hedgehogcs
Always listening to Jiminy Cricket...
- Joined
- Aug 17, 1999
- Messages
- 126
Monday, November 12
After another delicious Pepper Market breakfast, we hit the bus stop around 8:00. A few minutes later, the Character Caravan bus pulls up! So that explains all those kids sitting around the bus stop with their autograph books. Goofy, Timon & Rafiki get out to play with the kids Jan & Rafiki pose for a picture. Then were off to the Animal Kingdom! We get in line to enter the park and find ourselves right behind some NCSU graduates from our own city! Small world, indeed. We head back with the crowd to do Kilimanjaro Safaris first with almost no wait at all. There is a real lack of animals on the savannah, but as were heading towards the cheetahs, a herd of rhinos charge out of the trees on the right and stop right in front of & beside us. They were so close it was incredible! And Little Red was okay whew! Close call! Then we headed over to Camp Minnie-Mickey for the Festival of the Lion King show. This is a wonderful show and probably my favorite live show on the property.
We then took a slow leisurely walk back (particularly through the beautiful Oasis Gardens) to the park entrance for lunch at Rainforest Café. Another great meal but the highlight (shamefully) is the moment when I said This is very relaxing and Jan thought I said Im a little Nazi. Embarrassingly loud laughter follows for 20 minutes. Surprisingly, they dont kick us out. After lunch, we headed over to DinoLand for a thrill on Dinosaur! The Sauropod must be on vacation, because that part of the ride is just darkness now but its still a pretty wild ride! We barely notice our Magic Moments pins flashing in here. Then we see Its Tough to Be a Bug taking our sweet time walking through the roots of the Tree of Life. Its almost too beautiful to be real. Jan LOVES the movie we immediately go back and see it again. Then on to Asia for a walk through Maharaja Jungle Trek (where we got to see one of the tigers swimming in the pool!) and a spin on Kali River Rapids. We looked in plenty of shops all around, but no zebra visors!
Then we walked back to Harambe to stake out a good spot to watch the Jammin Jungle Parade from. Jan was pretty beat and we found a bench to sit on, but as the streets started to crowd up, we moved down to a spot on the street so we could have a good view of the parade. Well, we had just gotten settled when a CM walks over to us and asks if were together & if its just the two of us. We nod and he says Im gonna make your day. Howd you like to be in the parade? He asked us if we can smile and wave for a long time Jan says Just try to stop me from smiling! Okay, the next hour or so is sort of a blur in my head while I tried to comprehend that it was actually happening but I seem to recall being taken backstage and dressed in a safari vest & hat, then being safely seen into our vehicle. Jan & I kept giving each other Is this really happening? looks, then she noticed that the front of the truck was zebra-striped. A few minutes later, I noticed that we were in Mickeys car! I guess we were too stunned to notice that right away. But a little while later, we head out the doors into the parade! A CM snaps our picture with a disposable camera and hands it to me (thats super classy, by the way) I slip it into my pocket and spend the next 30 minutes smiling and waving at everyone and anyone who looks my way. What an incredible experience!!! Well never forget it. Definite highlight of the trip! When we return to backstage, Mickey shakes our hands and a CM takes our picture with him. Is it possible to drown in pixie dust?
We sort of floated out of the park after that stopping in the Tree of Life Garden to look at some of the animals. While were standing there admiring the view, a little boy comes along and this kid is just filled with joy. You can just feel it radiating off of him. He sees an African Crowned Crane and yells to his mom, Hey, Mom look at this hairy bird! When Mom doesnt answer (I think she was talking to Dad), he just starts singing Hairy Bird, I love you! over and over again. We know how he feels we love everything and everybody, too and we just wanted to pick him up and hug him. Hairy Bird, I love you becomes the trips official song and we manage, during the course of the week, to find all the tunes it can be sung to. (Hint - Danny Boy is quite good.) Although we had planned to maybe hit Epcot after leaving Animal Kingdom, we opt to return to CSR and have a leisurely dinner and quiet evening.
Dinner is at the Maya Grill and is extremely good. Then we head back to the room. I brought my digital camera and have been pulling all the pictures from the camera onto the laptop every night. We decided to take some of our evening time to look at the pictures and give them filenames. This is a mistake we were both obviously extremely giddy and got so tickled naming the pictures that well, it wasnt pretty, thats all I can tell you. Our sides ached from laughing so hard. In addition to our new things to laugh about, There it is .there it goes is still really funny to us.
Tomorrow: Magic Kingdom!
After another delicious Pepper Market breakfast, we hit the bus stop around 8:00. A few minutes later, the Character Caravan bus pulls up! So that explains all those kids sitting around the bus stop with their autograph books. Goofy, Timon & Rafiki get out to play with the kids Jan & Rafiki pose for a picture. Then were off to the Animal Kingdom! We get in line to enter the park and find ourselves right behind some NCSU graduates from our own city! Small world, indeed. We head back with the crowd to do Kilimanjaro Safaris first with almost no wait at all. There is a real lack of animals on the savannah, but as were heading towards the cheetahs, a herd of rhinos charge out of the trees on the right and stop right in front of & beside us. They were so close it was incredible! And Little Red was okay whew! Close call! Then we headed over to Camp Minnie-Mickey for the Festival of the Lion King show. This is a wonderful show and probably my favorite live show on the property.
We then took a slow leisurely walk back (particularly through the beautiful Oasis Gardens) to the park entrance for lunch at Rainforest Café. Another great meal but the highlight (shamefully) is the moment when I said This is very relaxing and Jan thought I said Im a little Nazi. Embarrassingly loud laughter follows for 20 minutes. Surprisingly, they dont kick us out. After lunch, we headed over to DinoLand for a thrill on Dinosaur! The Sauropod must be on vacation, because that part of the ride is just darkness now but its still a pretty wild ride! We barely notice our Magic Moments pins flashing in here. Then we see Its Tough to Be a Bug taking our sweet time walking through the roots of the Tree of Life. Its almost too beautiful to be real. Jan LOVES the movie we immediately go back and see it again. Then on to Asia for a walk through Maharaja Jungle Trek (where we got to see one of the tigers swimming in the pool!) and a spin on Kali River Rapids. We looked in plenty of shops all around, but no zebra visors!
Then we walked back to Harambe to stake out a good spot to watch the Jammin Jungle Parade from. Jan was pretty beat and we found a bench to sit on, but as the streets started to crowd up, we moved down to a spot on the street so we could have a good view of the parade. Well, we had just gotten settled when a CM walks over to us and asks if were together & if its just the two of us. We nod and he says Im gonna make your day. Howd you like to be in the parade? He asked us if we can smile and wave for a long time Jan says Just try to stop me from smiling! Okay, the next hour or so is sort of a blur in my head while I tried to comprehend that it was actually happening but I seem to recall being taken backstage and dressed in a safari vest & hat, then being safely seen into our vehicle. Jan & I kept giving each other Is this really happening? looks, then she noticed that the front of the truck was zebra-striped. A few minutes later, I noticed that we were in Mickeys car! I guess we were too stunned to notice that right away. But a little while later, we head out the doors into the parade! A CM snaps our picture with a disposable camera and hands it to me (thats super classy, by the way) I slip it into my pocket and spend the next 30 minutes smiling and waving at everyone and anyone who looks my way. What an incredible experience!!! Well never forget it. Definite highlight of the trip! When we return to backstage, Mickey shakes our hands and a CM takes our picture with him. Is it possible to drown in pixie dust?
We sort of floated out of the park after that stopping in the Tree of Life Garden to look at some of the animals. While were standing there admiring the view, a little boy comes along and this kid is just filled with joy. You can just feel it radiating off of him. He sees an African Crowned Crane and yells to his mom, Hey, Mom look at this hairy bird! When Mom doesnt answer (I think she was talking to Dad), he just starts singing Hairy Bird, I love you! over and over again. We know how he feels we love everything and everybody, too and we just wanted to pick him up and hug him. Hairy Bird, I love you becomes the trips official song and we manage, during the course of the week, to find all the tunes it can be sung to. (Hint - Danny Boy is quite good.) Although we had planned to maybe hit Epcot after leaving Animal Kingdom, we opt to return to CSR and have a leisurely dinner and quiet evening.
Dinner is at the Maya Grill and is extremely good. Then we head back to the room. I brought my digital camera and have been pulling all the pictures from the camera onto the laptop every night. We decided to take some of our evening time to look at the pictures and give them filenames. This is a mistake we were both obviously extremely giddy and got so tickled naming the pictures that well, it wasnt pretty, thats all I can tell you. Our sides ached from laughing so hard. In addition to our new things to laugh about, There it is .there it goes is still really funny to us.
Tomorrow: Magic Kingdom!
