A Villain at WDW -- Day 2

[DisneyVillain]

Disney Day 2: Sunday, 1-Jun-2003

It had been six years since our last WDW vacation, so we had not visited Disney’s Animal Kingdom before. We had scheduled it for our first day, because it has a lot of outdoor attractions/activities. That way, if it rained on Sunday, we could switch parks, and return to the AK later in the week.

We arrived about 20 seconds after the gates opened at 9:00AM. We picked up a park map, and headed straight for the Kilimanjaro Safaris. After waiting in the main queue for most of the time, we were herded into a separate boarding pen for disabled guests and their parties. (Or would it be more appropriate to say boarding corral?) Anyway, the wait for disabled guests was about the same as for those walking, until time to unload at the end of the ride, when the wait for disabled guests was MUCH longer. (Around 10 minutes waiting to get back to the holding pen after the walking guests had unloaded.) When we were ready to go, our driver picked on the CM on the platform for saying that the doors would be “closing shut”, (as opposed to “closing open”). When we got back we were sure to let her know that on the ride he had said “submerged underwater”, (as opposed to “submerged over water”, or “submerged underground”.) We saw a large number of animals, and many of them were quite close to our truck. The lions were nowhere to be seen. I guess it wasn’t hot enough yet to attract them to the air-conditioned rocks. It was a nice ride, although the “poacher” storyline seemed like a cheap knock-off of the Jungle Cruise.

FastPass was new to us, so we were still in “ride the things that get long lines first” mode. We left Africa, and head for Dinoland to ride Dinosaur. We were disappointed in this ride. Don’t get me wrong, we enjoyed it very much! It just doesn’t seem good enough to be one of the marquee attractions at a Disney theme park. It don’t think it compares well to Splash Mountain, Space Mountain, Tower of Terror, Rock ‘n Roller Coaster, or Test Track. The continuous video playing at the exit is funny.

On our way in, we noticed the show times for the Tarzan show in the Theatre in the Wild, and the next show time was very soon, so that’s where we are headed next. We really enjoyed this show, and my younger son says that it was his favorite thing at DAK.

After the show, we were close to Primeval Whirl, and the line was only 15 minutes, so we decide to give it a spin. Once again, we enjoyed the ride, but this is just a carnival ride. We expect better from Disney.

We’ve done the “get soaked early on the raft ride and be miserable all day” thing at Six-Flags, and we were in complete agreement that we would save Kali River Rapids for late in the day.

It was now late enough for lunch, so I left the family perusing the menu at Flame Tree Barbeque while I ran across the street to pick up FastPasses for “It’s Tough to be a Bug”.

The coupon deal at Flame Tree Barbeque is a reasonably good deal no matter what you are ordering. If you are ordering the ribs, then it is an excellent deal! Our biggest complaint was that there was only mild barbeque sauce, and it was not spicy at all. I would rate this restaurant as one of the best counter-service restaurants in any of the Disney Parks.

After lunch, it was time to use our FastPasses for “It’s Tough to be a Bug”. This is a very cute show, and the reactions of people who don’t know what is coming, (including all of us,) were funny! On the other hand, while we all enjoyed “It’s Tough to be a Bug” we also all thought that MuppetVision and HISTA are better. We might have enjoyed it more, except that the wheelchair seating is right in front, and the 3-d effects don’t work as well from that close. All of the 3-d attractions are best if you are seated in the middle of the theatre.

After, we headed for Camp Minnie-Mickey for the Festival of the Lion King show. My teenage boys were not very much interested in seeing the Pocahontas show, but they found the Animal Training Session interesting, and there was time to see that before the next showing of the Lion King. One of the animals they were working with was a porcupine, who was just adorable. The trainer said that this animal came from someone who had decided that she wasn’t such a good pet after all. I asked the trainer how old porcupines are when they get their spines. I didn’t think it was possible for someone to think a porcupine would make a good pet, unless they didn’t realize that it was a porcupine. It’s possible. Porcupines get their spines within a few hours of birth. Someone actually, knowingly took a wild porcupine home as a pet! The human gene pool needs some chlorine. Overall, this show was very interesting and educational, the animals were cute, and we give the Animal Training Session a very high recommendation!

After the animal training we decided to use our ice cream coupons from lunch, until we saw how fast the Festival of the Lion King theatre was filling. Wow, this is a fabulous show, and the only thing at the Animal Kingdom that I would rate as not to be missed! We sat on the front row, and it was great! One of Disney’s best shows ever!

After the Lion King show we were in the heat of the afternoon, and it seemed like the perfect time to use our ice cream coupons. We ordered cones of soft serve at the ice cream counter right across from the Lion King theatre. While we were eating our ice cream, we noticed the character greeting trails in the back of Camp Minnie-Mickey. We are very thankful that neither of our kids has ever shown any interest in waiting in line to meet, photograph with, or collect autographs of the characters. We enjoy the characters very much at any character meals we attend, (at least one per trip,) but we don’t want to use our park time for this activity.

After our ice cream, we head to Asia for the Kali River Rapids and Jungle Trek. At this point, we didn’t realize that FastPasses can be used for the rest of the day, and not just within the one hour window. If we had, we would have picked up a Kali River Rapids FastPass earlier in the day. As it was, by the time we arrived there, at just after 2:00PM, all the FastPasses were gone for the day. With the standby line at 55 minutes, we decided to forgo this attraction for this trip. We haven’t heard that Disney’s version of this amusement park standard is anything special, so we didn’t really mind missing it.

The Maharaja Jungle Trek is a section of a zoo. If you like zoos, you will like the Jungle Trek. We enjoyed seeing the animals, but it really isn’t anything beyond what you see at other zoos. The best part when we were there, was that there was a tiger pacing back and forth in front of a window at the path. It would have been nice if there were bars instead of glass, but then of course, it would have to be much farther from the path. The Malayan Flying Fox bats are cool, but not very active during the day. Most people don’t realize that mega-bats don’t use echolocation like the smaller bats. If you want to see bats, Austin, TX is the place to visit.

When we left the Maharaja Jungle Trek, we headed back to Africa for the Wildlife Express Train/Conservation Station and the Pangani Forest Trail. On the way we caught the last showing of Flights of Wonder on the Caravan Stage. This is most enjoyable bird show, presented in a very well themed venue. The conservation message is clearly presented without being preachy, and the birds are beautiful. Some of the birds are most impressive, especially the large hawk, owl and bald eagle.

Next, we went to ride the Wildlife Express Train to the Conservation Station. This train ride is uneventful, with nothing to look at most of the way. It is primarily just transportation out to the Conservation Station. The one interesting thing on this ride, is the view of the barns and pens where the animals are kept at night. I was not aware until then that the animals don’t live full time in the habitats where we see them on the Safari. Each evening, they are called in to be fed and packed away until the next day. We had read older reports that said that wheelchairs didn’t go on the Wildlife Express Train, and there would be courtesy chairs at the Conservation Station, but this is no longer true. Each train car now has a wheelchair slot.

Out at the Conservation Station we viewed the exhibits and visited the petting zoo. Having recently read Carl Hiassen’s teen book “Hoot”, we were pleased to see the burrowing owls. They had a large ball that had been mauled by a tiger, as well as a large preserved piece of elephant poop. The animals in the petting zoo love to rub on wheelchairs and ECV’s. For children in wheelchairs, this is a really great feature of the conservation station. My wife appreciated it as well. My favorite part of the Conservation Station was the middle school potty humor in the men’s room, placed there to get boys (and men,) to wash their hands. Above each urinal were 2 trivia questions: “How much does an elephant pee?” and “How far can a rhinoceros or tapir pee?”. At the bottom it said “Wash your hands to find the answers.” Above the sinks were the answers: “20 gallons per day” and “15 feet”. Funny stuff!

After the train ride back, we went to walk through the Pangani Forest Trail. Again, this is a section of a zoo. If you like zoos, you will like the Forest Trail.

The afternoon parade was in progress when we came out of the Pangani Forest Trail. We really enjoyed the puppets (I’m not sure if that is the right thing to call them; they were part costume, and part puppet.) This was a very nice parade, and next visit we will probably plan to see it from beginning to end.

After the parade, we used our coupons from lunch to get soft drinks in DAK souvenir cups from a cart.

By this time, it is almost closing time (5:00 pm). We visited some of the exhibits in the Oasis on our way out, and then headed back to our hotel. We would have enjoyed another hour or two at this park. It made us wonder if we would be grumbling about the short hours by the end of our stay.

Our overall opinion of Disney’s Animal Kingdom is that it is an above average zoo, with some fair rides and good shows. The Festival of the Lion King is a wonderful show. Of Disney’s four theme parks, two of us rank Animal Kingdom 4th and 2 of us rank it 6th. (Two of us would rather spend a day at one of the water parks.)

From the hotel we walked to Epcot, and our dinner PS at Akershus in the Norway pavilion. It was now time for us to start appreciating the location of the Epcot resorts. It is really great to be able to walk to Epcot in 5-10 minutes. It took us longer to get to the restaurant once we were in the park, than it took to get from our room to the gate. I will write more about the restaurant in my restaurant reviews, but I will comment briefly on the new format at Akershus. Although it is a plus to have the food fresh, and not heat-lamped into an unrecognizable blob, it takes so long to get a second order that it is not really all-you-can-eat anymore. We like to have table service meals in the parks to rest and relax, but we don’t want to spend hours at a meal. Overall, we rate the new format “thumbs down”.

After dinner, it was time to head for our third park of the day, as we wanted to be sure to see Fantasmic during our visit, and it is susceptible to being cancelled due to inclement weather. We arrived about 40 minutes before show time, and there were many seats remaining. We had good seats in the disabled area on the top row, about 1/3 of the way from the left side. The crowd reached the SRO level at about 20 minutes before the show, and was completely full about 15 minutes before show time. Less than half of the dinner special seats were used, and they filled the empties with other people at about 10 minutes before show time. The only negative about this show is the necessity to arrive more than an hour early during busy times. I was surprised at how few aisle vendors there were in the Fantasmic stadium. It seems like a missed opportunity. If they hired 2 dozen aisle vendors selling overpriced beer, I think they could make a lot of money. As for the show, it was great! This is an unbelievable show, probably the best Disney has ever done. Worth the wait! Not to be missed! Wow!

Well, we were successful at setting a family record of visiting 3 parks in one day, and we had a great time doing it. On the boat home from the Studios, we were already getting excited about our visit to Epcot on Monday.

Day 3: http://disboards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=402802

 

[Minniespal]

Thanks for sharing ~ Wonderful reviews!!!!!

 

[pnelson]

Were your boys (being teenagers) excited about being at Disney World? Did they hang out with you guys the whole time or split up??

AAWWW, my son loves to get autographs (he's 10). My memories of him with the characters are some of the best ones I have. I will be sad when he gives it up!!!

 

[DisneyVillain]

They were excited. They stayed with us almost the entire time. Partly because they like doing things as a family, and partly because they know they'll get to do more if they stick with me.

We have pictures of them with some of the characters from every trip, (except younger son was terrified of them his first trip), but we get them at character meals, and not by waiting in line.