After Everest, it was time to head to Tusker House for lunch. Don't ask me why, DH's brain-sleep must have been catching or something, but I somehow convinced myself that Tusker House was in Dinoland. I know, that doesn't even make sense, but I was convinced, so we headed there.
I had it confused (location wise) with Resturantasaurus. Once I realized that it wasn’t where I thought it was, I realized my error and headed to Africa. DH was trailing behind me, stopping me and saying things like - well, Dinoland is back there or Africa is really big how will we find it. I swear I was waiting for Ashton Kutcher to jump out - I swore I was being punk'd.
We got to Tusker House, and DH said to me… This is a buffet? (as if I hadn't talked to him about this restaurant choice 1000 times before that moment)
We waited at Tusker House. One of the things that infuriates me most about restaurants at Disney is when the restaurant is not full, there is a tendency to seat walk-ups before those with reservations. So what's the point of making one? We checked in and watched 7 groups walk up behind us. 1 of those 7 had reservations. The last two groups to be seated were the other group and us. That drives me nuts!
Finally we got seated. DH was very unsure about the buffet.
Yep, definitely not dino themed
I was really impressed with the food. We're generally not buffet eaters, but since Flame Tree was closed for referb and we were trying to try new things, I decided to give it a go. There was a good variety and it was tasty.
My first plate – there was pearl cous cous (YUM!) regular cous cous, mashed potatoes, coffee glazed pork, fried plantains, seafood stew, corn bread and salmon. I’m sure I had more… but that’s what I can decern.
DH’s first plate. Not sure what all was on there – I know he got Chicken Curry, because he’s still talking about how good it was.
There was a family next to us with a pre-teen (11 -12 maybe) boy who piled his plate mountainously high. It was funny to see the reactions the mom was scolding him while the dad was just laughing.
The only mark against the restaurant was the service. Our waitress asked us 4 times if we were on a dining plan. Each time, we told her we had Tables in Wonderland. She said to give her the card at the end. Then she brought us the bill - without the TIW discount, and when we gave her the card she kind of huffed and said we should have told her about it because she had to re-run the bill now. We also waited about 20 minutes for our change. She seemed really overwhelmed.
After lunch, we again had the grumpy-dopey conversation. I felt bad, but I was getting really frustrated at DH at this point. He was being so dense and not fun. Fortunately pretty things distracted me…
This is seriously the prettiest park
He was excited because even though the train wasn't steam - it was the next best thing - diesel! Which really, when you think about it is ironic that they'd have a diesel (non-environmentally friendly – well unless it’s biodiesel and if it is hush – don’t tell my DH or we’ll never ever leave – he makes biodiesel and is way too into it for his own good) run train to the conservation station.
DH thought maybe they use bio diesel, but was too chicken to ask. He then spent the whole trip peeking through the back of the train trying to catch a glimpse of the round-house and the other mechanical things back there.
I took bad pictures out of the front of the train
see I warned you!
We decided to get off and take a look around.
Rafiki!
(I’m just leaving the rest of this picture alone, because I don’t even have a clue what I’m doing or why I’m even posting this picture on the internet where if could be used to blackmail me later.)
Then we rode the train back, and decided to pick up fast passes to Everest, and headed back to Dinoland to ride Dinosaur!
So we made our way out of Africa…
I got to take more pictures of the tree…