Uncle Lattie and his little Leprechauns!
Who knows what Alex is doing. . .
Grammy and Charlie
We got to the Animal Kingdom about 8:00. We got Uncle Lattie a button so everyone would know it was his birthday! :)
(Sorry it's backwards - it's a selfie and I can't figure out how to flip the image on my computer!)
Then we headed into the park. This park is very shady, which was nice when it was already so warm in the morning! We stopped and had our picture made in front of the Tree of Life, the centerpiece of the Animal Kingdom.
Tinkerbell apparently dusted us with fairy dust while our picture was taken!
We found a stroller at the "hotel house" so we borrowed that one for the day. Whenever we parked the strollers though, we always linked the two together so no one could just walk off with ours!!
A few pictures right in front of the tree
We walked along and saw several different animals along the path. It was also pretty obvious that there's a great deal of renovations and additions going on at Animal Kingdom because there were walls up everywhere. We saw a Cotton Head Tamarin Monkey on our walk that Lucy liked. She likes to tell everyone about how it peed for a minute straight while we were standing there looking at it! ;)
We got up to where the Wildlife Express Train was located. It opened at 8:30 so we waited a few minutes and then climbed aboard. The train took us up to the Rafiki's Planet Watch area where you could learn more about animals and their habitats. We were the only people on the train, so we had a good time taking pictures!
I think our family and maybe two others were in the Rafiki's Planet Watch area so we let the boys stay out of their stroller and walk around. They enjoyed this SO much and loved being able to explore and run and play. (And Mommy felt ok about it because we weren't surrounded by hundreds of people!) A lot of the information that they provided for you in the areas here were beyond what my children were capable of understanding at this age, but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves all the same.
The elephant statues were fun to climb on!
Lattie and Rafiki (when he was little, Latimer said Rafiki looked like Mamaw!)
Charlie and Grammy
In Lucy's homework for the week, she had a Time for Kids magazine with an article about the rainforest and different animals that live in that habitat. One of those animals was the Golden Lion Tamarin monkey so Lucy was SO excited to get to see one in real life, right after reading about it. :)
Charlie was impressed with all the animals on the Conservation Station building
We tried to take a quick picture. . . .the boys were more interested in getting down to run!
See? :)
Once we finally got inside, we discovered that we were the only people in there. It was nice because everyone could run around and look at what they want without disturbing others. There was lots to see and read about and I'm sure you could have learned quite a bit in this area. We just enjoyed playing and seeing animals.
Don't worry - it's not a real tiger. ;) But Charlie sure loved it!
Lucy was too afraid to reach in and touch the spider web, but Alex had no fear!
Charlie loved running everywhere
There were all kinds of reptiles and things to look at - these two lizards are having a staring contest, apparently.
As we were getting ready to leave, a Cast Member came out to give a little talk and show a live animal. Well, being the only people there, we thought maybe the kids would sit and listen. She talked a little bit about the pygmy hedgehog and let the kids get close to see it. I really think they enjoyed and they did a very good job of not trying to touch it. :)
Right outside the Conservation Station was the "Affection Section." :)
The kids didn't really want to pet the animals, but they were very excited about getting to brush the sheep and the goats. :)
Lucy loved this pig :)
Uncle Lattie got up close and personal to take a picture of the goat. . .
.. .and the sheep!
Our first fast pass for the day was to meet Mickey and Minnie. Lucy was so excited and so was Alex. Charlie just wasn't sure about these giant mice! He loves Mickey Mouse, but I guess seeing him large and in person was a little overwhelming! He wasn't so afraid that he wouldn't go near them, but he definitely wasn't going to give them any hugs!
Lucy was jumping up and down and dancing around while talking to Minnie Mouse. She even dressed like her today. :)
Sometimes I just can't stand the cuteness of this little boy!!! Oh, Alex is just so precious!! (Of course, that can sometimes be his saving grace since he is quite the mischief maker!)
Hugs for Mickey!
Kisses from Minnie!
While we were visiting Mickey and Minnie, Michael and Lattie went to go use their Fast Pass for Everest Expedition. They had so much fun they rode it twice!! While we were waiting for them to come back and joined us, we played some drums in the Africa area of the park. These drums were even bigger and better than playing drums in Mommy's classroom!! :)
A little drumming video for your enjoyment:
Once we were all back together, we headed over to the Kilimanjaro Safari. We did a Fast Pass for this adventure as well and thank goodness we did! The standby line said that it was at least a 70 minute wait!! We had to wait about 15 minutes in the Fast Pass line, so that wasn't too bad.
Ready to go!
For whatever reason, Charlie had decided this was something he didn't want to do. I think he was probably just ready for lunch. . . but he was not happy!!
Hippos in the water
Crocodiles! Alex loved these :)
Charlie calmed down once he finally say a "ra-ra" (Giraffe)
Elephants! I tried to take a picture of the Momma elephant with her baby elephant, but these safari jeeps were bumpy! Our driver was not the best about stopping long enough to allow you to snap a picture.
Flamingos! Who doesn't love flamingos??
We did have to come to a complete stop to allow this rhino to cross the road. Fortunately, he did it in a timely manner. :)
It's hard to see, but you can see the lioness peeking out from the rock structure, watching everything that's going on.. .. looking for her dinner, I'm sure.
Zebras
The safari ride was fun, and I'm sure that if you were to take it again, you would have a completely different experience because of the way the animals have the freedom to move around. However, we got to see most of these animals from far away so it wasn't much different than just taking a trip to the zoo. But I'm still glad we did it. After that, it was time for lunch. I had looked the night before at the different places to eat around Animal Kingdom and for my picky children with a dairy allergy, it was difficult to find a place where everyone would be able to eat. But the Restaurantosaurus in DinoLand USA seemed to be able to meet everyone's need. It was nice to be able to sit and everyone ate well. I think food, some water, and a little air conditioning was what everyone needed. :)
After lunch, it was time for Finding Nemo: The Musical! This was another one of our fast passes; I thought the kids would love it since they love watching the movie. It is done with puppets.
Lucy seemed to enjoy the show and I enjoyed what I got to see of it, but Charlie and Alex were more interested in digging in the bookbag, or trying to eat food, or anything besides sitting and watching the show. Oh well, after all, they are only two!
Before we finished for the day, we rode the TriceraTop Spin, which is basically Dumbo with dinosaurs.
The little ones have to ride on the inside so it looks like it's just Poppa and I riding! :)
It was around 2:00 at this point, and the interest level of everyone was dwindling. I think there was still a lot to see, but we just went on home. There were several rides that we didn't see but they were all for bigger kids. There was a whole section of animals you could walk and see that we passed by. And there are all kinds of restaurants and other shows and musical performances as well but I think we saw all we wanted to and had a good time.
On the way home, I did my best to keep the boys awake in the car so that we could all take a nap when we got home. Everyone had a decent nap or rest and then it was time to go eat and celebrate Uncle Lattie's Birthday! We were going to try and go to Downtown Disney but with all of the construction and the crowd of people there, it was impossible to find a parking space so we just kept on going and went to have dinner at Cracker Barrel.
Lattie made the mistake of letting Lucy play with his phone at dinner:)
After dinner, we came back to the beach house. Along with our fun hats, Lucy had picked out St. Patrick's day mustaches for everyone! :) So we had mustaches, cake, ice cream, and present time!
After another fun filled day, we hit the beds so we could get up and go one more time to the Magic Kingdom!
Up Next: Magic Kingdom Part 2!
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