Disney 2008 - Day Two

Our first full day at WDW was spent at Animal Kingdom. It was a brutally hot day. Sunny, 90’s, a ka-jillion percent humidity. Melissa’s sister, Priscilla, and her husband and daughter were on the tale end of their trip to Orlando… so it was nice to all meet at Animal Kingdom and experience some of the attractions together.

As always, I immediately ran and got fast passes for Everest. Melissa and the kids ran and got a few character autographs. I was proud of Emily on this trip for a couple of reasons: 1) This was the first non-stroller trip for her… we made her walk the entire trip and she didn’t complain at all. She held up really well and had a pretty good attitude through most of the trip. 2) She challenged herself on a few attractions… she rode an attraction called Primeval Whirl… which is a tame mouse type coaster… but I thought might be a little bit too much for her. Not only did she ride this thing… but she loved it as well. She would tell you that this was one of her favorite attractions of the whole trip! She rode it three separate times!

Later in the day, she also rode Kali River Rapids with Kevin and me. She had a good time… even though she is exactly like her mother… she wore a poncho for a water ride. Getting wet is part of the fun of it for me… but not for my girls. Some of the other big hits of the day included Expedition Everest; Kilimanjaro Safaris; The Lion King Show (best on WDW property) and the Finding Nemo Show.

There are about four exhibits and attractions at Animal Kingdom that I have never found the time to do… and that didn’t change. I had every intention of hitting some of the animal trails… but we just ran out of time. I’ve always wondered why Animal Kingdom closes so early (5PM on this day) compared to the other parks. Some say it’s because of the Animals… but honestly… you don’t see very many animals when you are there. Because it’s always a shortened day… I never see everything that I want to see.

We closed the park by eating at another new restaurant called Yak and Yeti. Don’t ask me why you would put the word Yak in any American restaurant name… but it was an Asian flare type restaurant. I was a little worried about this one going in… but I thought the experience was tremendous. The restaurant was beautifully decorated. Our server was very nice. I thought the food was tremendous. I got a steak and shrimp combo entrée and it was very good. The shrimp was breaded and it came with this dipping sauce that was excellent. For dessert, I ordered fried Won Tons with cream cheese and vanilla ice cream. The whole dinner was fantastic. When we left the restaurant, the Animal Kingdom had already closed down… so it was kind of eerie to walk to the front of the park and only see a couple of people around. Very rare at a Disney park! All in all, I really enjoyed Animal Kingdom… it is slowly developing into a nice theme park.

We spent the rest of the night relaxing and hanging out at the hippy pool. I usually don’t take the time to swim on trips like this… but I went ahead and went down to hang out with the kids. Both Emily and Aaron had a blast. Aaron even wanted to get into the big pool! We took turns holding him above the water.