Disney's Animal Kingdom

Here is the first of our Disney blog posts. Animal Kingdom is the first as it will most likely be the shortest post. We spent a half day at the Animal Kingdom, and had it not been so HOT (heat indexes in the 110*s) we would have enjoyed ourselves much more. We were able to make it to the majority of the rides we were interested in, and saw almost every animal on the safari ride (I'll spare you the dozens of pictures of animals).

Here are Olivia and Ethan in Dinoland USA. This was at the end of our day, so their energy had really started to go.

Grandpa with Olivia and Joe with Ethan on the Triceratop Spin ride (exact same concept as the Dumbo ride). Olivia and Ethan LOVED this ride.

Dinoland had a miniature carnival area with games for the kids to play.

Finding Nemo: The Musical. This show was wonderful and I highly recommend it to anyone who makes a trip to Animal Kingdom. Ethan was completely mesmerized in this show, except for when Bruce the Shark made an appearance! Plus, the building was air-conditioned!

Meeting Goofy at the Tusker House. As you will see in upcoming blogs, we attended many character meals (at least one per day). This was the only character meal at AK, so of course I had to make reservations to attend! Olivia is making a goofy face in the picture to be just like Goofy. Both kids LOVED the characters and were not scared of any of them (even the villains). After the first couple of character meals, I was really growing a bit tired of the experience, but both kids continue to say that these meals were their favorite part of the Disney vacation. So, I guess it was all worth it!

Meeting Tusker House Mickey Mouse! Even I got so excited every time I had a Mickey sighting!

Tusker House Daisy Duck. We met Donald Duck prior to entering the restaurant and had a "professional" picture with him.

Mickey leading all of the kids in a Tusker House conga line.

This was a character I did not expect to meet...Flik from Bugs Life! The kids were not really sure who he was, but loved him just the same since he was a character! Olivia's autograph book is almost full with signatures. We really spent a lot of time standing in lines to meet various characters. The kids would see one and beg to meet them.

While AK is not my favorite park at Disney, I really do like the Tree of Life. This tree has 320 animals carved into it, and the grown ups loved walking around the tree attempting to find as many as we could (the kids were in the stroller being entertained with a bag of gummy Mickey Mouses).