Disney Vacation - Day 4

Are you sick of hearing about our vacation yet? LOL! Sorry, but I gotta blog about all of this so that I can journal about it in my scrapbooks later! ;)

Okay, so Day 4....Animal Kingdom! We had breakfast reservations early that morning at Donald's Safari Breakfast at Tusker House Restaurant. This was so neat! This particular restaurant was in the "Africa" area of the park, and everything looked so authentic. We had a lovely, delicious breakfast (complete with Mickey shaped waffles) and got to meet and take pics with Safari Mickey, Daisy, Donald, and Goofy. By the way, if you ever go here to eat, you GOTTA try the Jungle Juice! YUMMY! We then got on the Kilimanjaro Safari Ride. Being exotic animal lovers, I knew Trisha and her family would love this! It was a really cool ride, and we saw lots of animals....giraffes, rhinos, hippos, elephants, lions, gorillas...you name it! We had a great safari guide, and this was a really fun attraction. After that, we walked through the Pangani Exploration Trails and saw some more animals. On our way to a different part of the park, we saw a guy in the streets playing a cool African beat on the bongos...so we stopped and let Aaron and Austin play along with him. So cute!

We met some characters next...King Louie and Baloo first. King Louie held Aaron like a baby monkey and rocked him back and forth...he wouldn't let go of him until the cast member said, "I'm sorry, Louie, you have to let him go." And then he shook his head "no" and rocked Aaron some more. Of course, Aaron was all smiles about this. Precious! The kids met Terk from Tarzan next. He had a cool mowhawk. Flik from A Bug's Life was next. He was SO cute! We then went to see "It's Tough to be a Bug", which is under The Tree of Life. WHOA...this tree and the carvings in it are AMAZING! Evan had to get his pic taken by the carving of his favorite dinosaur, the ankylosaurus. The bug show was a 3D show, and honestly...it was kinda scary in parts. It was hosted by Flik and showed us what it was like to be treated like a bug, complete with being fumigated and sprayed at. All of these 3D effects made it seem SO real! At one part, it got really dark and scary as they sprayed fog from a fog machine in the room, making it like we were being fumigated. Then all of a sudden, Hopper from A Bug's Life appeared, and boy was he scary looking! I could tell Aaron was about to start getting scared, so I just made light of it and told him to wave at Hopper and look how silly he was being. That worked, and no one was scared...whew, dodged that one.

Next, we met Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, and Eeyore. They were adorable! Finding Nemo: The Musical was next. Oh...my...gosh! This is a must-see for anyone going to Animal Kingdom! The props and costume designs were UNREAL! I cannot imagine the time and effort it took to get this production going. Everything was so real and life-like...and somehow, we scored seats on the third row. Excellent show...must see it if you go!

We went back to the resort after this because, once again, it was too hot to do anything else. Kids got a nap and everyone cooled off, and then we headed back to Animal Kingdom. We had gotten FastPasses to the Expedition Everest ride earlier in the day, so as soon as we got to the park, Trisha and I headed over to ride that while Van and Sam took the kids to the Boneyard playground in Dinoland. Expedition Everest was fun for me, but Trisha got a terrible case of motion sickness afterward and.....well, didn't hold her food down. I had no idea it would make her so sick, or I wouldn't have insisted that she ride that with me! I felt so bad. :( But, we did realize that we had never ridden a roller coaster together that we could remember, so this was our first...and I enjoyed it at least! LOL

The kids had fun playing in Dinoland. They even got to dig in the sand and uncover a wooly mammoth! The boys especially loved all this dinosaur stuff....poor Brooklyn.

We were getting pretty hungry by this time, so we went to Restaurantosaurus and grabbed a burger. Van and Brooklyn then left to ride Expedition Everest together. Brook was so brave and loved it! :) Once we were all together again, we went back into Dinoland and let the kids play the carnival games. Aaron won 2 stuffed bats...bats as in the animal...yeah, random, I know. Evan won a stuffed seahorse. Brook and Austin won some stuffed animals too, so it was a successful night in Dinoland! :) Van and I then took the kids to ride the Triceratops Spin. Trisha and Sam sat that one out due to the spinning.

Finally, we were done with our day at the Animal Kingdom. We missed a few attractions/shows, but we really felt like we had gotten a lot accomplished that day. We headed back to Pop Century Resort for ice cream and milkshakes before bedtime that night. :)

Please CLICK HERE for Day 4 pics from the Animal Kingdom! :)

Thanks for taking the time to read these long posts and look at our pictures. I know it seems like I am rambling on and on about all of this stuff, but I want to get it all in words before it slips my memory. This will come in handy later when I start making the scrapbook from the trip. :)