Drink up, me 'earties, yo ho!

[jwhtewolfd]

Cue sunrise and "Circle of Life" music. This is my picture park, so not much to say. We hit Rope Drop, the Safari, did a little shopping in Africa - 2 Safari shirts for me, a walking stick for Tony - caught the first Festival of the Lion King show, walked a Tree of Life trail I'd never been on before and then it was time for lunch. Enjoy:

We did several safari rides. A couple were downright disappointing, but a few were really nice. This was the first of many.

Waterbuck and Thompson's Gazelle:

Watusi Cattle:

Giraffe:

Elephant:

See the baby in the back:

The lion was actually moving!

Warthog:

Ostrich:

FotLK, from the giraffe section:

Trail and lunch to follow...

 

[jwhtewolfd]

This is the trail that runs right behind the Tree of Life. It's confusing because it also appears to be the exit for Tough to be a Bug. So cool to find this trail I'd never walked before.

This is the lemur area behind the TTBAB FP machines. Flik was there for meet and greet, but Tony wouldn't wait in line.

Flame Tree BBQ finally opened and we had a most delicious lunch.

This duck thought it looked delicious, too, but, unfortunately for him, I don't feed the birds.

We tried going back to Camp Minnie Mickey for meet and greets, but we just missed Meeko and Chip and Dale's line just closed before we got to it. It's so hit or miss back there. Every park would benefit from character appearance signs like they have in World Showcase. It's not like you just happen to be hanging out in Camp Minnie Mickey area. There's nothing back there once you've seen FotLK. We braved one line - Safari Mickey - with my new Safari Eeyore plush. Mickey liked that Eeyore was on a leash like Pluto. He also liked Tony's walking stick and told a CM he wanted one.

I had seen the Safari Pooh and pals on my last several trips and never bought one, but always took pictures of them. I finally decided before this trip to go ahead and buy one. Of course that meant that this time I could only find the tiny ones. I guess that means they are phasing them out, so I grabbed one while I still could, but I really wanted the bigger Eeyore.

We left Camp and trekked over to Asia to walk the Maharajah Jungle Trek - we did A LOT of walking today.

Komodo Dragon:

Fruit bats:

These guys got into a little, as one was trying to cross and the other wasn't moving out the way:

More Maharajah Trek in the next post...

 

[jwhtewolfd]

We lucked out and got some serious tiger action. This older tiger was just hanging out until this little whipper-snapper came up and started pestering him. It was so cool to watch them interact. They look just like the cats at home. This interaction happened on the left side of the courtyard area where there are large windows on each side. Here are a select few of the many, many tiger pictures I have from today.

older tiger minding his own business

younger tiger wants to play

older tiger says, "hmph, I'm ignoring you"

it worked, younger tiger goes away

the young one gives it a rest

older tiger takes a well deserved roll in the grass

action shot: younger tiger comes back, older tiger gives chase

older tiger: "I told you to leave me alone!"

younger tiger: "Ok, ok, I give up"

older tiger leaves, younger tiger thinks about going after him again

older tiger: "Can you believe that guy?"

older tiger "Ug, kids!"

older tiger "I'm exhausted"

This is a different tiger on the right side of the bridge you cross. He/She was alone, but playing in the water and chewing on plants, in typical cat fashion.

After all that excitement and talking with the tiger CMs about our cats, we rushed over and made it to Finding Nemo just in time.

Up next - meeting Pooh and Pals with Safari Eeyore and another Safari. Can you handle more animal pics?

 

[jwhtewolfd]

Pooh and Pals all had to take a break when we were next in line...'ain't that always the way.

We hurried to catch another Safari before the parade, but we got stuck next in line waiting to get on a jeep. Apparently there was a hold up with an animal in the road somewhere and the whole operation was at a standstill for quite a while. We ended up missing the parade, and I believe this was one of our more disappointing safari rides. Luckily, even the less-than-thrilling rides yield a few pictures:

Black Rhino

Crocodile

Thompson's Gazelle

Elephant

Bontebok (extinct in the wild)

Lazy Lion

Addax

Ostrich

The hold up on the Safari had us not only missing the parade, but rushing over to our Yak and Yeti ADR. The place was fairly empty, so we didn't have any trouble because of arriving late. Our sever was nice, but I only remember her name because it was Katrina and Tony made a big deal about it. She was local, so Tony again asked about a radio station for the Saints/Jags game. No luck again. We both ordered won ton soups:

We also split an order of eggrolls that I forgot to photograph. Tony ordered beef with broccoli:

I ordered honey chicken:

Dessert - pie and sorbet:

Yak and Yeti is ok. The counter service is probably a better value, but if you're going to get CS at AK, you're better off at Flame Tree BBQ. We didn't dislike anything, but nothing really wowed us either.

We didn't finish dinner until well after the park was closed. There were plenty of CMs on hand to point us in the right direction toward the exit and to make sure we didn't venture off in another direction. Once we were out the turnstiles we dared to to slow down to check out the awesome Lion King topiary.

And I made Tony stop again to get the picture we did not get on the way in :

Once again, we didn't accomplish much, but we had fun and an amazing time watching the tigers on the Maharajah Jungle Trek. All that in spite of Tony's rash and my blisters - big toe and little toe on the same foot - ouch. Next stop - HS for Fantasmic!

 

[jwhtewolfd]

We bused to HS. Check out that sky.

We were treated to a fabulous lightening show, which delayed the start of Fantasmic! But at long last the show went on.

Eeyore's watching tonight, too.

Not the greatest pictures, but dang that show is hard to photograph. We didn't get to see Sorcerer Mickey on top the mountain conducting the fireworks at the end - I assume because of the lightening. On the way out there was a little bit of bickering about whether to head to Epcot pm EMH as planned or call it a night. Eventually pain won out and we decided to go back to the room for an early-ish night and return to HS in the morning.

 

[jwhtewolfd]

I gotta get a move on before the next trip sneaks up on me before this report is done. Before we plow ahead into Thursday, how about some loot pictures from yesterday at AK? Pirates gotta have loot:

Safari Eeyore and a water bottle holder to match my hat and ears:

Spiffy new bling:

Safari shirts. Couldn't decide on one, so had to get both. Pirate.

We got to HS pretty early (~8:20am) and the crowds were fairly light. We opted to forgo another mad rush to TSMM and instead set our course down this way:

For Rock n' Roller Coaster. NOT Tower of Terror.

When we got in the studio, Aerosmith gave us backstage passes. The CM said that almost never happens!

We both were rocking our RnR shirts, so we agreed to do "rock and roll" hands for the on-ride picture:

Yeah, not sure what happened to Tony's rock and roll hands. Hmmm. Did someone hear a chicken cluck?

Here are some more rock and roll hands:

We were making our way over to Star Tours and finally slowed down long enough to see what this little area with the stars was about. Here I am with the Man himself:

You don't EVEN want to know how many times we had to take that shot to get it centered, focused, see Walt's name, etc. The force was not strong with Tony's picture taking skills today.

That's the picture I was trying to get him to take. Alas.

We continued on and found ourselves under the AT-AT Walker:

The order of things gets fuzzy in my notes, but I think we rode Star Tours at least six times throughout the day. We got quite a few repeats, but we also saw new scenes of Hoth and Jar Jar Binks' underwater world.

After a spin or two on Star Tours, I headed over for an Animation Academy while Tony went and did...whatever it is he does. We had a really informative artist that showed us all the subtle differences that make a big overall difference between Pluto and Goofy as he walked us through our steps to draw Pluto.

Tony held a place in line for The Little Mermaid while I ran for burgers for lunch. We ate in line and finished JUST in time to duck into the next show. I love the lasers that make it look like you are under water, but something went wrong at the end of the show. When Ariel should have lifted off the rock and grown legs, we got a closed curtain and a great crescendo of sound. Oh well. Next time, I guess.

I'm kinda proud of how accidentally well time this picture was:

Next up: Star Tours, Jedi Training, Star Tours, and I loose that dang camera AGAIN!