Day 3...Disney's Animal Kingdom
I was hopping out of bed before the second ring of our wake up call. This is the day that I would get to explore Disney's Animal Kingdom (DAK).
The last time I was at DAK, I was four months pregnant with our very own
Little Prince. Being as that was true and I had a few conditions that pushed me into the high risk category, I had a load of "don't do's" on my list. While I still enjoyed myself beyond imagination, it was a different sort of visit. We did all of the shows, I spent a lot of time sitting around while people watching and I ended up having to leave way before the rest of my family was done with the park. What I really missed the last day I spent at Animal Kingdom was the excitement of the park. The thrills, the chills...the rides!
**SAPPY ASIDE ALERT** With dh in charge of getting the big boys up and dressed for the day, I made my way to the balcony and feed our
Little Prince his morning bottle. As I did, I couldn't help but let a few tears fall. These were tears of both joy and sadness. The tears of joy were for an overwhelming thankfulness that I was holding a perfectly healthy little child in my arms. The scary months that never felt like they would end had in fact, ended and unlike some of the great sadness that life sometimes brings, this time, the outcome was one of pure joy. We had a healthy son. A child who we didn't plan on adding to our family but who came and fit in like he had been a missing piece in our family puzzle. His little half face looked innocently up at me while a few tears dropped and looking down at him, I asked myself how I got so lucky and I realized the answer was that I was completely and totally blessed.
Still, through the blessings, I was feeling sadness. This year we had planned on bringing my dad with us to Walt Disney World. A major heart attack and stroke last summer has prevented that from becoming a reality. While he is still with us, he is not able to travel great distances nor would he be able to enjoy the parks or even most of the things at the resort. It's funny when you stop to think about it...your life truly can change in a moment's time. Both for the worse and for the better...
Now it's time to set that sappy aside, aside and move ahead to our fun at DAK! On our way there we stopped up and enjoyed breakfast in the Old Faithful club lounge. Our breakfast fare on this day was much the same as the day before and all of the days that would follow. While it was not varied, it was still good and filling. A perfect send off to a long park day!
We loaded up into the van and a short drive later at just after 9:30 AM we were piling out of the van and making our way into the park! It really was exciting to walk under the Animal Kingdom sign. It had been a long time (this was our third Disney day) to wait while at WDW before hitting a park! Ahhh, the happiness of being in one of your happy places with the people you love most!
The first ride we made our way over to was Dinosaur. Here is where I need to do a bit of back tracking.
Stitch was too small to ride this ride two years ago. Last year, nobody rode it because dh is NOT a fan of rides that cause motion sickness (as he suffers greatly) so there was not a parent to ride with (me being pregnant and all). So, over the past year,
Stitch has again and again talked about wanting to ride Dinosaur. He went on and on about how he wasn't afraid of it and he was going to try it now that he was big enough. This was the one ride on his must do list for the week. As to not disappoint my eager thrill seeker, we made a beeline to the ride and held our breath as we approached...would we have to wait in a long line already?
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NO!!! And that was great news!! Dh, our
Little Prince and
Goofy (who is a bit faint of heart when it comes to thrill rides and/or scary rides) chose to hang out and do a bit of dino-ish exploring. While we were gone, our
Little Prince had his first "real" character meet and greet (did I mention I almost flipped over missing this!). At least dh thought to ask them to snap a picture.
Stitch loved Dinosaur! While
Aladdincringed at a few parts of the ride,
Stitch simply laughed with glee and even yelled out "bring it on" a few times to the dinosaurs. I know I will have my hands full and my mind will NOT rest easy while he is out and about as a teenager! There is a hair thin line between bravery and foolishness and I am not 100% sure which side of that line he will end up falling on!
We were able to ride twice in a row because upon our return,
Stitch was telling
Aladdin (very excitedly) how awesome that ride was and that he was glad he had tried it. They were high fiving and we were getting ready to unbuckle when the CM unloading asked us if we wanted to ride again! BONUS RIDE!!
After our double the dinosaur fun, we headed back out and found
Goofy getting a different sort of dinosaur ride.
Stitch was quick to join him.
Stitch was also quick to remind him that this was a hidden Mickey dinosaur. They found it again in a matter of seconds.
Being as one of our favorite rides, Primeval Whirl, was closed for refurbishment, we headed out of the Dinoland area and ventured out in search of a yeti.
Since the posted wait at Expedition Everest was only ten minutes, we grabbed a fast pass for later and then got in the stand by line. The mountain trekkers on this excursion would be
Aladdin, Stitch and myself. Dh once again opted out of this one. Although he had fun riding EE last year, he was not willing to tempt fate and end up feeling bad for the rest of the day. Instead he took our
Little Prince and
Goofy and went off in search of CMs to let
Goofy pin trade with.
Goofy had also enjoyed EE last year, but for some reason he had no interest in riding it again this year.
I think he sort of let his imagination get the better of him...but if he was happier pin trading then riding, I wasn't going to force the issue.
While in the stand by line, I found myself thinking we were moving TOO FAST. That's right, I was wishing the line was moving a bit slower. This was the first time that I had ever walked through the regular queue with people in front of me. This caused me to slow down and really take a good look around. I loved the theming in this area. Especially the yeti museum. I really could have spent another fifteen minutes in the line and been a happy camper. There was so much to look at, read and take in.
EE was everything I had remembered from two years ago (remember, I had to skip it last year)! I was LOVING every second of it! Upon our return to the base of the mountain (otherwise known as the end of the ride) we met back up with dh and the other boys and did a bit of shopping in the EE store. My favorite purchase is the Ornament from Everest that I picked up. Early in 2007, I read about the artist who creates them and visited his website,
www.bellsfromeverest.com/cfm/bells/trip.cfm His story was inspiring to me and I used his environmentally sound trash to treasure attitude as the inspiration and basis for a unit study that I did with the boys. At the time, we wrote him a letter of admiration and actually got one back in return. I invite you to check his website out for yourself and if you would like to see the ornament, just click on the link in the top left corner.
Last year his ornaments were not available on his own website and he listed WDW as the place where his ornaments were available for purchase. Try as I might, I got way too tired to walk to the EE store (pregnant swollen feet don't always go where you tell them to) by the time I remembered my quest to find one. Thus, an "Ornament from Everest" was tops on my "must find" list this year. I am happy to report that I did in fact find one! And happily snapped it up. From looking at his website, I see that you can now purchase one by mail, directly from him. I am almost glad I was unable to purchase one that way last year. Now my ornament has triple good memories on top of the really cool backstory of the ornament itself. First, the time spent studying ecology, recycling and art with my boys. Second, I picked it up at WDW (enough said). And third, it would now always also remind me EE and it's yeti!
About the time we finished our shopping spree (we went a bit overboard on the whole yeti thing, t-shirts, stuffed animals and pins were among our purchases) our fast pass return window had arrived. Dh,
Goofy and our
Little Prince went to get us fast passes for Kali River Rapids while we went to enjoy the next ride up the mountain and into the territory of the yeti.
Being as only three of us wanted to ride it but we had five fast passes we were able to pass on a little magic to a couple who was walking to get into the stand by line (which by this time had grown to 30 minutes in length). After our second ride on EE, I handed one fast pass to
Stitch and the other extra one to
Aladdin and we stood near the fast pass return area waiting for a party of two. When we saw a couple, the boys passed the fast passes on to them. They asked us if we were sure we didn't want to use them and we explained how we had five tickets but two of our party had decided not to ride and the extra two tickets would not help us since we were a party of three. One of the CMs at the fast pass entrance heard us and let us in line again for doing something nice for another guest! She even walked us up to the next CM (the one who takes the fast passes) and explained that we should be let through.
That's right, with that "free entry" we were able to ride EE for a third time in an hour!! Our triple ride on EE was a highlight of the trip for all three of us. We loved it!
TO BE CONTINUED...
We had many great adventures still yet to come. I cannot believe I haven't even gotten to the point where we were in a theme park yet! 
I guess I really got hooked on Disney downtime last year! From now on, it's going to be a substantial part of our vacations.. I have seen a couple of reports on The Wave and have a feeling it may be added to our growing list of poss ADR's for next summer. Keep up the good work you're brightening up a very wet & dull Scottish October
It was really fun to watch the little girl who ended up winning picking out her prize too. She was so excited and happy, you couldn't help but smile for her!
...it's not on the AllEars.net menu either...
, but at least we had the opportunity to enjoy it the one time. 
