Banana Ball – Party Animals vs Coconuts Orlando & All 4 Disney Parks

Travel

Things got off to a slow and stressful start when I dropped my car off at Valet, the driver took my bag and then while I was checking in… drove off with it. I told the driver that took me to please call the other driver and then had to wait for him to loop back around again. I guess he took it, realized his bus was full and I wouldn’t fit, and then got too caught up in everything to take it off. Fortunately it wasn’t too long of a wait and I was able to check it and get in a wheelchair and then… wait… for a pusher to show up. This was when I was starting to get nervous but we made it with about 20 minutes to spare which is much less than my usual hour+ waiting at the gate.

The flight was fine and I was hoping to sleep as much as I could after waking up at 2am to get to the airport and then taking the 5:20am flight to land at 8, but I wasn’t able to sleep much at all. I then waited at baggage claim for my friend to meet us and we took a Lyft to Saratoga Springs. I guess my friend had been trying to get an accessible room since we had booked without much luck so we had to ask and then we spent some time waiting for them to confirm one. Then once we got there it was a tub so we needed a shower chair and calling bell services said they didn’t have one at all even though at check in we were told we could get one? Finally we tracked everything we needed down and headed out to Magic Kingdom.

Magic Kingdom

We had to wait for a couple rounds of buses to get one that had room for a scooter, but finally we made our way in and then immediately went to Be Our Guest for lunch. It is fixed price menu with an appetizer, entree and dessert. I ordered Escargot, Chicken and a Blooming Rose (filled with ‘The Grey Stuff’). Beast came around to wave twice while we were eating, though he wasn’t taking photos with anyone you could take photos of him. We then waited to ride Haunted Mansion which the outside is just a fancy zoom background while it’s being refurbished, did the Country Bear Jamboree, the Enchanted Tiki Room and then made our way to our reservations for Beak and Barrel. For some reason I said we should go into a store and while we were in there waiting it started to rain. I opted to try the Cursed Treasure drink. We were going to miss the 3pm parade because of our reservation time, but once we exited it was absolutely pouring so we are not sure if the parade even ended up happening. At this time we decided it was best to head back to the hotel and maybe get a nap in if we wanted to make it to the 9pm parade at Magic Kingdom.

After a refresh and naps we got back to Magic Kingdom around 8:30pm and immediately took a spot for the parade. We were right at the start of it. Then there was an announcement that it had been delayed. While we were waiting, we saw across from us the sky go orange. It looked like a beautiful sunset – but it was 9pm. Nobody knew what it was until later when we realized that the Blue Origin rocket explosion happened just after 9pm and that is what lit the sky up orange.

Shortly after 9 the Disney Starlight: Dream the Night Away parade began and was really cool! We saw Bruno, Elsa, some princesses and their princes, Coco, Moana, Tink, Peter Pan and Wendy, the Fab 5, Snow White and Dopey, Rapunzel and Flynn, Jasmine and Aladdin, and probably a few more I missed naming! Then we headed into the shops before riding Carousel of Progress and then doing Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin. We checked on TRON but the line was too long so we headed back to get some sleep.

EPCOT

Day 2 we decided to do a half day in EPCOT. We started by going to GEO82 to eat. It is pricy, but very good and the drinks are very strong and you have a nice view above the park to people watch. We shared a Charcuterie board and a Mushroom flatbread. I got the Brulee Banana Highball for my drink which is Whisky, Sherry, Banana, Coffee, Cacao and Bubbles. We rode Figment, checked out the Butterfly garden, went and got a chocolate mousse terrarium (an adult dirt cup), went through Moana and then decided it was far too hot to do anything else and tried to get a Minnie Van to ESPN for the game. It kept saying “limited availability” and we had no luck, so we went back to the resort to swap the scooter out for Toaster (walker) only for a Minnie Van to pop up as available. On the ride there we found out that the ENTIRE RESORT only currently had 2 accessible vans and that the cut off time was midnight so we had to be careful what we ended up doing to not turn into a pumpkin.

Game #1

We arrived at ESPN, found my friend and it was drizzling. Then they told us to get inside and there was a complete downpour. They ended up moving the stage show into an inside area and having the Party Animals in there signing and taking photos until we got the all clear it was ok to go outside. When we opted to go outside and get in line for merch, there was a rainbow! And then it rained a little bit more and gates and the game ended up being delayed about an hour.

The game started off with a Fan Out on the first batter, Andy Cosgrove. We knew with that, we were in for something special this weekend! The Coconuts took a lead in the 1st, but the Party Animals tied it up in the 2nd with a 3-run inning. The Party Animals took the lead in the 6th after 3 straight singles. Both teams scored 1 run in the 7th giving no one the inning, TJ Reeves had a Home Run in the 8th but it was not enough as the Coconuts tied the game up in the 8th with a 2 RBI Ball 4 Sprint. Tanner Thomas had a home run in the top of the 9th to give the Party Animals a lead once more, but after 3 ball 4 sprints Ashby Vining was victorious in a 2 run walk off to end the game and have the comeback coconuts win it 4-3.

We also got a Kaden Bowler surfboard walk up with none other than Stitch and Mickey and Minnie came out for Hey Baby! (And Minnie somehow started to lose an ear?)

With all the delays and the Minnie Van wait times I said I would only say hi to 1 player and then we could go get a ride and make sure we didn’t turn into a pumpkin (as we had no plan B if we did miss the vans.) The chosen player was Telly and everyone ended up getting photos with him.

Animal Kingdom

Our 3rd park was Animal Kingdom, we had gotten Lightning Lanes and were able to do the Na’vi River Journey – I hadn’t made my way to the Avatar area at all before so that was cool to see something new. We then had lunch at Tiffins where an ambulance almost needed to be called due to a scooter related incident that I had no part in. We then headed over to Kilimanjaro Safaris, which is one of my favorite rides at AK – but I had never been in the back of the truck before and I should have taken motion sickness meds much earlier before we got on. Whew. The animals seemed way more active than they had been any other time I had ridden and we saw hippos, alligators, giraffes (that crossed in front of the bus so we had to stop and wait for them), zebras, elephants (that were really, really close to the bus), bunnies, rhinos, lions and goats! We then went through looking for gorillas but first had to stop at the meerkats and I had to take 92480932 photos of them. Our last Lightning Lane was the Zootopia: Better Zoogether 4D show. After that we had purposely decided to leave earlier to try and meet the players before the game started – but bumped into Rafiki instead! Then again at 3pm the Minnie Vans were showing “Limited Availability”. We went to try and catch the resort bus seeing if that might be easier again than getting one from the park, only for it to be full so we’d have to wait for the next one. While we were waiting, I managed to snag one arriving in 17 minutes so we made our way back to the Minnie Van area only for there to be a traffic jam because one of the groups who called one didn’t show up for quite some time and no one else could make their way through. We didn’t end up making it in time to see any of the players pregame, but with the Minnie Vans running until 2am we would have some time post game until we turned into pumpkins.

Game #2

When we arrived at the game, I checked in with the K-Club who was doing a “pin trading” event. We got a Wide World of Banana Ball starter pin, a message in a bottle and a betta fish (plastic). There were 4 locations where we could trade our fish for a different pin. I had initially wanted the Ashton and Denae pin, but the time was already passed by the time I made it through the line. I ended up getting Ashby & Andy – but saw some others with all 4 pins when we were leaving so I am not sure how they managed to do that, but I wish I had known to try it too! [The other two were Peter & Coco and Pharty]

No runs were scored this game until the 4th – but both teams scored 3 so no points were awarded. Coconuts ended up scoring the first point in the 5th and the Party Animals struck back in the 6th to tie it up with the help of (another) TJ Reeves Home Run. The 7th inning the Party Animals ended up taking the lead, Reece Hampton had an RBI Ball 4 Sprint and Jake Skole had a home run. Telly came in to pitch the bottom of the 7th and got TWO fan outs on BACK TO BACK pitches. I have never seen anything like that before and the Coconuts didn’t end up scoring. In the 8th the Party Animals scored unanswered again, making the score 3-1 but they also got the equalizer point making it 4-1. (I think that may have been the first time the Coconuts ever gave up the equalizer point?) Quick 1, 2, 3s for the top and bottom of the 9th and the Party Animals won 4-1. Also of note, Noah Fisher did an Aly & AJ walk-up to Potential Break Up Song (IYKYK) and Dalton Ponce’s outfield dance was to BOY THROB! I had no idea what it could be when they all started putting on pink jumpsuits because my mind was thinking ‘Disney’, but I freaked out when I realized it was boy throb.

Minnie Vans were running until 2am so we were able to hang out and bug a bunch of the players and get some photos. (Even my friend who never does photos with the players and just acts as my photographer took some!) We were the last ones in the parking lot waiting for the Minnie Van to come and even had one of the ESPN staffers check on us – but the ride was 8 minutes away at that point.

Hollywood Studios

Our final park before heading to the airport was Hollywood Studios. We had purchased Lightning Lane for Minnie and Mickey’s runaway railway, Alien Swirling Saucers and Tower of Terror. However the scooter started acting up as soon as we left the resort. We met up with some friends who were at the park and decided to go ride Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway – only for my scooter to not even be able to get up the tiny little incline to get inside the building. We called Scooter Bug that we had rented from who made us do all this troubleshooting when we were in line and then told us to plug it in while we rode the ride to see if the charger was bad (that was my best guess). We asked the cast members if we could get it plugged in while we rode only to come back after our first ride and be told things got hectic and they were unable to get it plugged in and would we like to go again? The kids in the car with us had wanted to go again and yelled it was the “BEST DAY EVER!” which was really cute. Things didn’t seem to improve so we made lunch reservations to try and charge it for longer. We called Scooter Bug again to say the charging made no difference and were told the only way we could get a new one was if we went back to the resort to swap it out. That would waste the rest of our day, so we took our chances. We had some nice guys help us out in various areas of the park and charged it for an hour while we ate at 50s Prime Time Cafe. (And cleaned our plates!) After that we hit up a couple shops looking for Muppets stickers and ended up heading back to the bus hoping the thing wouldn’t completely die. It was going as slow as humanly possible so my friend pushed me out of the park, I had to be dragged on and off the bus and then pushed up a massive hill at the resort where we just left it for the resort to deal with. It made for a bummer of our last day as we had a lot of things we planned to do at Hollywood Studios and couldn’t get to do any of them. (And extra annoying – one of my scrapbook pages had a deal for a Hollywood Studios inspired scrapbook kit – but I have approximately 1 photo from the park.)

Travel

Once we got back to the resort we hung in the lobby and I watched some of Clowns vs Bananas on YouTube. We got to the airport, attempted to check in at the wrong area, found the right area, got a wheelchair, got to the gate with plenty of time to spare. Apparently the boards were saying we were delayed and there were announcements that the gate had changed – to the gate I was at – 3 different times. In the end we took off with a completely full flight and I fell asleep before we even took off. When we landed I had to wait a bit for my suitcase and then had to wait for 3 valet shuttles – mostly because I had to drag my stuff plus Toaster and everyone else just shimmied their way in front of me. Toaster also decided it would be a fun time to roll away and down the curb while I was trying to get out of the wheelchair and get situated which resulted in me yelling “nooo” and hobbling behind it while a kind woman told me to not worry she would grab it for me. At least there are still some nice people! The drive home was fine despite the fact that there was a lot of rain and I made it home at 1am, took until about 2am to finally fall asleep and then did a full work day on Monday! Some day I am going to realize I am too old to keep doing this to myself, but today is not that day.