Disney: Day 3, Part 1

Wednesday, January 14th
Day 3, Part 1 - Will We Make it to Park Opening Today?

Today’s Plans:
Morning: Animal Kingdom-Africa & Asia, maybe more
Lunch: Flame Tree BBQ
Naptime at resort
Afternoon/Evening: Epcot-World Showcase, Eat our way around the world, Illuminations @ 9

What Really Happened:
I woke up at 6:00 that morning and got up and did the usual getting ready routine. My sister, Amanda was up shortly after that, and Bethany and Shane were the last to get up at 7:10.

We had breakfast in the room, and this morning Amanda made sure she made some coffee. Yesterday she had gotten some from the food court, and she said it was okay coffee, but it definitely wasn’t $2 coffee.

It was pretty cold out this morning. Right now it was only 40°, but the high today was supposed to be 64. Shane got Bethany prepared by putting his ear muffs on her.
She actually kept them for awhile too.

Everyone met up in our room and we headed out for the morning. Everyone had learned from yesterday, and we were on time this morning. Bethany enjoyed her walk down the stairs. That was a must on this vacation. She had to go up and down the stairs by herself. The whole time she was going up/down she would say, “Big one.” We all thought she was talking about the steps, but then Shane figured out that she was talking about the spindles coming down from the railing. It alternated between a skinny one and a fatter one. Every time she grabbed a fatter one she said, “Big one.”

We got down to the bus stop and pretty quickly an Animal Kingdom bus was there.
Bethany still has the ear muffs on. And, unfortunately I still hadn’t realized the camera lens was smudged.

On the way over, you could tell it was chilly out because there was steam coming off the water. We ended up getting to the Animal Kingdom at 8:20 with park opening at 9:00. So we were making up for yesterday today. So we had some time to kill. We posed for pictures.
I told Amanda and Logan to look like they were having a wild time.

And then we did a little shopping. We had to get the silly hat picture.


My dad bought Bethany her first souvenir of the trip, a pair of sunglasses.
We keep them in the car and she plays with them all the time.

Then we posed for some more pictures.
Notice how cold we look.

We made it up to the turnstiles and waited in line for a bit. There were some people in shorts and t-shirts. Wow, did that make me cold. Logan entertained Bethany for awhile.


Then they let us through the turnstiles put had it roped off shortly after you cross the bridge for Discovery Island. We stopped for a PhotoPass picture and took some of our pictures of the Tree of Life.


Before too long the opening show started. I don’t know if I would call it a show. It was just some of the characters driving by on a bus. We were so far back in the crowd you couldn’t really see it. So the crowd surged forward and our group split up. Shane and Amanda went to get Fast Passes for Everest and the rest of us headed in the direction of Africa. Bethany was calling for Daddy a little bit, but we managed to distract her by looking for animals. At one point my dad was there with us, and then the next minute he was gone. He’s been known to wonder off, so I wasn’t too worried. We waited on the bridge to Africa, and waited and waited. Finally I decided to call him. As soon as I made the call, I saw him coming, and he had a coffee in his hand. So I gave him a lecture about wondering away and how he could get lost. Just kidding. I’m sure I had some comment for him though.

We crossed into Africa and watched the drummers for just a little bit, and then Shane and Amanda were there. So off we went to the Safari. I was really looking forward to this ride. I think it’s worth the price of admission alone. I was also excited because Bethany had yet to giraffes, zebras, or elephants in person.

Shane complained about my speed walking through the line. Apparently I was walking too slow. I think that was the only time I heard somebody say that. So he took the lead and we wound our way through. We dropped off the stroller with some honest looking people and then we got right on our truck.

To me it seemed like the wildlife was pretty sparse. I’ve always heard how if you go one the safari first thing in the morning, you’ll see more animals, but it must have been too cold this morning. We saw some of the usuals.


Bethany didn’t really care too much about what was happening. She was sitting in the seat, so I don’t know if she could see too much. She was asking me about snacks, and then started playing with my pins. Finally we came to animal that I knew would interest her, so I pulled her up on my lap.
She did like it, but that didn’t stop her from still asking about snacks.

We saw a few more animals.


When we got to the savannah hardly anything was out. A few of the antelope like creatures were there, but we didn’t see any giraffes or zebras.

However, when we got to the lions, the male lion was actually standing up.
And then we heard him growl. It wasn’t a huge loud roar, but the guide told us how rare it is to hear them ever make a sound. So that kind of made up for the lack of animals.

We got off the safari and claimed the stroller amongst the sea of strollers. However ours was pretty easy to find because I had tied a bright blue ribbon around the handle. That was very useful throughout the week.

Up next we decided to do the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail. Bethany was hungry, so we broke the rules and gave her snacks. Don’t worry we didn’t feed any of the animals besides the human ones. Bethany really enjoyed the frogs. It was nice in here because it was warm.
Notice the contraband cookies in her hand.

Bethany enjoyed watching some fish as well.


I thought she would really like the meerkat area since those are her favorite animals at our zoo, but she didn’t really care that much. If I remember right, I think she wanted Daddy to hold her and his back was sore from holding her all day the day before. So there was a battle of wills going on. I enjoyed watching the meerkats.


And, as usual, we all found the gorillas really interesting.
I could spend all day just watching them, but the clock was ticking and we had places to be. So we wound our way out of the trail.

The next thing we were going to do was new for everybody, Rafiki’s Planet Watch (RPW). We had a small wait for the train. When it got there I was surprised the seats were sideways. That’s the only train I’ve seen like that. I guess subways and stuff are like that, but not a real train. The whole time I kept wondering what was behind us that Disney didn’t want us to see.

When we got out to RPW, we hit the bathrooms first. Then we met Rafiki. Bethany was really getting the hang of the characters. When I asked her if she wanted to meet him she said yes, but she had no idea who he was because she’s never seen The Lion King before.
I love how Bethany is kind of cringing like, “Get your hair off me.” I also see that she had moved on from the cookies she was eating earlier to goldfish.

Then we went and observed a little bit of a warthog examination.
It was pretty cool, but we were towards the back of the crowd. So before too long we went off in search of more characters.

Jiminy Cricket was now out for meet and greets. We got in line and Bethany was all ready.
At this point she figured out she needed her pen and her book.

We meet Jiminy and got his autograph.
Once again Bethany didn’t know who this was, but she knew he was a character so she had to meet him.

Next up was Pocahontas. This was Bethany’s first experience with a face character, but she didn’t have much to say to her.
(A non-blurry photo taken by my grandma).

She was really excited while we were waiting in line. She even spotted her necklace and was talking about that while waiting. My little girl is all about the jewelry.

We even got a smile out of Bethany.
(Sigh) A still blurry photo taken on our camera.

At this time I decided to head outside to the petting zoo. Bethany enjoyed petting the animals.


However the big hit was the brushes. She really liked brushing the goats.


But they kept moving away from her.
“Wait. I’m trying to brush you.”

We all washed our hands and headed on back to the train station. We picked up the stroller and I believe Bethany threw a fit because we put her in it. I remember getting some stares from people here, so it was probably the same old routine of her crying because she wanted Daddy.

A train was there waiting, so we hotfooted it aboard.

Up Next: More character time for Bethany.