Disney v2.0 - Animal Kingdom

For this trip, we planned to spend two days touring Animal Kingdom.  Most people consider Animal Kingdom to be a half-day park but most people aren't a group of six with three five year olds.  It had been very warm the day before, close to 80 degrees, and the girls were itching to go for a swim.  It'd also been a long time since we'd seen swimming weather. Even though it was a bit foggy on this particular morning, the temperature began creeping up after the sun burned off the fog.  Perfect swimming weather!

We had a bit of a running joke going regarding the weather and my clothing choices.  If I wore jeans, it was guaranteed to heat up and be a warm day.  If I wore capris or the one pair of (very long) shorts I had packed, it stayed just a tad chilly or rained. There were few days where I rolled up my jeans to improvise capris/long shorts.

We entered the park at 9:45.  Because we had 10:25 breakfast reservations at Tusker House, there wasn't much time to do anything so I took a chance and headed over to the Character Meeting Spot.  It didn't open until 10:00 and there was no one in line.  Thankyouverymuch.  So I'll complain about this once and then let it go.  I brought my 18-125mm Sigma lens that usually sits on my old D50, which Rich uses.  I didn't take any test shots with it on my D7000 and I can't even remember the last time I used that specific lens.  After using it for a few days, I zoomed in on some photos on my camera and realized that it was back-focusing.  Completely my fault. Boo.  So all this is to say that if people look out of focus, they are out of focus because of the lens.  And I'm not loving the photos from that lens for other reasons too.  The tone or something was off. 

Tigger opened the line and walked Emily and Allie down to the meet and greet area.  I felt bad for Anna, who walked with me.  There were a bunch of those white birds around, terrifying her, so she stayed with me and made no attempt to walk with Tigger.  She didn't seem to mind and I realize that sometimes as a parent, these things are more upsetting to us than to the kids.  While most kids would have just run to catch up, Anna won't do that because she knows she could fall.









The girls still eat every 2 to 3 hours so we fed them cereal in the suite earlier that morning.  The timing was perfect as they were ready to eat again for our late breakfast reservations.  The food at Tusker House was absolutely delicious.  I particularly enjoyed the frittatas, breakfast potatoes and the biscuits and gravy and basically stuffed myself.

The first character that came by was Goofy and we were quite suprised that he had no personality at all.  The other characters, especially Mickey made up for it.  He snuck up behind me as I was shoveling food into my face and kissed the top of my head. The girls thought it was hysterical.











After breakfast, we rode the safari, which was experiencing delays due to animals blocking the roadways and then walked the Pangani Trail.  The girls enjoyed seeing all the different animals.  While we were watching the gorillas, a boy slipped under the rope and started banging his fists on the window right in front of the male gorilla.  Someone working there pulled the kid away from the window and yelled out, "Someone needs to remove the child from this area immediately."  He then told the kid that he was trying to save him from a lifetime of nightmares and announced to all of us that the last thing we wanted to see was an angry gorilla.  That it was enough to scare me.   

We had told the girls that they would only be allowed to pick out one buddy this trip.  Seriously, they have more than enough already.  I suggested that they wait until the end of the vacation to decide but a baby Simba caught Emily's eye and she would not let it go.  We gave in and they all very carefully chose a new buddy to join their ever expanding buddy families.

A tour of Animal Kingdom would not be complete without a visit to Camp Minnie Mickey.









This one is one of my favorites.  He wouldn't give Anna her Tigger back.


 
I guess I eat every two to three hours too because I suggested lunch at Flame Tree BBQ (but not before purchasing chicken tenders for the girls from a place in DinoLand which took forever and a day.)



We left the park after lunch so that the girls could enjoy some swim time.  In trying to keep the girls' schedule close to what they are used to, we ate dinner at the resort's food court around 6:00.  Again, it was practically empty at that time. 

Coming up - more photos from around the resort and some photography babble.