We’re a week in to the holiday now, the time is really flying by. On our agenda today is Disney’s Animal Kingdom, which we know from past visits is the Park which we will only need a few hours in, but we always really enjoy it. We’re in the swing of the FastPass+ system now, so we have chosen our 3 fast passes, and spaced them out, hopefully, to give us a leisurely day. Previously we’ve been at Animal Kingdom before the park opens, in order to do the Safari before it becomes too hot and the animals all fall asleep. As we had quite a late night last night we decided to have a lie-in this morning, so our Safari fast passes are booked for 11.30 and that’s our target arrival time. After a leisurely breakfast we set off, stopping at the local gas station to feed the minibus, which really is a gas guzzler. At least I’ve finally worked out how to use an American gas pump so it’s a lot less embarrassing this year. I do a rough calculation and reckon standard petrol is now about $1/litre over here now. I remember the outrage in newspapers on a trip maybe 10 years ago or so when it hit $1 per gallon, so they must be going ballistic at the price now.
We’re soon parked at the Animal Kingdom and on the tram, then once in the Park we head straight to the Kilimanjaro Safari, which we all love. It was Miley-Rose’s first time in “Africa”, and she got some real close encounters:
I was feeling very pleased with myself when I knew the answer to the driver’s question “How do we know these elephants are African Elephants?” And the answer of course is..... “because we’re in Africa!”
The driver had a great line in banter and I felt a bit sorry for her because everyone was too reserved (wildlife pun intended) to join in with her, but she stuck at it despite the poor reaction. She quite rightly observed that virtually every animal we encountered was stood with its bottom facing the track, as if they were all making a silent protest, so I didn’t take many photos, as they weren’t offering their best sides. The Zebras however were enjoying the sunshine and happy to pose.
Towards the end of the safari the truck passes through the lions’ domain, and unfortunately the lions were keeping out of the sun. We just managed to spot the head of a lioness that was snoozing behind a large rock, but I’m afraid my photo is 98% rocks that are lion coloured so I won’t make you play Where’s Wally? (or Where’s Nala?) trying to spot her. After we’d bumped around Kilimanjaro we only had 30 minutes until we needed to be at the Finding Nemo show, which was our second FastPass of the day.
We had deliberated over the wisdom in using a FastPass for Finding Nemo, as the theatre is so large I think 9 times out of 10 it must be possible to get a seat whatever time you arrive. It was a good move though I reckon as the FastPass line directed us to a much quieter section of the theatre, and we actually opted to sit on the front row. This was absolutely fine until we suddenly had two people stood right in front of us, who it transpires are the Sign Language Interpreters for the show. The two signers, one man, one woman, took alternate characters throughout the show and even added a few actions and expressions, interacting with each other in sympathy with the action on the stage. This is great, but bloomin’ distracting! I don’t know ANY American Sign Language, but you’re drawn to them like you are drawn to subtitles in a film that is in your own language. There’s NO POINT. Anyway, the show is, in our opinion, fabulous. There was one objector though; Miley-Rose started to scream, and scream, and it looked like she was terrified. I don’t think she realised these guys considered us friends, not food:
I’ve seen the show twice before so I took Miley-Rose out of the theatre, no doubt to the relief of the signing people who were right in front of us, and we found a nice shaded spot where we had a cuddle and I rocked her until she finally fell asleep, and I slowly dehydrated. After the show I was rescued by the family and I made a bee-line for the nearest cold drinks stall.
Whilst Miley-Rose enjoys her nap, some of us go to be told “It’s Tough To Be A Bug”, featuring Flick the ant and his creepy-crawly friends. If you don’t know it, this show is 3D with a fair few “interactive” moments, whereby the audience experience the stink from a stink-bug, the spray from an acid spraying termite (The Termitinator), and the occasional poke from something with a stinger. Oh, and there’s an absolutely enormous spider, which in 3D is very intimidating. The place is fairly soon full of SCREAMING kids, and laughing adults.
From here we split up, and Josh and Georgia go for a ride on Expedition Everest whilst the rest of us go in search of an ice cream. We have found that the smartphone app is brilliant for looking up wait times for the attractions, and the superb WiFi coverage means we can look up the wait times wherever we are in the Park, so we easily, and quite accurately, calculate how long it will be before we meet up with the Roller Coaster Duo. I give Disney a big thumbs up for this feature. Our rendezvous point is the Restaurantosaurus in DinoLand, and just around the corner from the main restaurant is an ice cream stall with a small seating area, and the ice creams are amazing. In fact, just writing about them is making my mouth water!
We’re doing a fair amount of ping-ponging back and forth today, and so when we’re all reunited back we go to the centre of the Park, Discovery Island, to find a spot to watch Mickey’s Jammin’ Jungle Parade. Unfortunately we’d left it a bit too late, so all the vacant spots were in the direct sun, and in fact meant we were looking into the sun as the Parade approached us. This will be a challenge for the camera! When the Parade comes around the corner, it is lead by Baloo and King Louie at the front of a conga line
and when the Parade comes to a rest in front of us we are treated to the surreal sight of Baloo and Louie doing the Robot Dance. Bizarre!
The parade is extremely colourful, with great mobile fish and birds, and of course mice and ducks! I’ll show you some more pictures in Part B.........
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Originally Posted by Dads_Taxi
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