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.

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Taking a Walk on the Wild Side: A Day in Animal Kingdom

Wow are we exhausted.  After an insanely late night last night, we had an equally early morning this morning.  Our first day at Disney World involved going to Animal Kingdom, which has Extra Magic Hours on Saturdays, which means those staying on property (like us) can get in an hour early.  Since we have FastPasses for Flight of Passage for Monday afternoon but weren't able to get one for Na'vi River Journey, we saw this as our opportunity to ride Na'vi River Journey.  Most people, however, opted to head for Flight of Passage, and when I say "head", I mean run.  I had heard about this happening, but I didn't think it was actually true.  Unfortunately, it was.  By the time the park opened, there was already a 2 hour wait for the ride.

I have to say, I understand why people are a little bit on the fence about Na'vi River Journey.  It was a beautiful ride, and the technology was impressive, especially when it came to the Shaman, but it was little more than a boat ride.  My favorite parts (other than the Shaman) were the tree spirits floating all around you, and the bioluminescent plants under the water.  It's the little touches like that that really makes Disney stand out about the rest.  Bryan and I both agreed that we wouldn't spend more than 20, maybe 30 minutes waiting for that ride, so we were glad we were pretty much able to walk right on.  Towards the end of the day, there was over an hour and a half wait.  If it were the end of the day, or we needed a break, it would have also been a wonderful opportunity for us to just sit down and take a break.  Since it was our first ride, we were wide awake, well rested, and our feet didn't hurt at all.  I still liked it, but it's not something either or us are beating down the door to ride again.

After Na'vi River Journey, we decided to trek all the way across the park to Kilimanjaro Safaris.  The line was super short, and I'd heard the animals were much more awake in the mornings.  It didn't matter to us that we had a FastPass for it for Monday.  So, we walked all the way across the park, and we're both so glad we did!  I've been on that ride three times now, and that was probably the best safari I've done.  The amount of animals we saw was absolutely amazing.  I'm also incredibly glad I had my actual camera with me, as I was able to take some stunning pictures.

All of the giraffes seemed to be out and eating, which I, of course, absolutely loved.  They were all over the place, and, at one point, some of them were just wandering around in the road, so we got to stop (our driver said that we weren't going to be able to stop on this part of the ride, but she would drive as slowly as possible so we could see as much as we could).  I, of course, was absolutely beside myself, as I wanted to see as many giraffes as humanly possible.  There were probably eight or nine out, all gathered together.  Not only that, the painted dogs were up and playing with each other, which was awesome.  Even though they're wild dogs, they reminded me of Molly and Baxter.  It was hard for me to reconcile with the fact that these wild dogs are related to my spoiled, lazy dogs.  We always tease Baxter when we see the commercial for Blue Buffalo dog food, because it says inside every dog is the heart of a wolf, and we ask Baxter if that's the same for him, because that's super hard to believe.  What was really exciting was the fact that the lions were still awake and still somewhat active.  I ended up getting some great shots of the male as he wandered around, just hanging out a little bit before bed.  Usually when I see them on the safari (or even at the zoo), they're fast asleep, and the only movement I see is from one sleeping position to another.

After our wildly successful safari (no pun intended), we were supposed to have FastPasses for Dinosaur.  But, oh darn, the ride was closed.  There were absolutely no complaints on my part about that, as that's the ride I'd been looking forward to the least.  Instead, we wandered around and opted for some character meet and greets instead.  We started with Dug and Russell from Up! Even though I'm not a big fan of the movie, it was a blast seeing them.  Russell showed off the Wilderness Explorer badges he's the proudest of, and Dug showed me his favorite spot to be scratched (for future reference, it's his nose).  It was a lot of fun, even though Bryan's not that big into meeting characters.

After meeting Dug and Russell, we discovered Dinosaur was back up and running, and since they'd had to cancel our FastPass for it before, they gave us a generic FastPass to be used on select rides, including Dinosaur, so we decided to use it for that.

On our way over to Dinosaur, we ran into the Rafiki and Timon meet and greet, so we stopped there.  It was definitely a longer wait that Dug and Russell, but Rafiki and Timon were a lot of fun.  This is one of my favorite pictures from yesterday,  Timon took Bryan's hat and decided to give it a try himself.  They were a blast, and they really took their time with us.  They talked about the dinosaurs on our shirts, we asked about Pumbaa, and we overall had a wonderful time with them.

Once we were done, I knew we couldn't delay it any longer, and we had to head over to Dinosaur.  This was the ride Bryan really wanted to ride, so we were going to ride it because he agreed to this trip in the first place.

As you can see, I'm plugging my ears.  I hate loud noises, and I bought earplugs just for this ride, but I couldn't find them.  This caused me to panic, but I was going to power through it, and we were going to do it.  The ride was super bumpy and a little weird.  Some of the dinosaurs looked pretty realistic, while others looked a little hokey (such as the one eating another dinosaur).  The part that made me scream is really funny and absolutely pathetic.  It wasn't the giant dinosaur trying to attack us, it was the flashing light from the camera.  I know, that's so pathetic, but it's true.  Oh well, I survived, so it doesn't matter.

On our way out of Dinosaur, we ran into Pluto, so we stopped to say hi to him.  Bryan pointed out that an overwhelming majority of the characters in Animal Kingdom are collected in Dinoland, USA.  There are some scattered other places throughout the park, but most of them are all over.  After meeting Pluto, we headed over to meet Chip and Dale.  I was looking forward to meeting them, as they're so adorable and  fun, especially in their little dinosaur costumes.  I mean, how can you not love those outfits!?  As expected, they were extremely goofy and silly.  We talked about how Bryan loves dinosaurs and even has a stegosaurus onesie, just like Chip.  Of course Chip loved this, and he had to show off his onesie to us.  I was surprised, though, because they weren't as flirty as I remember them being, but there are going to be plenty of other opportunities to meet them throughout the parks.

After some time in Dinoland, USA, we went to Flametree BBQ for something to eat.  I'd really been looking forward to the french fries with BBQ pork and cheese on top, and they were well worth it.  I'm even thinking of getting them again when we go back on Monday.

Afterwards, we went and met Pocahontas, but there was a wonderful surprise there.  As we got in line, we turned around, and Meeko was standing in line behind us.  This was a fantastic treat, as Meeko doesn't usually come out.  He's not a super rare character, but he's not around very often either.  Of course, he wanted to know what was in our backpack, wondering if there were any treats (we might have lied and told him there weren't any even though we did have some).  I also talked to Pocahontas, telling her I use her lesson to John Smith about how the Powhatans are fully capable of using the land on their own without the English help in my classroom (which is true).  She was incredibly happy and proud to hear that, and said it's important that we remember to respect the land.  This wasn't a PhotoPass location, so a cast member used my phone to take the photos, but they're gorgeous.  Some of them have this awesome rainbow going across them, almost like the colors of the wind.

From there, we headed over to Expedition Everest for our second FastPass of the day, and it was a blast!  It's definitely one of our favorite things we did yesterday.  The rollercoaster was thrilling and exciting, and the yeti was absolutely terrifying.  Unfortunately, Bryan wasn't wearing his glasses, so he couldn't see the yeti, but he still loved the ride. 

Then, we headed down to Pandora to explore a little bit more.  We took some wonderful photos, saw a banshee fly above us (okay, it was a magic shot), and headed to Pongu Pongu for a night blossom.  We opted for the rum version of course.  Unfortunately, Bryan spilled his, so we split mine.  Even though it wasn't very hot, it was still a delicious, refreshing drink.

Once we finished eating, it was time for our next FastPass where we got to meet the man, or rather mouse, in charge himself.  Right now, this spot in Animal Kingdom is the only place you can meet Mickey and Minnie together.  They were delightful hosts, and Minnie absolutely loved my polka dot nails and little Mickey decals.  We suggested she go get her nails done to match, and she was excited about that.  It was perfect having a FastPass for them, as there was an hour wait otherwise, which would have been insane.  We waited about fifteen minutes, if that.

After meeting Mickey and Minnie, it was about three o'clock, so we decided to get Bryan some coffee.  When we stopped at Creature Comforts that morning, I saw this cupcake, but I knew it was too early to get it, so I got it this time around.  This was the best cupcake I've ever had in my life.  It's the Valentine's Day one, so it's only there for a little while longer.  It's a chocolate cupcake with strawberry icing, little strawberry and chocolate crunchies on top and a chocolate covered strawberry.  Since I felt bad, I gave Bryan the smallest bite, but only a little one.  I could eat that cupcake every day for the rest of my life, which is saying a lot, because, honestly, I don't actually like chocolate cake.  This, however, was rich, and didn't have that weird chocolate cake taste that I usually don't like.

At this point, we wandered around a little, and Bryan bought a new hat.  I love that the first non-food related purchase of this trip came from him.  As much as he loves that fedora he wears, it's also made of wool and acrylic, so he was dying.  We found him a nice, lightweight hat that he'll probably end up wearing for the rest of our trip.

From there, we went to Yak and Yeti for our Valentine's Day dinner.  The food was delicious.  We got the dim sum basket, and then I just got pot stickers for dinner since they were so amazing in the dim sum basket.  Bryan got some sort of chicken wok, which he said was amazing too.  We then wandered around Pandora at night.  I discovered night mode on my camera, which, along with a little bit of editing once the pictures were taken, allowed for some stunning pictures like this one.  It really helped to capture the stunning lights all around Pandora.  I know it's just black lights, but still, it was gorgeous.

We ended our night with seeing Rivers of Light, the Animal Kingdom night show.  This was completely new to me, as there was no night show when we were here last time.  Since there are animals in the park, they don't use fireworks.  Instead, they use fountains of light, but it was easy to imagine what it would have looked like with fireworks. The show focused on the animals from Disney movies, along with animals in the wild, and how we should all work together as one global community.  We greatly enjoyed it, and it was one of our favorite things that day, along with Expedition Everest.  This is even though a few minutes into the show, they had to stop and restart due to technical issues, but everything was back up and running within five minutes, so it wasn't that bad.

Back at the hotel, we got a bottle of wine and some more cupcakes.  I saw this one on a Facebook group, and I desperately wanted to try it.  It's a vanilla cupcake with orange filling and strawberry icing on top.  Unlike the cupcake from earlier that day, this icing was super sweet.  It was a good cupcake, but it was easily overshadowed by the cupcake from Creature Comforts.  Bryan got a chocolate cupcake with peanut butter filling.  He said it was pretty good.  We split a bottle of wine, then we decided to call it a night around 11.  Overall, it was a wonderful first day in Disney World, and we have 7 more days to go!

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