Another Day in Animal Kingdom

Well, our adventures in Animal Kingdom are sadly done, but we had a fantastic time our second day there and definitely made the most of our time in that park.  There were morning Extra Magic Hours, which meant another early morning in the park.  Instead of going to Pandora, however, we headed over to Asia to ride Expedition Everest again.  I have to say, I was surprised Bryan suggested this, as he said when we were planning our trip that there wasn't much need to repeat rides.  This time, Bryan kept his glasses on during the ride (while I told him about a million times to hold on to them because if they fell off, it would definitely ruin the rest of our trip).  This way, he could properly see the yeti at the end, and the ride as a whole.  Definitely worth it.  I'm still waiting for that photo to show up on PhotoPass, though, I may need to contact them about that soon.

Once we survived our trip to Mount Everest, we went over to Kilimanjaro Safaris to ride that again.  We cancelled our noon FastPass for it because we had so much success riding it early in the morning, we figured that would be a better call.  We saw a bunch of giraffes again, and this time, a group of them walked right alongside our jeep.  Of course, I was absolutely beside myself.  As a whole, however, this safari wasn't nearly as good as the one on Saturday though it would be hard to top that one.  That's the thing about Kilimanjaro Safaris, you never know what you're going to get, as they have no control over the animals.  We did get a better look at the baby zebra, which was pretty exciting as well.  If you want to see the baby, you have to go early in the morning, as they don't have it out all day; they're trying to slowly introduce it to the environment.

By the time we got back from our safari, the park was open for the day.  While it was crowded, it was nothing like Hollywood Studios.  I was already feeling confident that it was going to be a better day than our day at Hollywood Studios.

We had FastPasses for Festival of the Lion King for the first show of the day, so we headed over there.  Bryan asked me if it was anything like Lion King on Broadway, and I told him that the Broadway version was better.  We sat in the giraffe section, so, once again, I was absolutely thrilled.  The show was a lot of fun.  My favorite part was when they did parts from "Be Prepared", but that's because I love fire dancers, and they had one who was absolutely amazing.  My one complaint was the woman sitting behind us.  You know when parents have small children and they overreact to things to get their kids excited about it?  Yeah, that's what she was doing, but on an extreme level that was super annoying.  Someone in her group even commented how loud she was.  Everything that happened was either, "Wow!" or "Look at that!" at the top of her lungs.  It was so annoying.  Overall, however, the show was just as fun and amazing as I remembered it.  There were plenty of acrobatics and excitement.  Plus, we got to sit, although it was early in the morning, so our feet weren't too sore yet.

From Festival of the Lion King, we went to do something I'd never done before: Rafiki's Planet Watch.  To get to this part of the park, you have to take a train, you can't walk.  This is also a way to see backstage of Kilimanjaro Safaris.  We saw the buildings used to house and tend to the animals when they aren't on stage (which isn't very often).  We even saw an ostrich wander by; we hadn't seen any on either safari.  Rafiki's Planet Watch is a conservation station.  There's a petting zoo, an animal hospital with CCTV so you can see them treat animals (they were treating a porcupine when we were there) and all sorts of little critters such as bugs, lizards and frogs (along with many others).  It was a wonderful facility, and it wasn't very crowded.

The real reason we went all the way up to Rafiki's Planet Watch was to do the animation class.  It's a free class where a Disney animator teaches you how to draw a Disney animal.  Ours was Tick Tock, the crocodile from Peter Pan.  It wasn't my top choice as a drawing, but it was still a lot of fun.  You get a paper with some guide lines already drawn on the paper.  We first learned a little bit about crocodiles, focusing on the ones you can see on Kilimanjaro Safaris, and then we learned to draw him.  I have to say, this is the best thing I've ever drawn, but that's not saying a lot, as I'm a terrible artist.  Once again, this was a lot of fun and a wonderful opportunity to sit down and relax a little.

Once we finished at Rafiki's Planet Watch, we grabbed something to eat at Harambe Market.  The food was alright.  I got the rib bowl, and it was pretty greasy.  Bryan got the chicken bowl, and he seemed to enjoy his. 

After lunch, we wandered around a little bit.  We came across the Tree of Life Garden, and we decided to walk through there.  If you're looking for stunning pictures of the Tree of Life up close and personal, this is the perfect place to do so.  This is probably one of my favorite pictures of us, and it's ironic that it wasn't even taken by the PhotoPass people.  They really should have a PhotoPass person down there, but they don't for whatever reason.  Oh well, there were some people down there willing to take pictures of us.  Like I said, this was also the perfect place to really see all the animals and detail carved into the Tree of Life.  Most people, however, just keep walking and don't even give it the time of day, which is a shame.  Make sure you check it out.

From here, there were a few more characters we had yet to meet down in DinoLand, USA, so we headed down there for a little while.  There were some spots on my photo mat I had yet to fill.  At first, we just meant to meet Scrooge McDuck, but Launchpad (from DuckTales) was there too.  He typically has a separate character spot, and we didn't plan on meeting him.  We weren't going to complain if he was there.  From there, we went down to meet Donald Duck, who was all dressed up for his DinoBash that he's putting on.  This is a different theme from last time I was in Animal Kingdom 14 years ago.  Then, it was Mickey and Minnie's Dino-something, I don't remember what.  Now, however, it's Donald putting on a dinosaur themed celebration.  It's also worth noting it's because dinosaurs are related to birds.  Donald was quite proud of his celebration.  For us, however, this part of the park screamed "theme park", especially near Primeval Whirl.  There were even theme park games.  It was loud, hot and with very little shade, so we were glad to get out of there.

Next, we had our next FastPass for Finding Nemo the Musical.  Neither of us remember getting the FastPass for this, but we weren't complaining.  Since we had FastPasses, we were seated three rows back from the stage and right along the thrust part (the stage sticks out for the actors to use).  I wasn't entirely sure what to expect, and I had a little bit of a hard time getting into this show.  A lot of that stems from the fact that Finding Nemo isn't historically a musical, so it was weird seeing all of it put to song.  Additionally, it was the entire movie in just 40 movies, so it was all super rushed.  With Festival of the Lion King, however, they were simply performing highlights from the movie, not trying to do the entire movie in half an hour.  It was another great place to sit down and relax, and the costumes were absolutely amazing.  I would check it out if you haven't seen it, but I'm not sure if we would do it again.

We had one more character to meet: Goofy.  He's hidden in DinoLand, USA and isn't out all the time.  This was one of my favorite character interactions.  Goofy called me bossy, and when I told Mom, she said it must be someone I know playing him.  I simply pointed out to Goofy that when he signed our photo mat in the middle, it didn't work, so he might want to try it again.  We also talked asked Goofy about the 100 pound mallet used for the strong man competition where he was.  He tried picking it up, but it was too heavy, so he's going to try again another day.  I asked Goofy how we should pose, and this was his suggestion.  I love this pose.  You should definitely make sure to ask characters how to pose, as they might have some fun suggestions that will give you some awesome pictures such as this.

Now it was time for last and most anticipated FastPass of the day: Flight of Passage.  This ride was absolutely ridiculous, and it makes sense why people waited so long for it.  On this ride, you link up with Avatar to ride a banshee.  There's a lot of prep work before you get there, first you get directions, then you get your Avatar, then more directions before you finally get on the ride.  You ride this thing that's like a bike that you're strapped into.  You put on 3D glasses, and a giant screen appears in front of you.  You dip, tilt and move as if you're actually on the banshee, and you can feel it breathing in front of you.  It was absolutely amazing.  There were times I thought we were in trouble.  I will say one thing, they warn you a million times if you have motion sickness, you probably shouldn't ride this.  I'm super prone to motion sickness, but I toughed it out.  It got a little rough, had the ride been any longer, there would have been some problems. but I was mostly fine.

Since we were in Pandora, we ate at Satu'li Canteen, which was supposed to be amazing.  The food was pretty good, but it wasn't everything it had been hyped up to be.  The service was incredibly quick, however.  We used mobile order, and our food was ready pretty much instantly, which surprised us.

After eating, we wandered around the park a little and tried to decide if we wanted to see Rivers of Light a second time.  We ultimately decided not to, instead going back to the hotel for a much needed early night.  We pretty much crawled into bed and fell asleep instantly.  It was a long, wonderful day that made up for the problems of the day before.