We arrived at Animal Kingdom (which is pretty much across the road from where we're staying) and proceeded to our special AAA "Diamond parking," which as it turns out is NOT free, but IS very close to the entrance. Once inside, we proceeded directly to the back of the park to do the safari ride, as we'd been told to do by several people. The sign said there was a 20-minute wait, but we walked right on after snaking through the cattle shoots that must take HOURS to get through at the height of the summer tourist season. Maybe there is something to be said about visiting Disney World when it's only 50 degrees!
We LOVED the safari ride -- even the corny jokes made by the driver. We saw lots of animals, including this thing called an okapi that none of us had ever heard of. It's a member of the giraffe family, and it's built like a giraffe, but with a much shorter neck and legs. Here's the weird part: its legs are striped like a zebra! While it's odd looking, it's coloring is beautiful.We saw black rhinos, white rhinos, African elephants, flamingoes, alligators, ostriches, cheetahs, giraffes, and lots of other animals. It was really very cool. Literally.
After we got off the safari, we explored the rest of "Africa," which included a very cool walking tour where we saw a lot more animals, and then headed to "Asia." We skipped the river rapids ride as we didn't want to be cold AND wet, and went to the Maharajah Jungle Trek. This made Hubby a happy camper. We saw tigers! Not only did we see tigers, but we saw them up close and personal. One was pacing right by the window we were standing at. It was really quite amazing. We were less than a foot away from a tiger (with a rather thick pane of glass between us). After that, we got in line for Expedition Everest, a roller coaster. For this we will likely be up for parents of the year. Not!J-Mav was crying that he didn't want to go on the roller coaster before we even got in line. Keeper Boy was hanging back, too. He's not overly adventurous. The posted wait time was only about 20 minutes. It seemed much longer since Keeper Boy was sulking and J-Mav was sobbing. We basically told them that they can't go through life afraid to try new things and that they were going on the ride. J-Mav, however, was working himself into a tizzy. When we got to the front of the line they gave me a fast pass ticket so I could take J-Mav out of the ride area and then come back through to basically bypass the line after Hubby and Keeper Boy got off the ride. Keeper Boy decided he would go on, but I kind of feel like we bullied him into it. Even though we ended up not making him go on the ride, J-Mav was STILL crying when Hubby and Keeper Boy came off the ride. And at this point, so was Keeper Boy. It scared him. He didn't like the backwards and in the dark part. (I told Hubby there's no way we can tell him that Space Mountain is completely in the dark... we're just going to have the drag them on there... if my mom can ride it, so can they!) So now we had two crying kids. Like I said, parents of the year!
We assured them that was the only ride of its kind in Animal Kingdom and they both calmed down. We proceeded to DinoLand USA, which was kind of like a carnival (i.e., you bought tickets to play games and try to win big stuffed animals). We kept going. We paid enough for the tickets into the park itself, thank you very much. There was a cool playground type thing there called the Boneyard. Climbing nets, slides, that sort of thing. The boys played for about 20 minutes and then we moved on. There was a character area where Pooh, Eyore, and Tigger were holding court, so we went and got in line (which was amazingly short). While there, we realized we didn't have Keeper Boy's camera bag. Hubby and Keeper Boy RAN back to the Boneyard while J-Mav and I kept our spots in the character line. Luckily, the bag was right where we'd left it. Crisis averted. We got our pictures taken with Pooh, Eyore, AND Tigger. Fun! Oh, and Tigger kissed me. :-)
From there, we headed into the Discovery Island area. We wanted to see the show, It's Tough to be a Bug! It's a 3-D show based on A Bug's Life. J-Mav didn't like the 3-D aspect of it, and when the termite "spit" and we got drops of water on us, he was done. He cried through the rest of it. Luckily, the show was only 8.5 minutes long. It took almost that long outside for Hubby to convince J-Mav that nothing we just saw was real, and it was not scary!
After that, we got through the rest of the day without incident. We walked around the amazing Tree of Life (a giant "tree" with more than 300 animals carved into its trunk) looking for all the different animals. And then we sat down to wait for the 4pm parade to start. While we were sitting there, we decided that we wanted to do the safari ride again, so we headed toward the safari and ended up watching the parade from the bridge connecting Discovery Island to Africa. All the characters in the parade came up and hugged J-Mav and Keeper Boy or gave them high fives. It was cool. Immediately after the parade was over, we went to the safari ride and, again, almost walked right on. I think we waited less than five minutes. This time we were able to see the lion! He wasn't out this morning. We also had to wait while two very large white rhinos got out of the road and let us pass at one point. Talk about a situation that could turn bad quickly if something pissed them off! It was great, and we all decided that the safari ride was our favorite part of the park.
Surprisingly, we didn't go into ANY of the three zillion stores and shops that are strategically positioned around the park. Even more surprisingly, I never heard J-Mav or Keeper Boy even ask to go into any of the stores! That's a nice day in and of itself!
We LOVED Animal Kingdom. While we can see why people who love, say, Great Adventure and those types of high-thrill theme parks wouldn't like it, it was great for us. The boys both like animals and both dislike thrill rides. Perfect. I'm wondering if they'll actually like Magic Kingdom when we get there. We'll have to wait and see.
On tap for tomorrow is a character breakfast at Chef Mickey's (in the Contemporary Resort) and then EPCOT. Oh, and winter coats once again.
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