Okay, everyone - ready for Animal Kingdom?
DH and I sure were! Ready for Everest at least. But all the kids wanted to do was sleep! So I'm freaking out that we're going to be late for the park opening at 8am.
We didn't even board the bus until 8:20am - UGH!!! Whose kids are these????
We get there and find, though, that the park didn't open until 9am! Could it be that the Disney planner extraordinaire had wrong information???? Well, let's just say that DH didn't let me live that down!
Side note- While we are being all scrunched together in line
I notice that the girl next to me has brought her Prada bag to AK - what's up with that????
Okay, so we finally get let in, only to be held at the Tree. Now everyone is trying to listen to the park opening ceremony - everyone except DS8. The only person talking is him and what's he saying???? "You didn't let me have breakfast - I'm starving!" Over and over and over. So, I'm combing the area
for any type of vendor selling anything - anything at all! Lo and behold not 10 ft from where we are standing is a pastry cart vendor - THANK GOD!
So, as soon as the rope drops, instead of heading to Everest as originally planned - we head to the pastry cart. People are looking at us kinda weird - and I know we were certainly the only people at that cart - no waiting there! While I took care of that situation, DH and DS11 headed off to Dinosaur and rode that while DS8 and I had a nice Cinnamon roll at a table outside of Hester & Chester's place. If you are one of the people that stopped and looked at us kinda funny - now you understand.
After we ate and DS8 was fully satisfied (great rolls by the way) we rode Primeval Whirl. As we were taking off we saw DS11 and DH who hopped in line and were just a few cars behind us. (Hey, I figured at this point, we'd better just roll with the situation). We then took the new walkway around to Everest.
If you haven't heard, the Tarzan show is no longer (
) and they are currently re-doing the building for a Nemo show. It's all blocked off but they were hammering away.
We get around to Everest and get FP (there's a 40 min. wait by this time). We decided to walk around just to check the wait on Kali River Rapids and it was only 10 MINUTES!!!!
Now this is truly incredible since it's about 100 degrees in the shade (AK is always soooooo hot!)
so DH and the boys hop right in line and I set out to look for a nice shady bench.
Sidebar: I love all rides - however, I don't like to be uncomfortably wet. Everytime I ride Kali, I'm the one that gets soaked. I'd rather be hot than soaking wet.
I walk around towards where the exit is for the ride and as I'm going around the corner right at the entrance to the Maharajah jungle trek, I see a camera crew!
So I'm looking and I don't see anybody - they look like they're taking a break or something. Then I see it - the perfect, uninhabited, shady bench calling my name! I start towards it and this group of kids are coming out of the exit of Kali. They're wet, there's about 5 of them and just as I'm passing them, this one kids says "That ride was soooo scary, it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up!" I diagonally cross behind them and look up to see the TV crew jump up and start following them!
I'm in a video!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don't know what they were shooting for - it could be a new informational video, it could have been for Disney Channel. But they took that take of it - I should know, I sat on that bench for the next 15 minutes!
DH & sons enjoyed the ride so much, they went and did it again! Meanwhile, I watched some monkeys and me and another Disney Mom whom I'd never met before bonded and took pics of the monkeys.
When they came out this time, we got ice cream bars and prepared to go on the jungle trek - only to find out that you can't take ice cream bars in there. So we again looked like dorks and stood outside of the entrance eating our ice cream.
When we finally went on the trek we saw a kimodo dragon, bats, sleeping tigers (and ya know, I always say, let sleeping tigers lie) and some antelope and peacocks. We had never done the trek before so it was different and I'd never seen bats or dragons, so I guess that was cool. Nothing to write home about though.
So now, we've finally made it to our Everest FP time - oh the anticipation! Sing it with me......"anticipation, it's making me wait!" (sidebar: I have a music degree and randomly and frequently burst out into song - sorry) The queing (sp?) area is incredible! Stop and look at the artifacts and if you get a chance to catch a travel channel re-run of the freaky Imagineer with the big honking earrings traveling over there to buy all of the stuff and research for the ride it's pretty cool - you should watch it.
We're finally at the place where they start assigning you your row and DS11 (he's a bit of a chicken) starts freaking out.
Now, many of you may think I'm terrible, but he's been totally stoked for this ride until just this very minute, so like any good Disney mom I told him to suck it up and get on the ride. No way was he backing out now!
He got to sit next to me and we boarded the ride (much to his dismay). IT WAS AWESOME!!!!! So, so good. Oh, how I love to go backwards! Although, I will say that I was very preoccupied looking for the Yeti. And DS11 was making a face something close to this -
Yes, really. But even DS11 loved it and all agreed that we needed to ride it again - so we got FP to come back after lunch - our FP time was 3:30-4:30pm - that's important for later.
At this point we had 15 minutes until the next show of Lion King started
and I am the BIGGEST fan of this show. I do not ever, ever miss it when I'm at AK. It makes me laugh
it makes me cry.
Yeah, I don't even know why I cry, it's just when they start the finale and they get to "Circle of Life" and the next thing you know, I'm wiping tears away. Can't explain it.......DH says I'm a big sap. I'll accept that. So needless to say, we made it. Not a moment too soon, but we made it.
After the show, we had a PS at Rainforest so we headed there. Didn't have to wait very long and boy was I glad! We were starving - just ask DS8!
One piece of advice for you on your next trip - Rainforest still calls 'em kids until they are 12 - take them up on that one and also meal sharing is very appropriate here as the servings are huge! DH and I shared Brave New World - fancy name for a barbecue chicken pizza, huh? The kids both ate off of the kids menu. It was a lot of fun. And it's air-conditioned, too!!! DS8 and DS11 even complained of being cold!
Well, when we finished eating, we all decided that we were really done at AK all except for that darned Everest that we wanted to ride again. But seeing as we were at the front of the park and Everest is at the back of the park, we decided to call it a day.
Now, it's really only about 2pm, so there's still a good deal of time before the FP are even good and I told DH that I just couldn't let them go to waste. So, while I was shopping around in the Rainforest store, I found a family of 4 and asked them if they had been on the ride yet. They said no, they hadn't but if the wait wasn't too long, they were going to go. I explained that we were leaving for the day and asked them if they would like to have our FP. They were very excited to have them and what a good feeling I left with for the day! Group Hug everybody!
About the time that we got back to ASSp for the boys to go swim, one of those infamous afternoon thunderstorms made an appearance and we didn't get to swim. We watched TV instead and had nap time!
The rest of this day was spent at Downtown Disney which will be my next post! More soon!
Melissa
It's been 30 years, and I STILL have panic attacks whenever I have to check luggage.
you because you used the word "fundage"!!!!!
