Day 3 *continued*: Monday, June 22
We last left off leaving the room and heading to the bus stop around 4 p.m. We were still having those first day jitters and excitement, so we took some pics while waiting for the bus and sent them to Grandma back home and
xoktnox:
Finally, a bus for AK pulled up! Heres on the ride over:
The only annoying part about riding the bus to AK is having to stop at Blizzard Beach first. So, really our bus ride takes even longer to get there than usual! But..when we get closer to AK and you get that first glimpse of EE, the madness all goes away. As we got off the bus and started walking towards the entrance, we discussed how this was our first evening EMHs of the trip! Yay!
One of the new pole banners for the new theme:
After making it through bag checks and finger scanning, we hiked it towards the Tree of Life
and finally we saw it:
I seriously think that the Tree of Life is so gorgeous and its so interesting to just take the time to look at all the carvings. And anyone who hasnt been to AK at night during evening EMHs must do so their next trip! The Tree of Life is even more beautiful all lit up at night.
We veered to the right and headed towards EE to either get in line or try and get fast passes for later if they were doing any for EMHs yet.
Just walking towards it increases your anticipation!:
They werent doing any more fast passes, but the wait time was only 30 minutes so we (me, B/F, Sis, and Mom) just hopped in line. The EE line has got to be one of my favorite lines at WDW. The people who use fast passes definitely miss out on the ability to take the time and look at everything. I do have to say theres two things I could do without though: those annoying bells that everyone thinks they have to ring as loud and hard as they can AND that crazy/psycho looking deer head in one of the displays. Haha. I hope someone knows what Im talking about!
As you go up the big, steep incline..look way behind you to your left and look way out
you can see the Contemporary and kind-of the Castle!!
I was really nervous that the Yeti was going to be boring now since I had read somewhere on the DIS that they quit having the Yeti move and all that
but it was just fine! It wasnt moving and growling completely like it used to when EE first opened, but it was a lighter version of it! Still scary as heck!
After EE, B/F, Mom, and I headed to ride Dinosaur. We seriously walked right on! We kept asking ourselves Are we really here in June?! and Where is everyone?! I love the pre-ride video here because Im a Cosby Show fan, so I always have to say hi to Claire Huxtable! Haha. We got down to the loading area and were put in row 1. I looked to see who was in the rows behind us and it was full of one group of loud/crazy guys. They were hilarious the whole ride, screaming like girls and making noises and every turn and drop. I seriously wish I wouldve taken a picture of our ride photo because they were hilarious! Some of them were hanging onto each other like they were scared, one guy had another guy in a head lock, and some guys were holding their fists up at the dinosaur like they were ready to fight!
After we left Dinosaur, I called Sis to see where she and Dad were. We were planning on riding the Safari next, so we told them just to meet us by the entrance to that. It was only a 15 minute wait! We were on one of the last Safaris of the day and it was seriously the best one weve ever been on. We are going to ride this the same time of the day next year! The animals were all up and so close to the car!
This was the first time weve ever seen a hippo out of the water and our driver even said that it was a rare thing!
As we came up to the giraffe, we were so close to it that our driver had to tell us Remember, the giraffe is still a wild animal so please dont touch it!
We seriously could not stop talking about how much we loved this Safari! By the time we got off, we were ready to eat supper. Sis, Mom, and Dad headed to Rainforest Café while B/F and I headed to try Yak & Yeti, which was somewhere I had read about on here and really wanted to try.
They dont take reservations for Yak & Yeti, so I was hoping that it wasnt going to be too busy. We checked in and it was only about a 10 minute wait. They lady who we talked to was from around the town we go to college at so we talked about it. What a small world!
Eventually our name was called and we were seated not too far from the entrance. I noticed that they had a bar in there and a second floor too! How cool! Our waiter came over and we were ready to order our first alcoholic drink at WDW! I had a Corona and B/F had a 22 oz glass of Bud Light, haha. Our waiter came back with our drinks and then we ordered our entrees: I had the steamed mussels and house salad; B/F had the honey chicken which came with rice. The salad was HUGE so we ended up sharing it. Seriously, anyone who has not been to Yak & Yeti MUST try it! It was SO good. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. I really hope Sis will give it a try next year!
By the time we were done eating, EMHs were about to begin at 8 p.m. We decided that we wanted to do FOTLK. The next show was at 9 p.m. so they would be letting us get in line shortly, so we headed towards Camp Minnie & Mickey. I texted
xoktnox when we got in line because I can still remember her texting me while she was at it back in April and I was up at school!
Here we are waiting, Sis tried to get us all in and she did pretty good! Please excuse our nasty sweaty faces..Youre reading a TR that takes place in FLORIDA so youre bound to see it sometime HA:
And soon it was time to head in! Yay! Here Sis took a pic of us walking
I told you shes a camera addict!:
We went in and headed to the bleachers to the right, which ended up being the warthog section! They had the cutest kid come up to do the noise for our section and it was his birthday so we all cheered. He had the biggest grin on his face the whole time!
Heres some of the show:
Has Timons eyes and mouth always moved?! I couldnt remember if they had always been like that or if it was something new
After FOTLK, we headed back to EE again because that was the main reason we were doing AK evening EMHs. EE is SO much scarier at night! While in line,
xoktnox broke to us the bad news
.Jon & Kate were getting a divorce. We had asked her earlier to watch the show for us because the previews had shown a big announcement and we were dying to know what it was. Thats too bad for them
and the kids
Thats all I have to say about that because there is another long/crazy thread devoted to them on the Community Board..back to EE:
As I said before, look way behind you to your left, you can see the Contemporary and kind-of the Castle
well as we did
Wishes was going! Seriously an awesome moment! We ran off the ride and told Dad we were getting back on it again.
After EE for the second time, Mom, B/F, and I headed over to Dinosaur again and walked right on AGAIN! This time there was a group of three people behind us and that was it! It was a quiet ride! Haha.
By the time we got off, it was almost 11 p.m., which was the end of EMHs and we were glad because we were POOPED. This was a crazy/busy/fun/exciting first day and we were ready to start it all over again the next day. We headed to the bus stop and were on a bus around 11:11 p.m. (yes, I wrote down the time!) so I made a wish
for the trip to go by slow and boy did that not come true! Haha.
When we got to the room, we were glad to see that the groceries that we ordered were there and headed to bed. As I laid down, I still couldnt believe that we were really at WDW again. I was thinking about all of you guys on the DIS and how nice it would be to have a huge WDW vacation with all of you! I was thinking about how much fun its going to be taking the little guy for his first time next year! Hes like a child of my own, so I cant wait to see everything through his eyes again like my parents did with me.
~Up next: DTD
The beginning of our balloon bad luck
Oh well.
DON'T TELL! 
