Day Five - Animal Kingdom

Today, expecting lots of animal sightings, I decided to take my SLR (had held off before now because I thought it would be a nightmare to take around on rides etc.). So I'm afraid there's LOTS of photos!!  Before we start though, I'll show you the delight of Hat 2!  This is how Dad was going to go round Animal Kingdom until we suggested that his head might get a bit hot! ;o)

Animal Kingdom was a complete unknown for us, it wasn't built when I went before, and I hadn't read up on it that much.  We decided to go early (for us!) and arrived mid-morning.  One of the first things you see when entering the park is the centerpiece - a massive, massive tree covered in carvings of different animals (somewhat cheesily called The Tree of Life), of course, it's not real, but it is very realistic and the carvings are great (kids loved spotting different animals).

 

The first attraction we saw is actually underneath the tree.  It's a 3D show based on It's A Bug's Life, and it's called It's Tough To Be A Bug.  We thought it would probably be a bit babyish but it didn't have a long wait time, so we thought we'd give it a go.  I'm really glad we did as it was really good, and 4D, not 3D.  It was a short show with the characters from the film in it telling us a bit about themselves.  It has the usual 3D stuff in it, along with a bit of rain and fog in places.  There's a little more 4D at the end that I thought was hysterical, but I won't spoil the surprise for those going soon!

The 3D glasses!

We then walked round into the "Africa" section of the park.  I must say I think Disney have done a really good job with this park, it has a much more "nature park" than "theme park" feel.  It's extremely leafy and didn't feel too busy.

(the mountain in the distance is actually a ride!)

Disney had also seemed to take a step up when it came to "dressing" the park, obviously none of it is authentic, but they had gone a long way I thought to make it look/feel as good as it could:

We had Fastpasses for one of the rides with the longest wait times - the Kilimanjaro Safari, so off we went on that.  As you'd expect, it's a safari ride, and it shows an area of the park that cannot be seen by any other means.  I'm sure the tour guide told us that the animals in this part of the park are actually looked after and managed not by Disney but by a separate conservational group, but I can't remember the names.  

Obviously the animals are still in captivity, but are free to wander round this part of the park (animals who might be a danger to each other are kept apart by clever "ravines" etc., so you don't see any cages or bars).  Again, I'm no expert, but the habitat looked great and the animals looked very well cared for.  They looked like they had lots of space, food, water etc.,

 

We then went through the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail, which was a walking tour through various enclosures, with a number of different animals.  Again, it was very lush and spacious;

    

    

    

I also took what I think is my favourite photo of Toby of the entire trip:

And a rather nice one of both boys:

Toby barely wore his sunglasses all holiday.  He thought they looked cool hanging from his t-shirt!  Shame this meant that they were easily lost one day though!  Whilst having a photo of the boys up, I must mention that they were supremely well behaved on holiday.  Of course not perfect, but what child is? lol.  They did well.  There were very few, if any, tantrums.  They weren't too demanding, they played well together and didn't wind each other up anywhere near as much as they do at home! lol.    Of course, telling them if they were misbehaved they wouldn't go to Harry Potter World was great leverage!

Anyway, next we ventured into "Asia" and I dragged the guys into "Flights of Wonder", a bird show.  My nan was a huge fan of owls and I've kind of taken on her obsession in recent years, so I wanted to see the show.  The show was good, and they added quite a few comic elements in that I guess would appeal to the little kids, but I did find it more than slightly corny.  Added to that was a rather overplugged conservational message that got a little tiresome.  Still, there were some fab birds, and they had them well trained.  If you like birds, or want 20 minutes shaded rest in between rides etc., you'll do worse than to stop here for a bit!

After all that it was time for lunch!  We had a surprisingly nice chinese takeaway from one of the stalls called...

And that also ticked another thing off the list - eating chinese takeout in one of those cardboard boxes you always see the characters in American sitcoms eating out of! lol.  Plus, time for one of my favourites of Ollie:

After refuelling, it was time for the first proper ride of the day!  Expedition Everest.  Firstly Dan, Dad and Ollie went on and I stayed with Toby (getting a theme here? lol), but there wasn't a massive queue, so Ollie dragged me on, with Dan coming along for the ride.  It was FAB!  I loved it.  It's a fairly fast roller coaster (not Busch Gardens level, but not kiddie either lol) where the premise is finding the infamous Yeti.  The waiting area is cleverly done with lots of interesting artifacts to look at, making the wait seem shorter.  We enjoyed it so much we went on a third time!  

By now it was late afternoon and we wanted to see a few more bits of the park.  Animal Kingdom is one park that closes quite early - 8pm - and we weren't planning coming back, so we wanted to see as much as we could.

Having said that, looking at the map now I can see lots we didn't do (all the more reason to go back lol).  Next on the list was the slightly out-of-place feeling "Dino-rama"!  A dinosaur themed fun fair, complete with "hook-a-duck" type games where toys (sadly not Disney merchandise) can be won.  There was also a couple of rides, both fairground type rides.  The one we went on was half way between a small coaster and the Waltzers!

We then went back into Asia as we had a Fastpass for the Kali River Rapids - a ride that was pretty similar to the other "rapids" rides around.  We got wet, but not too wet!  Weather was hot enough to dry us out very quickly.  

Finally for Asia we went through the Maharajah Jungle Trek.  It's not much of a jungle or a trek, but there were more fabulous animals on view...

Again we thought the way they'd set this all out was good, and the "decor" etc., was a nice touch.

And another nice photo of the boys...

And here comes Hat 3!

So, after all that trekking, and another fab day, we leave Animal Kingdom.  We head for Downtown Disney (the Disney restaurant and shopping area in Orlando) and something to eat.  We ended up in Planet Hollywood, which was pretty cool - a huge huge dome with three floors of restaurant and all manner of movie memorabilia on show!

And then we all went home VERY tired!!

Day Four - "Day off"!

Well, today we decided to have a rest day, I think it ended up being pretty much the only rest day in the entire holiday!  Dan had been looking forward to a bit of discount designer shopping, so we headed off to the Premium Outlet Mall on Vinelands Road.  It's a big, open outlet centre, bit like Bicester (from what I remember Bicester to be, only been there once!).  Loads of shops, ranging from Calvin Klein to Toys R Us (just a small shop, but quite useful), and most things in between.  I didn't buy an awful lot, so hard to compare prices, but again they seemed a bit cheaper than they would be here.  I bought a cute little pill box and keyring from Fossil for just over $20, which I think would be about £13 here (they had a buy one get one half price offer on).  Dan, who had been looking forward to this day almost more than anything (!) barely bought anything!  Dad and the boys spent quite a bit in the Disney shop (primarily selling old stock (but genuine stock)).

We stopped for our first ice cream (Ben & Jerry's) with freshly made warm waffle cones (very nice!).

Must mention Dad there and the first of many hats.  If pushing a man in a wheelchair with a 2013 Disney hat with a propeller on wasn't bad enough, you should see what he also bought over the following two weeks!!  At the Harley Davidson shop he bought this:

And told us he was going to wear it every day of our road trip!  (luckily he forgot about it a lot of the time!).  More "interesting" head apparel in future blogs!

We then did one of the most important things of our holiday.  We went to Tony Roma's for tea.  Important because Tony Roma's was almost a family name in Dan's house.  When Dan and I first met, Dan's dad Stuart was working a lot in America, and used to go on and on about Tony Roma's and their ribs.  I think he must have held most of his business meetings in there!  So it became important for us to visit this hallowed establishment.  Also, Dan is allergic to pork ribs, but can eat beef ribs, so he was looking forward to a rare occasion to get messy with some ribs!  He certainly managed that!...

In fact, we all thought they were rather good!

Ollie was also impressed with the 100 different sodas they had!  I can't remember what he had, but I had a rather nice raspberry Coke!  So, we went home stuffed and had a lovely dip in our lovely warm pool that night (once the dinner had finally gone down!).

I also took this photo that day:

This seems to be much of what Florida is like!  Well, certainly on the main roads.  It's bizarre - well it seems so to this Brit lol.  I don't understand how so many businesses can stay in business!  There's a shop or office for everything you can think of, and lots of them.  We must have seen at least 100 mattress shops in our three weeks there, you'd be lucky to find one in each big town over here, and even then it would be part of a bigger store probably.  And sooo many places to eat too!  You'd never go hungry!