Saturday we woke up nice and early for our 8:30a reservation at Tusker House. Animal Kingdom had a 9a opening and was the recommended park for the day. Being the closest park, the bus ride was super short and we ended up getting there around 8:00a, which was great because I was flippin' hungry!
Normally we take a few photos in front of the Tree, but there weren't any PP photographers out on our way to the restaurant. I ended up with a single, no crowd photo of Danica.
Tusker House is probably my favorite character breakfast - between the food options and DAT JUICE, what's not to love?! I'd already heard, and was kind of bummed out that they took Donald out of the photo op before you're seated. Silver lining - he's inside so you don't miss him completely. Although, rumor is they're taking The Goofster out of there. Who knows if that's true or how that'll work, but nevertheless, we snagged a photo here and it was included in our MM.
We had zero wait for anything here which was excellent. We were seated in the back of the main eating area and we had plenty of time to grab plates of food for everyone before the first characters came around.
Donald is always a favorite. I don't think there's been a single time we've met Donald anywhere when he's not acting goofy and shaking his tail at us. I love it.
Naturally, Danica will perform a dance routine in front of 1,000 people under a spot light on a stage, but she gets super shy and refuses to take part in the restaurant parades. So, like any good parent, I force her into it and threaten her with punishments if she doesn't pretend like she's having fun.
If you see me doing this...
Mind your business. I'm trying to make memories here! She'll thank me later!
Right after breakfast we made our way over to the Kilimanjaro Safari. We were a little early for our 10:15a FP so we decided to head up the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail next to it and get started with the Wilderness Explorer Badges. It was semi frustrating that there were only a few different spots to actually get the booklet, so we ended up passing a bunch of badges and hitting them on our way back.
The kids loved getting the badges. They didn't really love that they had to work for them though.
They were a little spaced out during the actual lessons they needed to do, but they still got their badges. We had a slight attitude problem with Danica when the badge called for her to draw her favorite animal, so she ended up not getting that one and instead received a lecture. Of course, we then got to our next WE spot and she's crying, so the CM took her to the side, talked to her, and gave her stickers.... and now we look like jerks.
Luckily, Danica snaps out of her issues pretty quickly and she turned her attitude around. We made our way back to the safari at 10:45a. The FP line was outrageous. We were all the way back by the shop where the path splits. I think it was mostly people not understanding what was going on, so they would stop and look around or ask questions and hold the line up. It did move fairly quickly, but there were CMs with hand held scanners scanning bands and then CMs standing at the FP podium scanners as well. If your band was scanned with the hand held scanner you didn't need to scan it again at the podium, but people were doing both, getting blue Mickey heads, and then causing a back up in the line. It WAS confusing, but since the line was moving steadily it only took about 4 minutes.
Once we walked all the way down we were put right onto a safari vehicle. Overall, the process was 9 minutes. It definitely doesn't feel that long when you're going through it though.
On the safari I'm always worried about losing my phone over the edge of the vehicle, so I don't take too many pictures. I always giggle when they say they can't stop the vehicle if you drop something... because I will hurdle the side of that truck to get my phone if I drop it. Believe it. Bet you'll stop then wontchya?!
Our driver was great though. He had a total strip club announcer voice, which sounds fabulous... but I just kept picturing 'annnnnnnd now here comes Kaaaaaandy Kaaaaane' when he was going through the tour.
Once we got off the safari we hopped on the train and went over to Conservation Station. Really, we only go to cuddle with the pigs. No lie.
As soon as we started walking into the building it started to drizzle. The kids did the WE badges in this building - I believe there were 5 or 6 total. It kept them busy for awhile which was great because it started pouring outside!
Since it was still a hot mess outside when the kids finished up their WE stuff we jumped in line to meet Rafiki who is a Cecil favorite. When it was our turn, Rafiki came over and made a big deal about Cecil having a fauxhawke because Rafiki had one too! It was hilarious. Everyone wants to be like Rafiki!
It was STILL raining after our pictures with Rafiki so we jumped in line for Chip and Dale, also ALWAYS a hoot. They checked out the kids' pins and were sad that there weren't any Chip and Dale pins on their lanyards! We told them that all the Chip and Dale pins were sold out because they were so popular and that cheered them right up!
The rain finally let up and was down to a light sprinkle. So we made our way into the petting area and tried to avoid the puddles and mud! Most of the animals were under the shelter and too far in to pet, but there were a few goats that were really diggin' the attention. Sadly, my pigs were waaaaay too far in to reach and lazily just sleeping under a bridge. Even when they put out some fresh hay the pigs just got up to eat but never came within snuggle distance. BOO HISS.
Some of the sheep were sheered into Mickey and Oswald heads.
We hopped on the train back to the main area and assessed the time situation. We decided we'd ride Expedition Everest and then grab something to eat. We used our 1:15p FP for EE at 1:32p. The SB line was 25 minutes. We were waiting in our turnstile for the next vehicle 6 minutes later at 1:38p. It was the first time the kids were tall enough to ride, and Danica wasn't a huge fan of the Yeti projection... Yet another picture where Danica is hiding/ducked down and I'm laughing hysterically at her fear. Therapy isn't too expensive, right?!
After EE we went over to Flame Tree BBQ to grab something to eat. I don't know if it's new or it just never happened to use before, but there were a gigantic flock of parrots that kept flying around our heads while we were there and going from perch to perch. It was really cool to see, but I kept worrying that I was going to get pooped on! THAT would royally ruin my day!
Of course, while we were eating it rained AGAIN. Half of our table was underneath the shelter, and the other half wasn't. We all just moved our chairs around, and luckily we were mostly finished, because our food was soaked! We had placed a turkey leg on the edge of the shelter (on a plate) while Cecil grabbed some napkins, and one of those dang white birds snatched a huge piece and took off! We were standing right next to it! Those things are like vultures!
When the rain finally stopped we went over to It's Tough to be a Bug, but it was closed for renovations. We continued down our way to Dinoland, stopping in shops and doing any WE badges we came across. I checked the app on my phone and Dinosaur had a 10 minute wait. We decided to go ahead and do SB for it since we still had 40 minutes or so before our 4:00p FP.
I feel like the waits for SB are a bit inflated. We walked in and were almost immediately put into a vehicle. Danica protested this one pretty hard. She said she didn't like it last time, but she says it while smiling so I really don't know whether we should be taking her seriously. As you can tell from the picture, all of the kids in the vehicle really enjoyed the ride!
We will probably continue to do this ride each trip, so she'll either get used to it or we'll have a lot of laughs with the pictures we get!
As we were heading out of Dinoland there was a dance party going on with Chip and Dale and Rafiki. I couldn't force Danica into going over and dancing with everyone, so we ended up letting them do Triceratops Spin before heading out of the park.
We let the kids ride on their own since they're now 7 and 8 years old. They were first in line and I heard the CM ask their ages. I'm sure it sounds totally staged when Skyler answers, 'I'm eight and a half and my sister is seven.' But it cracks me up. She's so direct about it, and of course, she can't forget the half!
Naturally, when they were sitting in their vehicles waiting for the ride to start it started to sprinkle.
The entire ride they just yelled at each other about going up or down, blah blah blah. Just get along for crying out loud!
Though, at least it made the fact your Christmas Card pic didn't really work out like you thought anyway
