Animal Kingdom

Rise and shine, campers!  We have an early breakfast with Mickey Mouse!  Time to get up!

Our bus ride from Animal Kingdom Lodge to the Animal Kingdom was pretty short today!  :)

Sylvia says I make this face a lot.  Apparently, she's inherited it.  

She's been doing pretty well with her asthma this week, since using the nebulizer as much as possible last weekend.  She's just needed her inhaler here and there.

I'm thankful for unwitting strangers who are willing to handle a camera they've never seen before.  And, most thankful for these friends!

They were smart and didn't cover the sign.  ;)  Oh yes, that's where we are--Animal Kingdom!  

the Tree of Life

We're heading to Africa first.  It's pretty neat to be in the park before it opens and all the crowds arrive.  It's worth it for our 8:00 am breakfast reservation.

Donald is our breakfast host, and he came to greet us at the door.

inside Tusker House

The breakfast buffet here seems to have everything you could imagine for breakfast!

We were nearly the first to be seated, and our server brought us some of that yummmmmmy jungle juice right away!  

trying to eat our money's worth

Mickey's here!!!  He and his friends Daisy and Goofy stopped in from their safari to say hello to us!

Morning is a great time for  the Kilimanjaro Safaris, because the lines haven't become too long and the animals are out and about.

Our vehicle has a picture list of all the animals we might see living on the savannah.

hippos under water

Stay away!!

termite homes

This ankoli cow was HUGE and not afraid of us.  Our safari guide told us that its horns are hollow and used to cool the animal, but he will use them to defend himself if he has to!

African elephant

We learned that although a cheetah can run very fast, it can only run fast for about 20 seconds. 

"When I was a young warthog...!"

I think I chose the wrong side of the vehicle to sit on, because most of the animals I saw, I saw from their behinds!

the wildest animal on the safari

again, from the behind...

We like music of all kinds.

I think you could stand all day looking at the Tree of Life and still not see all the animals carved in it.

What a great group of kids!

Mount Everest, we're coming for you...

Some of us teetered back and forth about whether or not we wanted to ride Expedition Everest.

But we all got on it.

Oh no!  The track is broken!!!

And there's a yeti on the loose!

We ventured into DinoLand.

Dinosaur was a very cool ride.  Caeden, for some reason, decided to be scared of this one, and covered his eyes the whole way through because he didn't want to be afraid when the big dinosaur popped out and roared at us.  I think it was a case of knowing too much ahead of time, because I doubt he would have been scared if he hadn't known it was coming.

The kids all rode Primeval Whirl.  I didn't go because the car fit 5.  The other grown ups didn't go because just looking at it spinning and whirling kinda made them sick.  The kids loved it so much they rode it 3 times in a row!

While walking through the park, some cast members told us there was no line or wait to meet Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, so we took the opportunity to get some cuddly hugs from them.

The attraction, It's Tough to Be a Bug, is under the Tree of Life. Its queue line is lined with bug versions of musical posters, which I love. 

Flik pops out from the ceiling at the beginning of the 3D show.

And Hopper is part of the show too.  He doesn't seem as scary to our kids as he used to, thankfully.

We saw Dug and Russell greeting people!

We had lunch at Restaurantosaurus.  I can't do it as much justice with photos and explanation as the Disney Food Blog, but it really is a nifty place! 

After lunch, we attended a performance of the Festival of the Lion King musical.  It is a spectacular show!  There are four giant animatronic animals--each is wheeled in to a corner of the auditorium.

Timon is one of the stars, and funny as always.  

The acrobatic monkeys are funny and impressive.

The singing, costuming, lighting, ah!  Everything is fantastic!

These performers are incredibly talented.  They do this show 7 times a day.  (Totally my dream job!) 

You just get chills; I have no words.

Addie, Reece, Caeden and Annah decided to try to ride Primeval Whirl again.  While they were in line, Sylvia wanted to take pictures.

After a while in the Primeval Whirl line, we realized they wouldn't get through in time for us to make it to the last performance of Finding Nemo, so we had them hop out of line and made our way to the show.  Goodbye, DinoLand!

Let's name the zones, the zones, the zones!  Let's name the zones of the open sea!

These performers are beyond talented.  Not only are they singing and dancing, but they are operating large puppets and sometimes flying through the air on wires and twirling upside down at the same time!  Unbelievable!

 Intervention!

P. Sherman

42 Wallaby Way, Sydney

Welcome to the tank, Nemo!

We sat in the front row of the upper section, and a few times performers were right in front of us--liek this beautiful jellyfish that went floating by!

Go with the flow!  Oh, we love Crush!

Marlin and Dori

Nigel the giant pelican

It may sounds silly, but this show really makes me tear up.  The caliber of the performers, the story itself, the music, the sets, puppets, costuming...It's all just beyond words.  I love it, love it, love it.  Definitely one of my very favorite things at Disney World!

Dawn took the kids back to ride Expedition Everest again in the single rider line. They rode a couple more times.

Sylvia opted not to ride, so she and I checked out nearby gift shops.  We admired all the Vinylmation characters.  They're all shaped like Mickey, but dressed as other favorite Disney characters.

Our last stop of the day was Kali River Rapids.  I'm very thankful we saved it for last, because guess who got the most soaked?  Yep, me!  It was great fun though!!  We went out with a splash!

 As we left the park, Annah asked again about getting a henna tattoo.  Daddy stayed with her and watched the artist work.  

The design she chose was called "Inspiration."

It really is very pretty.  The henna is dark and kind of gel-like when it goes on.  It will dry and crack and rub off.  Then the design will be orange and turn brown before wearing away after a week or so.

This evening, we are relaxing in our beautiful room in Kidani Village.  The kids are giddy while watching the premier of Teen Beach Movie on Disney Channel!  The grownups are packing, and we are all trying not to be sad about leaving tomorrow. 

This week has just flown by, full of fun and excitement!