Day 3: Animal Kingdom

We got up bright and early to be at Animal Kingdom in time for our Tusker House character breakfast. We actually arrived TOO early and had to pull back out and wait in line at the parking booths. So, we sat, for about 20 minutes....la de da...got some good photos though! ha ha.

When we went in we headed straight back to the restaurant because the rest of the park wasn't open yet. Our reservation was for 8:30am.
Immediately after we were seated, Donald Duck came in! We were all wearing our matching Donald and Daisy Duck shirts. They were very cute and I was happy that my dad and Corey went along with it just for today! Donald and Daisy really liked them too!
We got some autographs and photos, and then Corey and Daddy went to make a plate at the HUGE buffet! While they were gone, Mickey came in as well! The characters were all coming through while we were trying to get our food, which was a little hectic. I just waited until they were all through and we had pictures before I made a plate. It was really fun getting to see them all at our table.
My parents were wearing birthday buttons (since it was recently both of their birthdays, you don't have to be there "on the day" to celebrate) and they each got a birthday card signed by all the characters at the breakfast and a cupcake! So cool!
The food at the restaurant was WONDERFUL! I kind of wish our reservation had been later in the morning so it could double as lunch! They had every single thing you could imagine for breakfast....including some exotic things....all kinds of breads, bagels with many different toppings, egg casseroles and quiches, ham, bacon, mickey mouse waffles, fruits, pastries....grits, biscuits, gravy, pancakes....the list could go on and on!
After breakfast we headed straight out for the safari. We picked up fastpasses then joined the regular line. The safari was AMAZING! We got to see so many African animals up close. I could have reached out and petted the giraffe!
The kids got tired really early on bc we were up so early but we didn't really have time to go back for a rest. We saw Pocohontas on the way to the Lion King and there was no one else around and this was HIGH on Katie's priority list so we were so thrilled to get to see her right away!

The Lion King was a great show...the kids loved it!!!! The park seemed VERY crowded to me. Although none of the waits were that bad it just seemed like there were masses of people heading everywhere. I have heard that this one seems more crowded because the walkways are much smaller. The park is beautifully done though, it seems like you are really walking around in the wild...tons of trees and foliage. Birds just walk around you everywhere too.

After that we did the train ride up to Planet Watch. Got pics with Jiminy Cricket and Rafiki. they have an animal treatment facility here that has scheduled procedures everyday. We missed seeing anything that day, but there had been some kind of exam that morning on an animal..I have heard of poeple seeing surgeries on gorillas and such.
Did the petting zoo, saw a bird show. The kids loved that. Then back down to repeat the Safari with the fastpasses we picked up earlier in the morning. This time the tourguide wasn't nearly was animated...I think that highly affects your safari experience. Less animals, but some different ones.

We then headed over to do some another animal trail..the one with the gorillas...that was neat.

It was then time to see Nemo. We headed on over and got in line right as it started going in. We got in and well.....we thought Nemo was okay. The kids absolutely LOVED it, but the adults in the party were pretty bored after the initial novelty of what they were doing wore off. Corey and I decided we wished we had gone over to do Dinosaur while the my parents saw this with the kids, ha.

Then we went to Dinoland. We are all really wearing thin by this point in the day. The kids wanted to play a water shooting carnival game, but we went on to eat since we still wanted to do Dinosaur and Bug's Life. We ate at Restarauntasaurus. Burgers and fries...typical stuff...good toppings bar.

Over to Dinosaur 20 min standby....kids had to use RR, so I sent Mama and Daddy and Corey on ride to check it out for me (I am a scaredy cat) and I took them to RR. When I came out I saw that Corey was standing outside...he wanted to wait on me to ride...he is sweet. He took kids over to play the money waster game while I called Disney dining one more time to try for Fantasmic package. No luck. Parents got off, kids got back and by that time they had shut down the ride so we couldn't do it ! ARGH! Corey should have ridden it the first time around :)

Then over to Tough to Be a Bug. Again, I knew this would be to scary for kids, so I went the three of them in while we got popcorn and watched animals around the big tree. After they finished Corey confirmed, yeah, too scary for kids, so we decided to head "home." Got back to townhouse, got showers and baths, had bedtime snacks and TOO BED!!!! We are totally wiped out after this first early full day. We plan on sleeping in tomorrow and heading over to Epcot whenever. ha ha. I think I will call about a Fantasmic package before we head out for sure...tonight is one of the two nights it is showing this week.

We enjoyed Animal Kingdom on our first visit. We didn't really do any of the rides except the Safari, but since we spent a lot of time at our breakfast we didn't have tons of time to spend there anyway. Seeing the two shows took a while also. We did everything we really wanted to anyway. It was a good place to start the week...a short day and a great breakfast!