We spent Day 4 of our trip at Disney's Animal Kingdom...somewhere Victor had been looking forward to taking the kids the whole trip. He woke up early that morning, got showered and dressed and was ready to go. Unfortunately, it's hardto motivate and 3 year old and 1 year quite as easily, but eventually we were all dressed, ate breakfast and sitting at the bus stop waiting for the Animal Kingdom bus to come pick us up!
Waiting for the buses ended up being one of Tristan's favorite things about Disney. Actually, he and Parker LOVED riding the "white bus", as Tristan referred to them. Now, Daddy was not their biggest fan since he had to fold up the gigantic double stroller and hold onto it the whole bus ride, but at least the buses got us where we needed to go, and were pretty quick and efficient.
Waiting for the Animal Kingdom bus
Once we got on our bus, we were on our way to Animal Kingdom, with our gameplan prety well mapped out. There were a couple of big attractions we wanted to make sure and enjoy while we were there so we got our FastPasses for the biggest one, the Kilamanjaro Safari Tour, when we first got there. Then we headed out to see some of the other attractions until it was time for our safari ride.
We walked through the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail where we got to see a lot of animals, including a little area with lots of mice and snakes and such...the kids were pretty fascinated with this section! We also saw some hippo skulls bigger than Tristan!
Afterwards we hopped on an open-sided train that took us over to a separate "island" devoted to animal conservation. We checked out the place, visited the animal petting area, met Jiminy Cricket.
Tristan once again was interested in one of the animal skulls and decided he need to use Mommy's camera and take some of his own pictures. Don't ask me what some of the pictures are of, but he was sure proud of them!
After seeing all that the Conservation Station had to offer, we headed back to the main area to go on our Jungle Safari ride...this was the attraction that Victor had been waiting for all day! After waiting in the relatively short line (thanks to FastPasses, once again!), we boarded our safari vehicle. Unfortunately, poor Parker fell asleep in my arms while we waited in line, and somehow he managed to stay asleep in my arms throughout the whole ride...I guess all the bumps and jumps didn't phase him a bit!
The safari ride was really cool, and Disney did a pretty good job creating a safari land. Vicrtor had the camera so the pictures below are what he captured, including the last one of the elephant's behind...couldn't resist posting it!
After our safari we walked over to another zoo-type area and let Parker finish p his nap in the stroller. He woke up just in time as Tristan was finishing up his Mickey shaped ice cream and we headed to see the afternoon Jungle Jammin parade. Both kids absolutely loved the parade this time and I would have to say that this was the best parade watching experience we had at Disney! The kids were so excited everytime a new float came around with the Disney characters they recognized and loved to dance to the music.
After the parade we stopped to meet some more characters...Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore and Tigger! Neither Tristan nor Parker are actually too familiar with these characters, but it didn't seem to bother them, they still wanted their pictures taken and their autograph books signed.
At this point in the trip, Parker was starting to really get the hang of the whole character greetings. So much so, that he was having a hard time waiting his turn! He couldn't wait to run up to the charcters, book in hand, and take his picture. And both of them were giving out plenty of kisses!
After Winnie and his buddies, we got to see Safari Mickey and Minnie, a definite hit!
And our final character stop of the night was to see Lilo and Stitch. Neither kid had any idea who either character was and were less than enthusiastic about meeting them. Parker gave it a little try but was quick to turn around run and Tristan wouldn't even go near them!!! I guess we will have to watch lilo and Stitch a few times before our next Disney vacation!
Our last area of Animal Kingdom to check out was Dinoland, which we figured would be a sure hit!
We rode a couple of rides, one of which Tristan probably shouldn't have gone on! Apparently, it was pretty darn scary, but I wouldn't know for sure because after he rode it once with Daddy, he didn't want to go on it again with Mommy! We asked him multiple times if he wanted to ride it again and each time he gave us an empahtic "no" and "the dinosaur tried to eat me!" Must have been some ride for him to not want to go again!
We walked aorund a bit and then headed out of Dinoland to make our way to the bus stop. On our way out we stopped to see the last showing of the night for It's a Bug's Life 4D movie, but we didn't make it through the show. Once the giant spiders dropped from the ceiling a certain 3 year old was DONE with that show! We ended up leaving and headed back tot he hotel to hit the hay!
The next day we woke up, ready to spend the day at Hollywood Studios. Once again, we had a plan on which shows and rides we wanted to do that day. We boarded our bus and headed out for the day.
We got there and immediately headed over tot he Indiana Jones stunt show which was awesome but the intemrissions between setups did nto keep the kids entertained! They were completely happy during the stunts full of fire, planes, sword fighting and crashes, but the intermissions were killer!
After Indiana Jones we headed to a Muppets 3D movie and then high-tailed it over to the Lights, Motor Action extreme car stunt show. This is one of the shows Tristan is still talking about today. Once again there were intermissions between stunt set-ups like Indian Jones, but only Parker was restless this time, I guess Tristan was so excited to see the next stunt he decided the wait was worth it.
He loved, loved, loved the little black stunt cars chansing the red stunt car all over the set, through the fire, over the 18 wheeler, going backwards, going forwards...just about everything you would imagine seeing in an action packed car chase scene of a movie!
As we left the stunt show, Lightning McQueen and Mater were waiting for photo ops, so of course we stopped for ours! We actually got one picture with Parker sitting on McQueen before they told us not to sit on the cars, oops!
We stopped to eat some lunch and let the kids stretch their legs a bit in the movie scene area. I even managed to get a picture of Parker and the face he likes ot make as he says "cheese"...the face he makes is so ugly, that it is so cute, I love it!!!!!!
With our tummies full of pizza and Mickey rice krispie treats, we were off for some more fun. We hit up The Great Movie Ride which was a ride through the staged areas of some of the biggest Disney movies with live characters popping out every once in awhile. Really cool, but no pictures...I think by this point my picture taking was starting to decline!
We also rode the Star Wars Thrill ride a couple of times with Tristan, which is another ride he's still talking about. He now loves C3PO!
By this time, Parker was ready for his daily stroller nap, so Daddy and Tristan headed out ont he Studio Backlot Tour that took them on a quided tram ride for a backstage look at how movies are made. Mommy and Parker strolled around and snapped a few quick pictures!
After the Backlot Tour we were pretty much done for the day at Hollywood Studios...the only thing we didn't get to see was the giant Honey I Shrunk The Kids playland which I hear is awesome, so are just going to make that a priority for the next trip!
Instead of going back to the hotel for dinner, we decided at the last minute to take a chance and head over to Epcot to see if we could squeeze in dinner at the Garden Grille again since the kids loved dining with characters so much. Luckily we were able to get in and we had anothe rgreat dinner!
The kids and us had so much fun those two days and were looking forward to relishing our time over the next 2 or 3 days before we had to head back to reality! Stay tuned for the conclusion of Disney trip posts. Hopefully, it won't take me so long in between posts this time!
