On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, we felt like it was safe to venture into the Disney parks, so we went to Animal Kingdom. We had a character breakfast in the morning, and Animal Kingdom is a great park to arrive late, because you can definitely see the whole park in one day.
I can't go to Disney World without planning what to see and in what general order. When we haven't planned, we have ended up standing in long lines and becoming extremely pissed. I tend to go overboard on stuff, so I had an app for my phone that I checked obsessively for line wait times, fast pass return times, sequence of rides, and show times the whole time we were there. It was such a joy. Sometimes I still check it now, just to see what's going on in Florida. Seriously, we'll be driving to the store or something, and I'll yell out, "hey kids, the wait time for Mission Space is 18 minutes." This makes me very happy.
But first - we were on a mission to see Goofy. Not for the kids, but for Mike. Yes, it's true. The lines to see the characters in the parks can get long, so we decided to do a character breakfast at the Cape May Cafe, one of the restaurants in the Beach Club, which is connected to the Yacht Club. Because I am insane, I had charts of which breakfasts had which characters and the ratio of characters to diners.
We were promised that Minnie, Donald, and Goofy would come to our table, and come they did! It was awesome, and the waffles were shaped like Mickey.
So then we took off for Animal Kingdom. We had been there years ago but hadn't been back since. It's pretty much the same!
We had our little plan, which consisted of Mike and Zach hightailing it over to Expedition Everest, but Zach got scared at the last minute, so Mike rode it twice by himself while the kids and I walked the Maharajah jungle trek.
We saw It's Tough to be a Bug at the theater inside the Tree of Life, and it was fantastic! Bailey freaked out a little when the 3D giant bugs came at her head, but then they turned into butterflies and all was good.
Mike almost threw up twice on Everest.
The jungle trek was super cool. Zach and I thought there was a barrier between us and the huge bats, but we put our hands out and there was none. Just us and giant bats. And the tigers reminded me of our beagle, the laziest dog in the world.
This was Di-Vine, the stilts lady. She hangs out and pretends to be foliage until some poor unsuspecting tourist leans up against her, and then she starts moving, thereby causing much screaming by said tourist.
Because we came at a good time of year, we didn't have to get fast passes for any of the rides at this park. And we didn't have to stand in line for more than a few minutes at any ride. This made us oh so happy. So we hopped on to Kilimanjaro Safaris, where the guy helping us into the ride was from Walton, Nebraska. We talked Huskers.
We had Mickey-shaped ice cream sandwiches. I love room charge.
Bailey was accosted by a raccoon.
And we found more characters.
We caught the mid-afternoon parade, which gave us a chance to sit, eat crackers, and play Angry Birds on our phones.
There were characters all over the place!
And we got ears. I am not in this picture, but I can tell you that my ears are zebra-striped.
After the parade, Mike and kids rode the Kali River Rapids while I facebooked took care of important business, since I didn't want to get soaked. Then Mike and Bailey played in the Boneyard playground while Zach and I rode Dinosaur. Great, great ride. Way too scary for Bailey, so I'm glad she didn't go.
We also toured Rafiki's Planet Watch, which is the veterinary and conservation area you reach by train. Mike and I thought it was kind of boring, but the kids loved it! Zach pulled us into this booth where you sat in the dark on comfy sofas and listened to a rainforest presentation. It being the end of a long day, I took this opportunity to lay down on the sofa. Apparently I fell asleep, because when the lights came on, I jumped in the air, shrieking. Good times.
After the end of our day, we went to our dinner reservations at Boma, the African buffet restaurant at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. It was so fantastic, I can't even tell you. Of all the places we ate, Boma had the most variety, and . . . alcohol in the deserts! I love that place. We also wandered around the Lodge and agreed that it would be a fabulous place to stay next time. They give you night vision goggles so you can see the animals on the savanna come out after dark. How cool is that?
Monday: Harry Potter at Universal's Islands of Adventure!
