WDW Day 3

Originally we planned to spend this whole day at Animal Kingdom, but before going to bed the night before we realized that Monday was "Extra Magic Hours" morning for AK, meaning everyone staying in the Disney resorts would be crammed into the park at 8 a.m. for that extra hour and it would be crowded. So we decided to take our chances, and the possibility of bigger local crowds for the holiday, at another park that morning. We didn't tell the girls about our change of plans.

We got up on time and walked down to the boat launch, but then realized the boats don't start until 8:30 a.m. so we walked around to the bus stop, but apparently had missed the most recent boat. The buses going to Animal Kingdom came every 3-5 minutes and were full, reinforcing to us that we made the right decision. We also knew this would be our last "warm" day in Florida, since a massive cold front was heading down.

The girls were very surprised when the bus pulled up at Magic Kingdom! We even made it before the opening show. One of the cast members went around giving the children a handful of sparkly confetti "Pixie Dust" for the show. The Mayor of Main Street welcomed everyone and the actor sang and danced, then the train roared into the station loaded with Disney Characters.

We counted down the opening of the park and threw the confetti up before joining the crowd going in.

Walking down Main Street, you can see the castle before you and it's really spectacular. To go into any of the lands: Fantasyland, Adventureland, Tomorrowland, Liberty Square, etc. you have to pass the Castle. A lot of people stop there first and take photos and look around.

We knew exactly where we were headed: Fantasyland and Peter Pan's Flight. We rode it twice without any line at all. (Later this ride had a 90 minute wait.) Then we went across the street to It's a Small World, where the girls said "Mom, take a picture of that!" non-stop. (Yes, I have a lot of photos of the Small World ride.) Then we went to ride the Tea cups, poor Bryan.

We had a short amount of time before the park filled up, so we hopped on the Indy Speedway. Cameron drove with me and loved it. Bryan and Brenna rode together.

Indy Speedway led us into Tomorrowland where we saw the Monsters, Inc. floor show. We all loved it. The premise is that laughter is more powerful than screams, so Mike Wasowski has to make us laugh and they interact with the audience, similar to Turtle Talk with Crush. The animation picks people out of the audience and picks on them. A cast member goes around with a microphone so you can "talk" to the Monsters.

Then we rode the Buzz Lightyear blaster ride, but it was not as much fun as the Midway Mania. Coming out of that we ran into Stitch! Brenna was a little afraid of him, but Bryan triple dog-dared her to give him a hug.

And she did! I think this day we also rode the Snow White Scary Adventures, but I can't remember now the exact order.

Now that it was after 11 a.m. we decided to grab some lunch on Main Street at Caseys (1900 style baseball, hot dogs) and head over to Animal Kingdom, figuring that the morning crowds would be thinning a bit.

To get there we rode the monorail in the front car over to the TTC and then took a bus.

Right outside the park, Cameron met with four characters. Brenna feigned indifference, but she was really a little bit afraid of them.

I can't honestly say that I blamed her. That Governor from Pocohantas would scare someone very easily! This park is laid out similar to Magic Kingdom except instead of a castle they have the Tree of Life.

Our first order of business inside AK was to race to Africa and obtain a Fast Pass for the Kili manjaro Safari ride. Once accomplished, we walked through the Pangani Forest Exploration trail. This is where we were when Lisa called to tell us that President Bush officially commuted the sentence for Ramos and Compean. My favorite part of the trail was the gorilla. I always liked the gorilla in the Houston Zoo, who died about 4 years ago.

Next we headed into Camp Minnie-Mickey to see the Pocohantas show. Unfortunately, after all our walking we found out they cancelled the show a few weeks (months?) ago and haven't decided what to do with the theater. Still, we were pleasantly surprised to meet Pocohantas.

I think we headed over to the Dino-Land section next and were able to pick up a Fast Pass for the Dinosaur ride. (Fast Pass allows you to pick up another Fast Pass about an hour to two hours after the first, even if you haven't ridden the other ride yet.) I'm not sure exactly WHY Cameron wanted to ride the Dinosaur ride, but we all got FP for it.

Finally it was time for our Kilimanjaro Safari, one of the most popular rides at Animal Kingdom (after the roller coaster). Your safari truck bounces along the dirt path observing a wide variety of African animals. We saw elephants, giraffes, rhinos, ostrich, lion, crocodiles, flamingos, okapis, warthog, and wildebeests.

I don't remember if we did something else between the Safari and the Dinosaur ride, but the next photo is from the ride. The premise is that you go to a dinosaur museum that sends you back in time to see living dinosaurs and something goes terribly wrong. Think Jurassic Park. I hated this ride as clearly evidenced by the photo.

We're in the second row. On the right you can see Bryan looking mildly impressed at the T-Rex roaring, Cameron is under his arm, holding her ears but still peeking out and looking. Brenna and I are completely bent over. I have my hands over her ears and am saying, "Don't Look! Don't Look!" (to her or myself??) Not that it mattered, because we didn't LOOK again for the rest of the ride. It was super loud, jerky, and there was that breeze they do to imply things moving around you and Bryan said the dinosaurs were really impressive and quite scary. Cameron loved it.

The Animal Kingdom parade started at 4 p.m. and we had dinner reservations at 4:30, so we picked a good spot near the restaurant where we could watch the parade. The girls whined and complained about having to wait for the parade and I realized they have never seen a parade in person.

Once the parade started they really enjoyed it and Brenna loved it. She jumped up and down, waving and giving high-fives to the characters who danced down the street. After the parade, we went to dinner at the new restaurant Yak & Yeti. Hands down this was the best food that I ate the entire week in the park. I enjoyed the Miso Salmon and Fried Wontons for dessert. The fried wontons were so creative and delicious! Wontons with sweeted cream cheese and grilled pineapple on skewers with a light sauce on top and ice cream on the side. A unique blend of flavors. I want this again!

We commented to the waitress how much we enjoyed the food (remember we'd only had dinner at the Sci-Fi place before, which isn't know for the quality of their food) and then she told us the "secret". "Thanks, we're new and we're part of the LANDRYS corporation!" You could have knocked us out of our chairs we were struck dumb and then laughed and laughed. We went all that way to Disney and ended up eating at one of Tilman Fertitta's restaurants!! Maybe that's an inside joke for those of you know us really well. If you don't get it and you want to, send me a comment and I'll email you the story.

After dinner we had just a bit of time before the last show of Lion King, so we went back to Dino Land. Bryan took Cameron on the Primeval Whirl and I took Brenna on the TriceraTop Spin (think Dumbo with dinosaurs). Finally it was time to go see Festival of the Lion King.

All we can say about Festival of the Lion King is WOW! Amazing. Beautiful. Fun! I'm so glad we saw this one. If you have the opportunity to go, don't miss this spectacular show. Singing, animatronics, fire-batons, monkey acrobats; a very engaging show. When the show was over, the park was about 10 minutes away from closing, but we still noticed that characters were available at the Camp Minnie-Mickey Greeting Trails. So popped in very short little lines to meet Goofy, Minnie, and Donald.

This was definitely my favorite Minnie - the jungle safari outfit was too adorable!

We left after the park closed again and rode the bus back to the hotel. We were tired, but glad we were able to spend the first two days seeing two of the parks (Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom) in case we didn't get back to them all week. We also were pleased that we snuck in an early morning to Magic Kingdom while it was still warm, though we didn't TRULY appreciate just how fortunate we were to have made that decision until later in the week.