JenniBarra
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Jan 20, 2002
- Messages
- 415
Tuesday, February 5
Today's our day for Animal Kingdom. We're not even through the gates and we're already awed!
Once we're actually inside, I'm amazed at just how lush the walk to the Oasis is. I kept hearing about how hot a park AK is due to a lack of shade, so this is quite a surprise to me. We probably spend a good half hour just wandering around the nooks and crannies on this pathway.
It gets even better once we can finally catch our first glimpse of the Tree of Life. Keith thinks that the leaves look fake, but I still think it's an impressive sight. After we take a number of pictures and also take a picture for another couple, we move closer to the Oasis.
Early on, I can tell this will be a record making day for taking pictures! I'm asking Keith every few steps of the way to take a picture of this or that - stuff like the cute sign directing visitors to Camp Minnie-Mickey.
We eventually get to Africa and, if it's possible, are even more awed than before! The details are terrific, down to the "exposed utilities." What makes things even more fun is that a small band with bongos starts up. Soon, even Baloo the Bear and King Louie are joining in! Then one of the musicians goes into the ever growing audience and starts encouraging guests to join them, including Keith. These newest performers are led into a dance with the characters, to the delight of both they and the spectators.
After the group finishes their performance, it's on to Kilimanjaro Safaris. I decide we should go ahead and wait in the standby line, since Disney minutes frequently seem to go faster than the posted time. ; ) (I will eventually decide, though, that it will be advantageous to use FastPass as frequently as possible. While everyone reports that these are "light" crowds, it's still more people than I'm used to encountering at Disneyland Resort in the off season, where I don't think I've ever used FastPass.) The time goes by pretty quickly, though, as Keith strikes up conversation with other guests in line behind us. (Throughout our trip, we will find that being Californians is quite a rarity on this other coast.) The ride is great and we are able to see many, many animals.
We follow up the safari trip with a jaunt through the Pagani trail. Again, we are fortunate to be able to view lots of animals. One of the gorillas even decides to put on a show of walking toward his audience...and then turning his back on us to pee! What I actually find the most intriguing on the trail is the naked mole rat colony. I had no idea that they lived in a social system quite similar to that of an ant colony. The environments are great, maybe even better than those of the San Diego Zoo, which has long been my favorite zoo.
After our hike, we're hungry for lunch. Tusker House seems to be the place to go, as the lines are quite long. I make it to the restrooms across the way and come back before Keith has even reached the cashier! (Tip for the future: locate and use the restrooms in the restaurant. The outside restrooms are *very* heavily trafficked, resulting in long lines, something I don't usually experience at Disney bathrooms due to a high number of stalls.)
After lunch, I tell Keith that, if we have time, I'd like to make it back to Africa to check out Conservation Station, but that I want to see Asia next. We get into Asia in just enough time to catch Flights of Wonder. What gorgeous birds! After the show, we take pictures along the pathway and are more and more impressed. From there, we go on the Maharajah Jungle Trek. I love the "ruins" that the tigers reside in. (Tip: if one viewing area is too crowded, there are plenty more opportunities to view the tigers further down the trail.) We contemplate whether we should do Kali River Rapids, but this day is slightly cooler than the past two days so we decide to skip it.
Dinoland U.S.A. makes me think of Las Vegas Fred Flintstone! Here, I'm pretty much just interested in catching Dinosaur. I fully expected to FastPass this one, but the wait was a mere five minutes! All I knew about it was that it's a ride system similar to Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye. Well, I think it does its "cousin" proud! We had so much fun on this one, we turned right around and did it again! : )
By now, it was close to time for Mickey's Jammin' Jungle Parade to begin. We get dozens more pictures, though Keith just missed photographing Mickey at the end because he needed to replace the memory card on the camera. : /
At this point in the day, it's too late to catch "Festival of the Lion King," but there's still another showing of "Tarzan Rocks" left. We book back to Dinoland U.S.A (what the heck is Tarzan doing *here*??) to make the show. I know that a lot of folks don't think much of this show, but we enjoyed it quite a lot. I think Jane and Tarzan's rope acrobatics were my favorite part, while Keith quite liked the live band and skaters. (He even enjoyed Terk's song, due to the audience participation factor, and he usually *hates* that particular piece! He's just not into scat...)
As much as we have enjoyed our day at Animal Kingdom, the park is closing. I make a short stop to Island Mercantile for postcards and CDs and then it's off to catch the Animal Kingdom Lodge bus.
At AKL, we have about half an hour before our priority seating reservations at Boma, so, while there's daylight left, we check out one of the observation areas. A savanna guide from South Africa, Ann-Mare, is talking with guests about the animals they are seeing and so on. Some people also ask her about her home country, revealing the myths so many have about the African continent. (In college, to fulfill an ethnography requirement for my anthropology major, I took a course in the peoples of east and south Africa, so my own questions and observations quite differ.) We ask and learn about the college program that has brought Ann-Mare here.
By now, it's dinnertime. African food is a completely new experience for both of us. My parents, who used to think I was the pickiest child alive, would have been proud to see that I actually sampled my way through the entire meal. I found the soups and stews and nut encrusted mahi mahi to be the best dishes. Keith preferred the flank steak. As for Boma's famous desserts, well, I sampled most all of those, too! ; ) I think that a buffet was a perfect setting for trying something new as you can take as much or as little as you like.
We had planned to take some pictures in the lobby and then head back to our hotel. (Though pictures don't do it justice since it's so large and detailed!) As Keith was prepping to take a picture of the carved ostrich lamps, a CM walked over and offered to photograph us. We took him up on his offer and, after he was done, he invited us to the lounge, where he said he was shortly going to be giving a presentation on South Africa.
At the talk, he spoke about the economy, languages, etc. We're now fired up that, someday, we're going to take a trip there ourselves. : ) Even Ann-Mare stops by to add some comments of her own. If you are staying at AKL or plan to dine at Boma, consider checking out these talks. Each night, a different savanna guide talks about his or her home country so one night it could be South Africa and then Kenya the next.
On the way to the bus stop, we stop into the gift shop and drool over the great merchandise. We contemplate a cool fountain that looks like the Tree of Life. It's 30% off, but we decide to think about it and come back if we decide we want it.
As we wait for the bus, we talk of future plans for Orlando trips. We decide to come back in January, before our APs expire. (APs worked better for us because we used our Disney Club discount to get the vouchers and then having the vouchers got us an AP discount on our lodging.) We also discuss the possibility of scaling back the two or three annual Disneyland trips in favor of making it to Orlando once a year or every other year. I know that I will never be able to do everything I want when I'm at WDW, so it comforts me to know that I'm not going to have to wait another four years (or more) to come back. Of course, DL trips will never be scaled out entirely, either, as I still think of Walt's original park as a second home of sorts.
Eventually the Downtown Disney bus arrives. (We're doing what the transportation map advises when "resort hopping," making connections via Downtown Disney.) We're the only ones on the bus, so in chatting with the bus driver we say that we're doing the connection thing. He says that he's actually running ahead of schedule and radios in to get other status information. It ends up that he could spare the time to take us directly to Port Orleans, for which we are so grateful as it means hitting our bed all the sooner! ; )
Today's our day for Animal Kingdom. We're not even through the gates and we're already awed!
Once we're actually inside, I'm amazed at just how lush the walk to the Oasis is. I kept hearing about how hot a park AK is due to a lack of shade, so this is quite a surprise to me. We probably spend a good half hour just wandering around the nooks and crannies on this pathway.
It gets even better once we can finally catch our first glimpse of the Tree of Life. Keith thinks that the leaves look fake, but I still think it's an impressive sight. After we take a number of pictures and also take a picture for another couple, we move closer to the Oasis.
Early on, I can tell this will be a record making day for taking pictures! I'm asking Keith every few steps of the way to take a picture of this or that - stuff like the cute sign directing visitors to Camp Minnie-Mickey.
We eventually get to Africa and, if it's possible, are even more awed than before! The details are terrific, down to the "exposed utilities." What makes things even more fun is that a small band with bongos starts up. Soon, even Baloo the Bear and King Louie are joining in! Then one of the musicians goes into the ever growing audience and starts encouraging guests to join them, including Keith. These newest performers are led into a dance with the characters, to the delight of both they and the spectators.
After the group finishes their performance, it's on to Kilimanjaro Safaris. I decide we should go ahead and wait in the standby line, since Disney minutes frequently seem to go faster than the posted time. ; ) (I will eventually decide, though, that it will be advantageous to use FastPass as frequently as possible. While everyone reports that these are "light" crowds, it's still more people than I'm used to encountering at Disneyland Resort in the off season, where I don't think I've ever used FastPass.) The time goes by pretty quickly, though, as Keith strikes up conversation with other guests in line behind us. (Throughout our trip, we will find that being Californians is quite a rarity on this other coast.) The ride is great and we are able to see many, many animals.
We follow up the safari trip with a jaunt through the Pagani trail. Again, we are fortunate to be able to view lots of animals. One of the gorillas even decides to put on a show of walking toward his audience...and then turning his back on us to pee! What I actually find the most intriguing on the trail is the naked mole rat colony. I had no idea that they lived in a social system quite similar to that of an ant colony. The environments are great, maybe even better than those of the San Diego Zoo, which has long been my favorite zoo.
After our hike, we're hungry for lunch. Tusker House seems to be the place to go, as the lines are quite long. I make it to the restrooms across the way and come back before Keith has even reached the cashier! (Tip for the future: locate and use the restrooms in the restaurant. The outside restrooms are *very* heavily trafficked, resulting in long lines, something I don't usually experience at Disney bathrooms due to a high number of stalls.)
After lunch, I tell Keith that, if we have time, I'd like to make it back to Africa to check out Conservation Station, but that I want to see Asia next. We get into Asia in just enough time to catch Flights of Wonder. What gorgeous birds! After the show, we take pictures along the pathway and are more and more impressed. From there, we go on the Maharajah Jungle Trek. I love the "ruins" that the tigers reside in. (Tip: if one viewing area is too crowded, there are plenty more opportunities to view the tigers further down the trail.) We contemplate whether we should do Kali River Rapids, but this day is slightly cooler than the past two days so we decide to skip it.
Dinoland U.S.A. makes me think of Las Vegas Fred Flintstone! Here, I'm pretty much just interested in catching Dinosaur. I fully expected to FastPass this one, but the wait was a mere five minutes! All I knew about it was that it's a ride system similar to Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye. Well, I think it does its "cousin" proud! We had so much fun on this one, we turned right around and did it again! : )
By now, it was close to time for Mickey's Jammin' Jungle Parade to begin. We get dozens more pictures, though Keith just missed photographing Mickey at the end because he needed to replace the memory card on the camera. : /
At this point in the day, it's too late to catch "Festival of the Lion King," but there's still another showing of "Tarzan Rocks" left. We book back to Dinoland U.S.A (what the heck is Tarzan doing *here*??) to make the show. I know that a lot of folks don't think much of this show, but we enjoyed it quite a lot. I think Jane and Tarzan's rope acrobatics were my favorite part, while Keith quite liked the live band and skaters. (He even enjoyed Terk's song, due to the audience participation factor, and he usually *hates* that particular piece! He's just not into scat...)
As much as we have enjoyed our day at Animal Kingdom, the park is closing. I make a short stop to Island Mercantile for postcards and CDs and then it's off to catch the Animal Kingdom Lodge bus.
At AKL, we have about half an hour before our priority seating reservations at Boma, so, while there's daylight left, we check out one of the observation areas. A savanna guide from South Africa, Ann-Mare, is talking with guests about the animals they are seeing and so on. Some people also ask her about her home country, revealing the myths so many have about the African continent. (In college, to fulfill an ethnography requirement for my anthropology major, I took a course in the peoples of east and south Africa, so my own questions and observations quite differ.) We ask and learn about the college program that has brought Ann-Mare here.
By now, it's dinnertime. African food is a completely new experience for both of us. My parents, who used to think I was the pickiest child alive, would have been proud to see that I actually sampled my way through the entire meal. I found the soups and stews and nut encrusted mahi mahi to be the best dishes. Keith preferred the flank steak. As for Boma's famous desserts, well, I sampled most all of those, too! ; ) I think that a buffet was a perfect setting for trying something new as you can take as much or as little as you like.
We had planned to take some pictures in the lobby and then head back to our hotel. (Though pictures don't do it justice since it's so large and detailed!) As Keith was prepping to take a picture of the carved ostrich lamps, a CM walked over and offered to photograph us. We took him up on his offer and, after he was done, he invited us to the lounge, where he said he was shortly going to be giving a presentation on South Africa.
At the talk, he spoke about the economy, languages, etc. We're now fired up that, someday, we're going to take a trip there ourselves. : ) Even Ann-Mare stops by to add some comments of her own. If you are staying at AKL or plan to dine at Boma, consider checking out these talks. Each night, a different savanna guide talks about his or her home country so one night it could be South Africa and then Kenya the next.
On the way to the bus stop, we stop into the gift shop and drool over the great merchandise. We contemplate a cool fountain that looks like the Tree of Life. It's 30% off, but we decide to think about it and come back if we decide we want it.
As we wait for the bus, we talk of future plans for Orlando trips. We decide to come back in January, before our APs expire. (APs worked better for us because we used our Disney Club discount to get the vouchers and then having the vouchers got us an AP discount on our lodging.) We also discuss the possibility of scaling back the two or three annual Disneyland trips in favor of making it to Orlando once a year or every other year. I know that I will never be able to do everything I want when I'm at WDW, so it comforts me to know that I'm not going to have to wait another four years (or more) to come back. Of course, DL trips will never be scaled out entirely, either, as I still think of Walt's original park as a second home of sorts.
Eventually the Downtown Disney bus arrives. (We're doing what the transportation map advises when "resort hopping," making connections via Downtown Disney.) We're the only ones on the bus, so in chatting with the bus driver we say that we're doing the connection thing. He says that he's actually running ahead of schedule and radios in to get other status information. It ends up that he could spare the time to take us directly to Port Orleans, for which we are so grateful as it means hitting our bed all the sooner! ; )
