Animal Kingdom

In our last episode, our intrepid, although somewhat thrify, explorers, Steve and Laura, packed the essentials, jumped in the trusty Mustang and headed to Walt Disney World for their summer vacation, where they spent their first day of park visiting searching for the experimental protoype community of tomorrow. Now we catch up with them on their second day at the parks. A day that was filled with adventures from the animal world.

The Tree of Life in Animal Kingdom

We tried to get to Animal Kingdom as early as possible, since it opened at 8am; we made it to the park around 8:30, parking in the Unicorn section of the parking lot. This is Laura's favorite park, since she loves anything that has to do with animals. As always, she was quite excited to be here. As always, our first order of business was to head to the Kilimanjaro Safaris to either wait in line or get a Fastpass. The sign said the standby wait time was 15 minutes, so we headed in; turns out the wait was less than 5 minutes. We saw the usual complement of animals, although they didn't seem as active as before; probably the heat was keeping them from doing too much. But at any rate, there were still plenty of animals to be seen, and we did manage to capture those pesky poachers. We immediately followed our safari with a trip through the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail. Nice to see the Colobus monkeys enjoying their new home at the beginning and end of the trail. The narrator at the meercat exhibit was quite informative, sharing much information on the different animals in his area. The hippos were swimming about some in their pool, and the gorillas were rather active as well.

After we finished looking around in Africa, we headed over to Dinoland to see about getting a Fastpass for Dinosaur. The wait was a little long, and the Fastpass return time wasn't too far off, so we got our Fastpasses and went exploring around Dinoland. We spent some time looking around in Chester and Hester's, mainly because it was air conditioned, and it was getting rather warm outside. As we were walking around outside, Hester drove up to do her presentation on Dinosaurs, but we didn't stay around to see it. I really miss the Dinosaur Jubilee, the large tent where several dinosaur fossils were on display; I was always amazed at how big these creatures were. Now they are installing Chester and Hester's Dino-Rama in that area, and at the time they were working on some of the track for the new, small roller coaster that will be there. Once our Fastpass return time was up, we headed back to the Dino Institute for a trip through time. That carnotaurus almost got us, but fortunately, we were just barely able to escape with our lives.

Aladar from the movie Dinosaur outside of the ride Dinosaur

We were starting to get hungry, so we decided to eat lunch at the Flame Tree Barbecue, where we had eaten before. Although the outdoor eating areas aren't air conditioned, we found one of the few remaining tables in the shade, and we had a nice view of the river. The pork barbecue sandwich that comes with slaw and corn on the cob is really a great meal, almost more than I care to eat. And the large Coca-Cola was the pause that refreshes, as always.

After finishing our lunch, we walked over to Asia to see the Flights of Wonder bird show. Although we had missed this show the first time we were there, we had seen it last summer and really enjoyed it. On the way to the show, a Cast Member was pointing to an area that looked out on the Tree of Life, saying that a Cast Member would take your picture with your camera. Sounded good to us. So when we got there, we saw that they would take your picture with your camera, but then they would take one with their camera as well, hoping that you would buy it. Although we had our picture taken by a Disney photographer when we first entered the park, we decided to stay around and at least have a picture made with our camera. Usually one of us takes a picture of the other, but we don't have many pictures of us together. We then went on to the Caravan Theater for the bird show. We had to wait a bit before the show started, but fortunately, they had some large fans in the waiting area. Animal Kingdom always seems like the hottest park, probably because all the dense vegetation keeps the breeze from blowing through as much. This time the show was equally enjoyable as before. Where else can you hear a bird sing "How Much Is That Doggie In The Window" and "Yankee Doodle Dandy"? And then to see all the other exotic birds flying around you is quite exciting as well. Just a matter of personal preference, I suppose, but we think this is the best show in the park, much better than Tarzan or the Lion King.

Continued

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