Disney Trip 2

Allow me to say up front that I have never been a huge fan of the Animal Kingdom… however, this was the most I have ever enjoyed this particular theme park. We got there right at opening… in fact, I bet we were seven of the first hundred people in the park. Jeff and I ran and immediately got fastpasses for Expedition Everest… while everyone else went and rode a nice spinning Dino ride that loads very slowly and would be killer to try and get on later in the day.

Emily’s first character greeting of the day was Pooh… the first of many such greetings. We bought her an autograph book again this year. This particular book comes with a blank page for the autograph… and then next to it is a sleeve that is meant to hold the picture that was taken of the character and Emily together. We got this done very quickly after we got home and it turned out very cute.


Since I do these trip reports about once a year… to once every two years… I try to concentrate on newer attractions… or attractions that I haven’t reviewed yet. Animal Kingdom did a great thing by closing down the really terrible Tarzan show and replacing it with a ‘Finding Nemo’ musical. I can’t begin to describe how great this show was… creatively done. Special effects and staging were tremendous… and they used a concept of acting that I had never seen before where the actor ‘works’ the characters… but is standing right next to the character acting the part as well. Sometimes I didn’t know what to watch… the puppet or the actor. It’s hard to explain here… but it was very well done. The vocal talent in this show was outstanding. A+.


I had the experience of riding Expedition Everest in a Florida downpour… it hurt, and it hurt bad. I had to cover my eyes the whole time… and I almost lost a contact. Wish I would have waited to use my fastpass for a little later (drier time) in the day. Four of us rode Kali River Rapids. It’s fun… but it’s so short and sort of disappointing. They could have done some really amazing things with this ride. There’s one huge drop at the end. A three minute ride where two minutes are spent getting up a hill. (I give the ride a C+.) We learned a lesson in cause and effect. Cause: we were on the wrong side of the raft; Effect: we got absolutely soaked. Geesh.

We had lunch at Rainforest Café… but I think Melissa and I decided that we would utilize the Rainforest Cafe that we have about a half an hour away from us now… here in the Chicago-land area… and experience other restaurants in the Animal Kingdom. Yes, it’s been a tradition… but some traditions need to be broken in order to create new and better ones. There’s a sermon in there somewhere, I think.


That night, we went out to Downtown Disney. It was packed! Wow. There was no elbow room in any of the stores… especially with me pushing a gigantic stroller holding Aaron around. I don’t think people liked that very much. Downtown Disney is cool… but it’s much better without massive crowds. They have many different shops that concentrate on specific items… and then the big store called: World of Disney… which pretty much has anything Disney that you could possibly imagine. Emily would have bought the whole store if possible…