt for the lost phone my daughter decided she was finally ready to go on the Haunted Mansion over at Magic Kingdom with her eyes open, as long as I would agree to buy her a souvenir afterwards. I accepted the deal (after some additional negotiations) and she got us FastPasses for 9:30pm. We took the monorail from Epcot over to the Ticket & Transportation Center (during which we could see some of the fireworks show) and then rode the second monorail over to the Magic Kingdom. Since we were coming from Epcot and already behind the security/bag check, we didn’t have to go through it again, which was nice. Since the big Happily Ever After fireworks show had just ended, we were like salmon swimming upstream against the river of people leaving the park as we tried to get up Main Street USA. We stayed in the center of the park to watch the Once Upon a Time castle projection show and then headed back to the Haunted Mansion. My daughter hated it but kept her part of the deal.

Yesterday was a late night so we decided to go back to the hotel via bus and were back in our room by 10:45pm.