Disney's Animal Kingdom

For our first full day at Disney, we chose to go to Animal Kingdom. A little background first - DH grew up in Florida. He used to take dates to Disney World. (Must be nice, huh?) He's taken me to Disney a few times. He knows the Magic Kingdom, he knows Epcot, he's even slightly familiar with Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM), but he's never been to Animal Kingdom, none of us have been there. So we chose Animal Kingdom for our first day. (We also chose it because it closes at 5 and Magic Kingdom had extra magic hours that night so we planned on Park Hopping).

Our plan for "attacking" the theme parks was to enjoy the here and now. We weren't going to kill ourselves trying to see everything and do everything. We wanted to enjoy the experience and create memories that didn't involve screaming parents and whining kids. Well, that was the plan anyway.

We started the day by experiencing the mass confusion of a way too busy food court at our value resort. This helped to result in a late departure for the park. Outside of the gates we found several characters waiting to sign autographs. My girls are really into this, so we stood in line and got autographs from Pluto, Meeko and Timon. Then we actually made it into the park.

We grabbed maps and decided to head to "Africa" because we really wanted to do the safari ride. We looked at some animals and took a few pictures along the way. Youngest DD found some mouse ears that she wanted (how did she know we would be willing to buy souvenirs?) We finally reached Africa and got fastpasses. We decided to take the train ride to Rafiki's Planet Watch to kill some time. We didn't know it stopped and you get off. We wandered around the conservation area, the kids did a child activity on bugs, got more autographs (Rafiki and Jiminy Cricket), saw a talking recycling can (the yellow thing in the photo) and rode the train back to Africa.

Then it decided to rain. Actually rain in Florida means sudden downpour - run for cover. We ducked into the FastPass line and hoped it would stop before we got on the ride. It did stop and we enjoyed our safari ride. We got to see the baby elephant who's now about 3 months old.

We were all hungry for lunch by the time the ride ended, so we headed for the nearest Quick Service lunch. There I found that not all places offer a separate child's menu, and all available desserts contain artificials. We got burgers, chips and Cokes. We retired to some tables near the back of the seating area. During lunch we realized that we were right next to an autograph signing area. The girls got in line and got autographs from Baloo and King Louie. We also found that we were right next to the "break room" for Baloo and King Louie. They passed right by our table when they left to take their break.

When they came out again (yes, we were still eating). Baloo walked up and smothered DS in a big bear hug. Then Baloo reached out and swiped DS's chips. This began quite a time of hilarity as the cast member scolded Baloo, he returned the chips, tried to swipe them again, turned around and begged us for chips after every autograph signing, youngest DD gave him her chips which he then hid in King Louie's mouth, then on a shelf out of sight of the cast member. . . I guess you had to be there. Youngest DD got very excited about every Baloo we ran into after that.

We wandered over to "Asia" after lunch. We banged on some drums. DH lost his sun glasses and went back to search for them. We had to search for a bathroom. Wandered probably isn't the word I'm looking for - meandered is more like it. We walked through the Maharajah Jungle Trek, taking a lot of time looking at the tigers. At the very end of the Trek was a bird aviary - I told DH we'd walk through it in 2 minutes. It was 20 minutes later before we got out of there.

Youngest DD saw a brightly colored bird - the golden pheasant - she asked why it was so colorful. "Well, in the bird world," a young guide told us (at this point he touched oldest DD on the shoulder), "You might want to take note of this. In the bird world it's up to the male bird to impress the female." He spent the next 20 minutes giving oldest DD a personal tour, showing her every bird possible, and in general, trying to impress her. We later dubbed him a red-breasted Floridian and teased oldest DD for the rest of the week.

Our final stop in Animal Kingdom was Expedition Everest. Youngest DD LOVED it! Oldest DD, middle DD and I didn't go on it at all. I took pictures of probably 10 coasters to make sure I got them, then they called on the cell phone, they were just getting on! I did manage to get their coaster in one of the next four pictures. That ended our day at Animal Kingdom. We headed out for dinner after that, and I think I'll save that for another post.