Animal Kingdom morning dawned after a nice, long sleep. We showered, dressed and left the room early enough (we thought) to make rope drop. I had to stop by the front desk to check out/in. We had a continuing reservation here and these were the 2 nights that DSis was paying for so I had a separate ressie for tonight/tomorrow. The computers were all down and they could not issue any new keys at this time. I was advised by a very smiley cast member to stop back again tonight when we return and we can get new keys. I certainly did not have luck on my side at the Pop this trip and would need to return later for my SIXTH trip to the check in desk on this trip.
We waited a longer than usual time for a bus. Lots of every park except AK buses until we got one. Bad key and bus karma this morning and we missed the park opening time! I'm stressed out because we were definitely supposed to meet sister for RD and now we're late.
We text her when we get in the park and she texts that she is headed to Everest for Fast Passes. Can we get Kali FP and meet at the Safari entrance? They were a smidge after RD too so it's all good. Phew. Alex is off like the flash that he is to Kali and meets up with us as we are watching the African drummer near Tusker house. And we wait. And we wait as the crowds file passed us to get on Safari. We bought breakfast at the stand outside of Tusker house. I finally have to text her "Where are you?" They decided to jump on Dinosaur. The standby is now 30 minutes for Safari so we don't get in line to ride it. We walk towards Everest stopping to take a few quick pics -
The boys ride Everest Standby 10 minutes then 2 more times in single rider! While they were gone, I tried out the camera's Close Up button on this dragonfly.
When did I get so old that taking pictures of dragonflies is more exciting that riding roller coasters?
We make our way to Dinoland and DSis's family is riding TriCeratops. The boys get a turn to spin on a triceratops.
All we need to do is round up the group and move on so we send DBil and Alex off to Africa for FP for Safari. We told them to meet us outside of the Pangani Trail after they get FP. As we are herding the cats together, we see Goofy walking towards the M&G line. We jumped over the chains and lined up right away and we are the second family.
We also tried to get a cute random picture of the boys. Can't decide which one is my favorite -
Oh forget it. We'd better go. We rush our way over to the Pangani trail ready to apologize for the impromptu character pictures slightly detaining us. We arrive but Alex and DBil are nowhere to be found. A quick text and we find out that they went to the other trail - the tiger trail in Asia. Ooops. We wait for them, hitting the bathrooms and then the gift shop.
While we waited, I bought a postcard to send home. Every trip, I always vow to send a postcard home on the first day. The first day slips into the next and sometimes, I'm mailing something home hoping that it beats my plane home. So here we are on Tuesday of the trip (5th day into the trip) and I've yet to mail anything. I select a cool Gorilla postcard but they don't sell any stamps. So I carry the postcard around all day. We are reunited and now DSis wants to get her kids a snack. We move the group closer to the Forest Trail and she and DBil head off for Jalapeño pretzels. I stand with the kids and entertain them by playing Disney theme park music on my phone.
"Play the Haunted Mansion one again Aunt Lala!" DBil and DSis return to the group huddled over my phone and I graciously wave my hand over the group and say "I've got everything under control." like I'm the Pied Piper of Parenting. DSis and family decide to sit out the Trail and enjoy their snack while the safari FP mature. Can I ask why they put the gorillas at the end of the trail? That's all that I want to see. We hurry thru the deer and the fish and the birds. We found one Timon standing guard and then head off in search of the stars of the show.
Not too much happening today. We did find this guy heading off to take a nap with his blankey.
After the trail, we ride the Safari. Ok. Show of hands. How many repeat visitors ride the Safari vowing at the beginning not to take any more animal pictures? "We've ridden it plenty of times and always take the same ones. You'll just have more pictures to delete when you get home. Don't do it again this time." I say to myself. Well, as soon as we are off on our 2 week adventure, the lens cap comes off and I am animatedly snapping away.
Rationalization - I'm having fun and last time I didn't have this fancy new camera with the sports feature that allows me to take 30 pictures in a row of the same giraffe.
We made two more trips to Everest. I sat out as did DBil and their younger two. With 4 FPasses and a kiddie swap pass used now and another 3 FPasses for later, we head for Kali River. DBil took my boys and Matthew and got a kiddie swap. DSis used that to take Matthew and Alex and 1 FP for Nick. I enjoyed the downtime with a delightful Raspberry iced tea from the tea stand. It was $4 for a large tea but oh so good. In fact, it was so good that when we came back later for another round of Kali, I bought another one. They were 'Mrs. Cheapskate spent $8 on two iced teas' good.
DSis got a set of Kali river Fast Passes for later and we went off on our own in search of lunch. We didn't go far and voted for A/C and burgers in Restaurantasaurus. Alex and I ordered a 1/3 pound burger and Nick got a Po boy sandwich to go with the Po Century resort (that still wasn't fixed from the other night by the way). Nick didn't care too much for his entrée - too much bread for him. Here's a picture of Alex's burger -
Too slow. I should have used the sports mode. He inhaled it so I gave him half of mine which he ate along with all his fries. Too bad I couldn’t get the dining plan just for him!
Not the best choice but we rode Dinosaur right after lunch.
Run, boys, run!
We saw the parade after finding a spot at the rope. My boys didn't want to see it but we were right here and it was about to start so I made them watch it. We rode Kali with DSis 1 more time. I rode it this time with the boys and my pretty light and airy sundress became a cling-to-my-skin-and-show-the-goods dress that I needed to blow dry in the ladies room. NO photos for that 1. Sorry.
My DSis left for dinner at Boma and the boys used their leftover Everest FP to push their total for the day to SIX times on Everest and 3 trips on Kali. We also saw Tough to be a Bug and went left instead of right at the exit and saw the big tortoise and some beautiful birds.
The park was a bit congested today don't you think?
We hit the Safari with our last set of Fast Passes that I don't remember when exactly we obtained them (the heat must have been getting to me, maybe we got them before the parade?) at 6:30. The last Safari departed at 7 today per the sign and the standby line was backed up. How does that work when the queue is full but the animals need to go to bed?
The animals were on the move and before I knew it, the lens cap was coming down and off I went, snapping away.
This time the giraffes were walking the other way. I should take a picture of that. 30 to be sure I got it.
The driver stopped the jeep and told us that if we were quiet, we could hear the lion roaring but we didn't. I did use the sports mode to capture a 150 semi-identical photo sequence of the male lion pacing around.
We stayed until just before the park closed and as we were leaving they were preparing the front area for something. We stuck around to see what was coming. It was the closing show for the park which I hadn't heard of or seen before.
There we go - 10 hours in Animal Kingdom. We didn't see Fish Sticks (the name that my sister and I have given to the Nemo show) or Lion King. We only stopped to grab breakfast to go and a counter service lunch. Somehow we didn't fit anything else into 10 hours!!!
So I hope to become a pro from reading your TP so I will be more willing to try SWW next time. 
