crocko
DVC Member
- Joined
- May 19, 2009
- Messages
- 1,088
Day 5 (Animal Kingdom Day)
Chapter 2 -- From under the sea to.....well, are we still under the sea?
So would the buzzer ever ring for our Tusker House breakfast?
At 10:30am (30 minutes after reservation time) we finally got the buzz. Woohoo!!!
First thing, to get a family picture taken:
At this breakfast, I did a bad job of getting any food pictures, although, Bridgette at least got one of the special juice they serve there
The juice was pretty good .not cold enough, though. As you can see in the background, after my first cup of juice, I asked for some chocolate milk.
The food here was good, though. A very big buffet with a huge selection of foods. I was personally pleased with the donuts that they had available. A couple different desserts were available as well...Bridgette seemed to like the apple/berry cobbler thing. I didn't really eat much, but there was a good amount of meat available as well.
It took awhile before the characters started to come around, but once they did, they came pretty quickly. First up? Donald Duck!!!
Compare this breakfast to the Crystal Palace breakfast three days earlier you can tell that Samantha has warmed up!
2nd up The Goofman!
Whos next?
I see Mickey!!
And after keeping a good eye on him, he finally came over:
Then, finishing up the character train .Daisy Duck. Samantha was very excited that Daisy was here.
Finished up our belly-stuffing breakfast and headed out (whew no Yetis at breakfast). Overall, a very good breakfast food-wise. Also a great character breakfast, as it is always fun to see Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and Daisy.
CHARACTER BREAKFAST ADVICE: In general, here's a suggestion I'd like to make regarding ADR's for character breakfasts. If you want a first-thing breakfast, then try to get as early as possible. If you'd like a later breakfast, I would suggest figuring out what time you would ideally like to start breakfast. Then, try to get an ADR for about 20-30 minutes earlier. At both Akershus and Tusker House, the ADR's Mary managed to get for us happened to be 30 minutes earlier than what she was trying for (oh well, we thought, at the time). Because we had to wait almost 30 minutes both places, things kinda worked out in the sense that we finished our breakfasts at the times we initially wanted to.
Now, it was time to use our FPs for Kilimanjaro Safaris. I like that you use your strollers for half of the queue and then halfway through, they have a stroller dropoff.
With FPs, our wait was only 5-10 minutes (while the standby was closer to 45 minutes, I believe).
Into our jeep and off we go!
Just as with Dinosaur, I had forgotten how bumpy the Safaris jeeps can get (plus, we were in the back). We were getting bumped all over the place. Nevertheless, shortly after starting, heres Samantha
Joshua had his camera out for the Safaris and was doing his best to get some pictures snapped. He got a couple neat ones. Apparently the heat and the bumps were getting to him, too, though. Toward the end of the ride, I noticed this below me:
We got to see quite a few animals this time around, but this was a much less lively Safaris ride versus some previous ones weve had. No giraffes, only a couple elephants, and that pesky sleeping lion. We normally go to KS first ..and thats why. Just seems like, closer to noon, the animals arent out quite as much.
Oh well, weve got animals back at our resort!
Joshua was still very sleepy when we got off, but we decided to head over to Asia and see if a water ride might wake him up and get him perky again.
So, off to Kali River Rapids.
We did the standby line, which was probably 20 minutes, but not too bad .constantly moving which is nice. Due to his stature, Joshua got the captains seat. That worked out well, because he got nice and soaked! Which is exactly what he wanted. I think he enjoyed this ride quite a bit .probably more had he not been half-asleep still.
After the Rapids, we found a nice shady spot to sit for a few minutes and have some slushies. Man Disney slushies are so yummy.
Then, it was time to get in line to go watch Finding Nemo: The Musical (Bridgette and I were excited we hadnt seen this before)
We got into the auditorium fairly early and got some pretty good seats in the bottom half. We had a bit of wait for showtime, but managed to keep the kids fairly entertained and awake (cant say the same for my mom and sister, though) LOL
Then, the show began I tried to get some good pictures with Bridgettes camera. Heres some of the better ones:
That show was outstanding! Bridgette pointed out, that if that little 30-minute production came to town, shed definitely be willing to pay just to see it. Well done, vibrant colors, and very creative. A must see!
Of course, when the show is over, the need to make room for the next crowd, so everyone is quickly ushered out of the building. In our case, we were ushered out of a nice building and straight into ..RAIN!
With hardly any covering. Theres a restroom nearby, so everyone hustled over to try and get under some of its covering. I went over there with the kids, while Bridgette booked it for the strollers. She came back looking fairly drenched and with our ponchos. So, we managed to get our ponchos and the kids on and tried to quickly head for the shops toward the middle of the park. Of course, now that we have our ponchos on .time for the rain to let up. Hahaha!!
Originally, we had planned to look at the Tree of Life and get over to Camp Minnie-Mickey after the show, but with the rain getting everyone wet, we just decided to call it an Animal Kingdom day and head on out after peeking at the stores.
Up next: Umm..excuse me, I have another dining plan question ..
Chapter 2 -- From under the sea to.....well, are we still under the sea?
So would the buzzer ever ring for our Tusker House breakfast?
At 10:30am (30 minutes after reservation time) we finally got the buzz. Woohoo!!!
First thing, to get a family picture taken:

At this breakfast, I did a bad job of getting any food pictures, although, Bridgette at least got one of the special juice they serve there

The juice was pretty good .not cold enough, though. As you can see in the background, after my first cup of juice, I asked for some chocolate milk.
The food here was good, though. A very big buffet with a huge selection of foods. I was personally pleased with the donuts that they had available. A couple different desserts were available as well...Bridgette seemed to like the apple/berry cobbler thing. I didn't really eat much, but there was a good amount of meat available as well.
It took awhile before the characters started to come around, but once they did, they came pretty quickly. First up? Donald Duck!!!

Compare this breakfast to the Crystal Palace breakfast three days earlier you can tell that Samantha has warmed up!
2nd up The Goofman!

Whos next?

I see Mickey!!

And after keeping a good eye on him, he finally came over:

Then, finishing up the character train .Daisy Duck. Samantha was very excited that Daisy was here.

Finished up our belly-stuffing breakfast and headed out (whew no Yetis at breakfast). Overall, a very good breakfast food-wise. Also a great character breakfast, as it is always fun to see Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and Daisy.
CHARACTER BREAKFAST ADVICE: In general, here's a suggestion I'd like to make regarding ADR's for character breakfasts. If you want a first-thing breakfast, then try to get as early as possible. If you'd like a later breakfast, I would suggest figuring out what time you would ideally like to start breakfast. Then, try to get an ADR for about 20-30 minutes earlier. At both Akershus and Tusker House, the ADR's Mary managed to get for us happened to be 30 minutes earlier than what she was trying for (oh well, we thought, at the time). Because we had to wait almost 30 minutes both places, things kinda worked out in the sense that we finished our breakfasts at the times we initially wanted to.
Now, it was time to use our FPs for Kilimanjaro Safaris. I like that you use your strollers for half of the queue and then halfway through, they have a stroller dropoff.
With FPs, our wait was only 5-10 minutes (while the standby was closer to 45 minutes, I believe).
Into our jeep and off we go!



Just as with Dinosaur, I had forgotten how bumpy the Safaris jeeps can get (plus, we were in the back). We were getting bumped all over the place. Nevertheless, shortly after starting, heres Samantha

Joshua had his camera out for the Safaris and was doing his best to get some pictures snapped. He got a couple neat ones. Apparently the heat and the bumps were getting to him, too, though. Toward the end of the ride, I noticed this below me:

We got to see quite a few animals this time around, but this was a much less lively Safaris ride versus some previous ones weve had. No giraffes, only a couple elephants, and that pesky sleeping lion. We normally go to KS first ..and thats why. Just seems like, closer to noon, the animals arent out quite as much.
Oh well, weve got animals back at our resort!
Joshua was still very sleepy when we got off, but we decided to head over to Asia and see if a water ride might wake him up and get him perky again.
So, off to Kali River Rapids.

We did the standby line, which was probably 20 minutes, but not too bad .constantly moving which is nice. Due to his stature, Joshua got the captains seat. That worked out well, because he got nice and soaked! Which is exactly what he wanted. I think he enjoyed this ride quite a bit .probably more had he not been half-asleep still.
After the Rapids, we found a nice shady spot to sit for a few minutes and have some slushies. Man Disney slushies are so yummy.
Then, it was time to get in line to go watch Finding Nemo: The Musical (Bridgette and I were excited we hadnt seen this before)


We got into the auditorium fairly early and got some pretty good seats in the bottom half. We had a bit of wait for showtime, but managed to keep the kids fairly entertained and awake (cant say the same for my mom and sister, though) LOL
Then, the show began I tried to get some good pictures with Bridgettes camera. Heres some of the better ones:









That show was outstanding! Bridgette pointed out, that if that little 30-minute production came to town, shed definitely be willing to pay just to see it. Well done, vibrant colors, and very creative. A must see!
Of course, when the show is over, the need to make room for the next crowd, so everyone is quickly ushered out of the building. In our case, we were ushered out of a nice building and straight into ..RAIN!
With hardly any covering. Theres a restroom nearby, so everyone hustled over to try and get under some of its covering. I went over there with the kids, while Bridgette booked it for the strollers. She came back looking fairly drenched and with our ponchos. So, we managed to get our ponchos and the kids on and tried to quickly head for the shops toward the middle of the park. Of course, now that we have our ponchos on .time for the rain to let up. Hahaha!!
Originally, we had planned to look at the Tree of Life and get over to Camp Minnie-Mickey after the show, but with the rain getting everyone wet, we just decided to call it an Animal Kingdom day and head on out after peeking at the stores.
Up next: Umm..excuse me, I have another dining plan question ..