Animal Kingdom

This morning we slept in a bit, then had breakfast at our hotel, Mickey Mouse waffles! I had a made to order omelet. Mmmm. None of us had ever been to Animal Kingdom, so we arrived not knowing where to go or was to do. After getting our map, the first thing we did was go to Dinoland. They had a Dinosaur ride there that Roan was really looking forward to.

Unfortunately, it was VERY loud and a bit scary. He didn’t like it. Neither did Alyssa and I, really. But, he loved the store and bought himself a big stuffed dinosaur with his own money.

(All the kids have been saving up for the last three years so they would have their own spending money. They each had over a hundred dollars. This made things so much easier on us! Not just because we weren’t buying everything, but because if we were, they would have asked us to buy them stuff every two seconds. Then when we said the inevitable ‘no’ there would be weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth, followed by why not? And PLEASE? and lots of begging. Am I wrong? Anyway, they were a lot less willing to waste their own money that way. So we really had quite a successful time of it and they did a great job spending wisely and listening to our counsel. Two of them even made it home with some leftover!)

Alyssa took Roan on the triceratops ride which is the Animal Kingdom version of Dumbo, while dad took Kai on Primeval Whirl. I took pictures!

Next we went to Expedition Everest. This was THE ride Kai was most looking forward to. It’s a rollercoaster being chased by a yeti and at one point it goes backwards! Again, Alyssa and I were nervous but we did it and loved it! We went several times.

We rode the Kilimanjaro Rapids. This was the best one I’ve ever been on, I think! We got absolutely soaked! It was a lot of fun. Then we went back to Dinoland to have lunch at Donald’s Restaurantasaurus. Dinoland also has an awesome playground. It’s huge. It looked like a dino boneyard. It has a climbing net maze, lots of slides and a life-sized dino skeleton you can dig up. They loved it.

We went to the Tree of Life and saw the ‘It’s a Bug’s Life’ 3D movie. This was creepy but fun. Roan, not too thrilled with it.

We took a train ride to a petting zoo, bird show, and reptile complex where they got to touch a python.

We went on an African safari. Unfortunately, the pictures were disappointing. I did get this ‘upside-down’ tree:

We walked through trails where we saw tigers, bats, gorillas, a hippo, fish, lots of birds, etc.

Towards the end of the day, we went back to Dinoland. I took Alyssa and Roan back to the playground while Dean took Kai to ride the Dinosaur Ride and Primeval Whirl again.

We ate dinner at The Rainforest Café which is right at the entrance to the park. The kids went to this restaurant once in Connecticut and it is such fun, we had to make sure we went while here even though it was not on our dining plan.

And, again Roan fell asleep before the food came. Alyssa says this may be her favorite of the four parks. G’night!