Animal Kingdom

Ahh, these photos are making me miss Disney!!  There's just something about that last Disney day--the joy of the day, mingled with the sadness of the realization that it's going to be a LONG time before you can return.  We had such a wonderful vacation, full of fun, food and family.  The family time was the best part of the trip.  The boys were absolutely GLUED to Daddy and wouldn't let him our of their sight.  I think they might have cried every single time that Brent went off to the buffet at the hotel without them.  Every. time.  I love that they love their Daddy so very much, but it got a bit ridiculous!  We had breakfast and dinner at the hotel every day as it was included in our hotel package.  This often meant we were eating breakfast WAY early and dinner WAY late.  We closed out the restaurant nearly every night when we arrived to start our dinner at about 9:30.  Lets just say that the waitstaff LOVED us.(Not really.)  Our noisy children, mess on the floor and constant demands for refills certainly made us the one table they wanted to pass on!  Anyway, I'm glad I took these photos in the restaurant, scene of some of our more notorious Disney memories.

On our last morning, we had the additional stress of having to pack up the room, check out and load the van, all before breakfast.  Fortunately, my husband is Super Man and he had it all in hand so that we could go enjoy Animal Kingdom.  This was my least favorite park when we visited a few years ago, so I was anxious to see if it would redeem itself of this visit.  Fortunately, we started the day with Nemo, so we started on a high note.  I honestly think that this stage show rivals anything I've ever seen on Broadway.  All the kids, even Bennett, were mesmerized.

After leaving the theater, we headed directly to the Dinosaur dig.  This is something we skipped last time, so I wanted to make sure we visited on this visit.  I knew Maura would love it, but I wasn't prepared for how much all my children would enjoy it, or how quickly they would all scatter.  It was impossible to keep track of everyone at the same time, so I found myself wondering around the playground praying for a glimpse of a shirt, head, shoe, anything that would convince me that they hadn't been abducted from the playground.  Fortunately, we all exited in one piece!

I couldn't wait to take the kids on the Safari ride.  I knew they were going to LOVE it!  I remember riding this ride WAY back in 2003, right after the park opened.  It was incredible then, knowing you were actually IN the Savannah of Africa with the animals all around you.  I couldn't wait to share that fun with the kids.  We all squeezed into one row of the Jeep and the kids didn't know where to look first!

We say Elephants and Zebras and Cheetahs, OH MY!  Maura was particularly excited about the cheetahs, her current favorite animal.  We could barely see them, way back by the fence, but she was SO happy!

This guy was pretty cute...a pygmy hippo with an admiring swarm of fish just waiting to eat some poop.

I remember the Animal Kingdom being terribly crowded the last time we visited.  We had a gigantic stroller, which made it almost impossible to navigate the narrow walkways that were clogged with other Disney-goers fond of stopping dead in the middle of the pathway.  I hoped we'd have a different experience this time, but alas, we are cursed at Animal Kingdom!  Apparently, there was some type of Dance Team competition going on at Disney that week.  We had the good fortune to be at the park with all the teams at the same time.  Just imagine thousands of teenage girls, all of whom seem to be unable to just walk.  They bounced, they toe-touched, they jumped in the air, they almost fell across the stroller.  It was awesome.  We managed to make it through the throng to Bug's Life.  They looked cute in the glasses, but Bennett did NOT like the 3D bugs flying in his direction.  I took the 3D glasses off him soon after the show started because it was a bit intense.

My resident entomologist loved finding a bug's head to pretend with. We actually traveled on a lot of lesser trod paths on this trip, searching out stamps for a passport the kids were given.  They had a lot of little education stations set up with enthusiastic Disney cast members waiting to teach my kids about nature and environmentalism.  Soon it was time to reenter the world of commercialism and we went to ride the Dino Whirl(which you have to be 48 inches to ride.  REALLY?  Disney--this is in the kiddie section!)  We contented ourselves with this dino spinning ride, which the kids loved, which also broke while we were riding it.  No biggie.  It gave us time to take photos.   I'm actually not sure where Bennett is while we were taking these!

All in all, it was a really fun trip to Animal Kingdom.  The kids were exhausted as we were leaving.  Check out Tristan in the photo below.  He was DONE with photos.  As much as we needed to get on the road to start our return trip, I was NOT ready to leave Disney for good until we took in the Lion King show.

It was pretty spectacular and probably one of the things Maura has talked about the most since we've been home from Disney.  So glad that we didn't skip it.  Otherwise Maura would never have had a chance to change her future profession from "entomologist" to "spandex wearing twirling bird dancer."  And with that, we waved our goodbyes to Disney and headed back to reality.