I have mentioned that is was 1 billion thousand million degrees this whole trip, right? Like, I think Tuesday and Wednesday both may have been so hot that when you looked at the thermometer rather than give you an actual number it just said : The Sun.
Tuesday was our last full day and night, and Dr. Jekyll, with our new and improved touring system of happiness, asked the night before if we would rather have him in the morning or the afternoon. This was kind of a catch 22 for us, however. I had bought all 3 of us tickets for that night's Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. At a deep military discount, but still it wasn't what I would call cheap for 3. However, the Magic Kingdom serves no brewski's, which might bode ill for Dr. Jekyll. BUT, Dr. Jekyll likes to sleep in, if he wakes up too early for morning tourning and we drag him around then Mr. Hyde is sure to creep out, right? It was quite the connundrum. In the end, availability of beer won out over sleep, and I figured, despite eating the cost of the extra ticket I didn't need anymore, that it would be better for Jekyll's sanity if he did a morning with us instead of braving the party with no beer.
I had an 8:30 reservation at Tusker House, which is Kassidy and I's must do, every trip. I can't live without the cheese blintzes once a vacation, I love them. Now, a little background about Casey and Tusker House, because we have quite a history. I had never once been on time for my reservation there. Never. And I somehow always seem to find one for before the park opens, which is great, however what they DON'T tell you is that no matter what time your reservation is for, if you arrive at the rope after 8:30am, they won't let you in, reservation or not, until their little opening show with Mickey is over. This has led to tears for me, 2 trips in a row. Not so this time my friends! I was ON IT! We were up at 6:45 and out the door by 7:45. The curse was going to be lifted this time by goodness!
We arrived plenty early for our reservation, sailed through the rope and still had time to spare. We stopped at the Tree of Life for a family picture.
We were all in great moods, it wasn't too hot yet, the park was totally empty except for the family you see behind us in that shot, it was great.
That is, until we checked into Tusker House. Oh brother...
See, I'm starting to think I had the right idea by being held at the rope all those times, because apparently there is a huge gap between rushes. Our past times, I was so late and panicked that we ran from the rope back to Africa and when we arrived all of the 8-8:30 people were done and leaving, there was never a line to check in, there was never a line for the pic with Donald, we never had an issue.
This time...the wait just to check in at the podium was about 20 minutes and then the wait to get the pic with Donald was another 20-30.
Hyde came back in the line.
Mr. Hyde: "What is this?"
Me: "This is the line to check in."
Hyde "Why didn't you tell me it would be like this, I thought we were just going to breakfast."
Me: "I had no idea it would be like this Aaron, it's never been like this before."
Hyde: "*SIGH* This is stupid, we have to wait for all these people and then wait for a stupid picture and I all wanted was some freaking eggs."
Why couldn't a beer cart have wandered by at that moment? *sigh*
When we made it to the podium things were going south quickly, so I asked if we could skip the picture and just be seated. They were more than happy to accomodate and we went right in.
Jekyll came back and Hyde disappeared, but he wasn't that impressed with Tusker House as a whole. Eh, I guess it isn't for everyone but I still love it and we will totally be back, once again, on our next trip. Dr. Jekyll or not! I love Daisy Duck.
When we finished it was right after 9am and Jekyll noticed that the majority of the people were rushing toward our area of the park and wondered what was going on. I explained to him what Kilamanjaro Safari's was and he seemed really interested. At 9:15 though the line was spilling out into the street in Africa, so I knew that line wasn't going to hold Mr. Hyde off for very long, so I grabbed us fastpasses and we headed towards the Yeti. I got a great Tree of Life pic along the way.
Dr. Jekyll was really interested in a lot of the stuff he saw at the Animal Kingdom. He stopped and took a lot of pictures of the tree on his own and we spent a few minutes picking out the animals on it. We popped into Asia and he kept commenting on how authentic everything looked.
Kassidy and I have a knack at Expedition Everest. Every time we have ever been to the Animal Kingdom and want to ride, it is always a walk on. Always. I have never once actually had to stand in a queue there, it's amazing. As usual, this was the case on Tuesday morning. We walked straight on, and once again I was almost a little sorry because I wanted Jekyll to be able to look around at the Sherpa stuff a little bit. He kept saying it was really neat and I didn't want this to be a Test Track repeat. So, we boarded the train and went up the mountain...
AND HE LOVED IT! He loved it so much, we went on again! Then we went on a third time! We probably would have done more had his breakfast not been wanting to make a repeat appearance after the third trip, LOL. It was really, really great to listen to him yell and cheer and whoop and hollar. I kind of knew I had him hooked at that point. It was an amazing time.
Much to Kassidy's dismay, I made us sit through Flights of Wonder, hokey as it is, because I love the birds, especially the owls.
It's amazing how fast time seems to fly for me at any park, but especially the AK for me. Its like there is a weird time vortex between Africa and Asia that sucks an hour away from my day magically. After the bird show it was fastpass time for the Safari.
And did I mention it was hotter than, oh say, Death Valley in the middle of July while sitting inside a black vehicle with all of the windows rolled up and wearing a turtle neck? We were all kind of ready to call it a morning and go dunk in the pool.
On the way back toward the Safari we found DiVine. I had tried to tell Jekyll about her before, but there just isn't any way to accurately describe her. Its just one of those things you have to see. When I saw a crowd of people stopped and pointing, I figured she was out.
Jekyll was enthralled, he thought she was awesome, especially when she crossed the road and blended into the folliage on the other side and completely disappeared into the trees.
The fastpass for the Safari was good for several reasons. #1, we didn't have to wait, #2, it allowed me to kind of explain to Jekyll what a fastpass is and the benefits of using one at strategic times. A little Disney knowledge goes a long way, and he was really starting to feel more comfortable and get his own reign on things.
We had great luck on the Safari with animals, except for the Lions who must have been napping. I got a great Rhino shot though.
Jekyll was calling us "Simba 1" and "Simba 2" for the rest of the trip, LOL.
Africa was really, really crowded at this point when we exited the Safari, and it was just too hot to cope, so we decided to just go back and swim for a couple of hours before dinner. So back to the CSR we went!
The dinner at Le Cellier sounds like a wonderful experience. It is on my "must do" list for one of our future WDW trips. 
Sounds like all 3 of y'all had a really great night!
Steaks were B1G1F this week and I got 12 of them to keep the peace for a while 
CSR is like a "deluxe" Moderate, and can't wait for the next installment of your adventure 
That was so great that you had an awesome server and she suggested things that pleased your DH! 
And Kassidy sounds like my DD7, I can hear it in my head...Mommy what will we do, we are late.....where will we eat 
love it.. this sounds like m DH our first trip!
