 Up and at 'em!
Today we did
a bit of switching around so that we can make a birthday party at the
Polynesian! SueV's daugher Nicole is turning 4 and having some
cake and fun! So, we are doing Animal Kingdom in the morning, and
then going to Epcot in the evening. We want to see Living Seas
and Crush's Turtle Talk before that pavillion closes for rehab on the
21st.
Girls woke up to a Mickey and Stitch wakeup call. They were
pretty well rested, so they hopped up fairly quickly. We again
enjoyed bagles and/or doughnuts for a quick breakfast and then headed
down to catch the bus. Now I typically dislike the AK bus, but
today wasn't too bad. We were there to catch the first one and it
arrived just after 8am. We were the only ones on it! Off to
the Grand Floridian where one other couple boarded and we were on our
way to the park. And, since it was SO early and no one wanted
Blizzard Beach, we did not stop there either. :-)
Very nice.
 So we arrived at the AK in pretty good time.
Headed through bag
check with few people and then spent some time in the Rainforest Cafe
gift shop to pass some time. Nice and cool in there! :-)
 Park
opened just before 9 am, and we watched the opening 'show' where a
few characters open the park. Cute. Then the masses start
heading for the Safari. Whoa - massive amount of people!
Kristen and the girls head for Dino Land while I stick with the crowd,
but only want to collect Fast Passes for later. Then I head
back around the other way and pretty much have that pathway to
myself. Nice and quiet, and a good time for a few pictures.
 Found
the girls in DinoLand enjoying about their forth
ride on the
Triceratops Spin! And Maddy and Kristen had already done Primeval
Whirl too! Brinn passed on this one... Too big of drops!
Sigh... It was never a problem the last couple years when she
rode it though... So Maddy and I got to ride and had a lot of fun
spinning and being thrown around. This one is a bit tough on the
back, so be careful and forewarned!
 Then
it was off to ride Dinosaur. They girls
haven't done this
before, but I talked them into it this year. That ride is fun,
but is pretty intense. They did fine, but I think both their eyes
were closed most of the time!
 Now
it was just about time for our Safari. We
walked over toward
Tarzan Rocks, but that show opened later, so we didn't get to see it
today. :-( Hopefully next time. As we walked past
Flights of Wonder we noticed that the show was starting in five
minutes, so we zipped in there. We had never seen this, and it
was fun to watch the beautiful birds.
 During
the show they
pic and adult with a camera and while I waved my camera they choose
Kristen to come up on stage. Already had another man, and Kristen
was waving her hand too. Besides - she's cuter!
:-D I handed her my camera, but probably should have
kept that one and let her use hers! She and another man sat
on the stage and they brought out a large owl.
 Very
beautiful
bird. It flew to the back of the theatre, and then came in low
(see pic above) and then landed directly over their heads.
Kristen caught the
owl, but it was a bit far away still and low to the ground. At
first we thought she missed it! I got a few pics with her camera,
but I couldn't zoom in as much as I liked. I'm spoiled with my
new camera already! ;-) Kristen had fun, and between us we
got a couple good shots. Lots of fun, and a great memory of our
first time seeing this show!
 NOW, its off to the Safari
ride! Its just before noon, so its
probably not the best time to see all the animals. The fastpass
line here is pretty much useless unless there is a huge wait.
And, right now, there was NOT a huge wait. They merge
you
into the main group pretty early, and then you have to wait for 3 or 4
more cars before your turn arrives. Not too bad, but people were
particularly ornery today and a bit pushy. Its supposed to set a
record high of 95 degrees, and I believe it!
 VERY hot and pretty
much full sun. Sometimes a few clouds is NOT a bad thing.
Oh, and I don't
want to jinx us since its so early in
the trip, but
(knock on wood) there have been no afternoon storms (knock on wood) at
all since we got here. Have I mentioned I'm knocking on
wood? :-D Well, no worries. I'm sure they will return
too soon!
 Back to our safari. There
were definitely fewer animals out in
the heat. We saw a few and I even got a few pictures (gotta love
a fast focus camera, because it was typically bumpy, and the right side
is the wrong side if you know what I mean! Seems all the animals
were on the opposite side of the truck! Oh well. Between
zoon and some luck I got a couple OK shots.  After
the
Safari, I wanted to walk a couple trails, but I was informed that the
girls were both hungry and hot! So we opted for Tusker House
instead of Pangori Trail. I have to admit, the food was pretty
good, and I even coaxed Kristen into allowing a couple more food
pictures. ;-) I had the 1/2 rotisserie chicken and she had
a chicken sandwich. The girls enjoyed Mac and Cheese in a cute
mickey shaped bowl with applesauce and mickey head crackers.
 Everything was very good, and the DDE card gets you a
discount
here. And its air-conditioned. I think this pretty much
makes it a perfect 10! :-) We'll definitely try it again
sometime. Back to our safari. There
were definitely fewer animals out in
the heat. We saw a few and I even got a few pictures (gotta love
a fast focus camera, because it was typically bumpy, and the right side
is the wrong side if you know what I mean! Seems all the animals
were on the opposite side of the truck! Oh well. Between
zoon and some luck I got a couple OK shots. After the
Safari, I wanted to walk a couple trails, but I was informed that the
girls were both hungry and hot!  So we opted for
Tusker House
instead of Pangori Trail. I have to admit, the food was pretty
good, and I even coaxed Kristen into allowing a couple more food
pictures. ;-) I had the 1/2 rotisserie chicken and she had
a chicken sandwich. The girls enjoyed Mac and Cheese in a cute
mickey shaped bowl with applesauce and mickey head crackers.
Everything was very good, and the DDE card gets you a discount
here. And its air-conditioned. I think this pretty much
makes it a perfect 10! :-) We'll definitely try it again
sometime.
 So, we are cooled down, and no amount of coaxing was
going to get the
girls back to the trails. So we opted to head for Camp
Mickey-Minnie instead. We wanted to try out the enclosed and
air-conditioned Festival of the Lion King and as luck and timing would
have it we arrived JUST in time for Pocahontas first. The kids
sat up front, Kristen found a spot to sit and I stood, but in the
shade. Cute show with a nice message. The girls enjoyed it,
although Brinn was asking why Pocahontas looked so different here than
she did on the cruise last year.... hmmmm........
Off to wait in line for the 1pm Lion King show. MAN that line is
hot. Its much shadier than it used to be and the misting fans
help, but its SO hot today that it not enough. They finally let
us in about 10 minutes before show time and we grabbed a seat.
Nice and cool in there now. That made it much better and an
excellent show was even MORE enjoyable! Nice job Disney!
|
|
Everyone loved the
show,
but we had to fly out of there now. We stopped and grabbed some
ice
cream on the way out and ate them on the run. They were melting
amazingly fast! Kristen made a newbie mistake of NOT eating the
Mickey
Ears first on her Mickey Bar! Shame, shame! Fell RIGHT off
the stick
when she was about half done. But here's a tip! If this
happens to
you, make SURE to plop what's left of Mickey into your bare hand RIGHT
in front of another ice cream cart. If you are lucky enough to
have a
wonderful SM see it happen (like we did) they just might insist that
you throw that mess away, and take a new one - no charge!
;-) At
first Kristen didn't see the new ice cream bar, and wasn't about to
toss the puddle in her hand! That baby is MINE! But then
she realized
what the deal was, and thanked the CM several times! Even another
guest handed Kristen and hand wipe to clean up. Then we all told
her
to EAT THE EARS FIRST and moved on! :-D 
Out we went and waited for our bus. I think it was
about 10
minutes
before it showed up, and then after a stop at Blizzard Beach we headed
back to the Wilderness Lodge. We were running REALLY late for our
3pm
appointment at the Polynesian. We were looking forward to meeting
SueV, her husband Joe, daughters Samantha, Alex and birthday girl
Nicole. And, Belle, Beast and Mik would be there too. So,
we
scrambled back to the room, power changed and cleaned up and flew back
down to get the car from Valet and off to the Polynesian. Sue and
Joe
were staying in Concierge there, and were having a little party for
Nicole. We got there RIGHT at 3, and met everyone in the
lobby. After
a quick hello, we all headed over to the Concierge Lounge to sing, have
cake and chat for quite some time! It was great, and the girls
all got
along wonderfully well. The lounge is beautiful, and has a
magnificent
view of the Castle. There were lots of drinks and snacks which
everyone enjoyed, and the girls all played nicely together. It
was a
lot of fun and a great meet. We really enjoyed chatting with Sue,
Joe,
Belle and Beast! And all the girls are adorable! It was
also Mik's
Birthday as well, so it was a really nice celebration for the
kids! A
special thanks to Sue for inviting us to join the celebration! :-)
We headed back outside and took a few pictures.
Walked through
the
shops in Germany, and then decided to head to Living Seas. It was
an
Extra Magic Hour (EMH) night, so we grabbed our wristbands in front of
the American pavilion and then off to Future World. We made it
over
there and then eventually into Living Seas. Since they dropped
the
ride for this pavilion, I wish you didn't have to wait in line to get
in there. Took forever tonight. We headed right for Turtle
Talk with
Crush and the kids really enjoyed it. This was my main reason for
coming to Epcot tonight because the Living Seas is supposed to be going
down for rehab on the 21st. We were tired, but decided to
stay a bit
longer. Headed over to Soarin' but the line was 60 - 90
minutes. No
thanks, we'll wait for fast passes some morning! We did Living
with
the Land and then walked over to see Figment as well. That was
it,
everyone was tuckered out so we headed back to the resort. It had
been
a long and very busy day! Tomorrow Typhoon Lagoon. Floating
in a pool
all day sounds like a GREAT plan right now!