September 12th we woke up early for Extra Magic Hours & Headed to Animal Kingdom!
I am a huge Animal lover, a lot of my friends call me Snow White, so I was really looking forward to this day. I remembered riding Everest and loving it but besides that I didn't remember much from when I was younger at AK.
We had gotten to the bus early because the park opened at 8 this day. I have written in my notes that we didn't get to the park till 8:30 because the bus took forever! That's ok though, it still didn't seem too busy.
Stopped to get our picture outside!
I had our schedules pretty planned out for each day and brought a one page map & schedule with to each park, and if I remember correctly, I forgot it today so we were sort of winging it.
Once we walked in I couldn't get over how beautiful the park is! We stopped to look at some of the Black Swans. I could already tell we both were going to love today.
We then went over to Dinosaur! We both liked this! I get really scared even though I know I shouldn't.
Next we went on Primeval Whirl and we were seriously the only ones there so I was happy to get seated in our own little car but right at last minute they placed another couple in ours. Why? I am not really sure...there was seriously no one on the ride! I actually liked it which I wasn't expecting to!
We had fast passes for Everest later in the day but there was no wait so we went on that next!
On our walk over:
Joe isn't a huge picture taker, but all day at AK he kept taking pictures so he must have really liked it!
Going up Everest!
PLEASE check out the guy sitting in front of Joe.... his eyes seriously look like they are about to pop out of his head!!!
It was still pretty early at this point and we hadn't eaten breakfast so we stopped somewhere and got a green tea & an apple fritter to share. I don't really know what the location was that we stopped but it was really beautiful so we sat down and enjoyed our breakfast.
Joe being a goof:
After enjoying our breakfast, we went over to watch the monkeys because they were super active and entertaining! Joe and I had a whole scenario for which monkey was who in the family and what they were saying. It was hilarious. I'm pretty sure we watched them for at least 20 minutes just laughing.
We then went on the Maharajah Jungle Trek. I was really hoping to see the baby gorilla that was born shortly before we left but he wasn't out that morning.
We really liked the Jungle Trek, I don't remember ever going through here before.
After the Jungle Trek, we went to the Birds of Wonder Show! This was really fun! And the owl at the end was the cutest!!
We had fast passes from 10:40-11:40 at Expedition Everest so we went back to do that.... and we waited to ride in the front!
We got some great pictures while on the ride (risky!!)
UGH OH!
I love this picture! You can see Epcot!
We got off the ride & were starving! In the distance it looked like it was getting a little dark...we had had such good weather the whole trip so I wasn't worried about a little rain at this point but I wanted to eat lunch before it started! I had decided prior to the trip we would eat at Flame Tree, so off we went.
We found a really cute spot to eat and enjoyed our meals. We REALLY should have shared, but that is something Joe is currently learning to do when we go out to eat and during our trip he really never wanted to. Boys.
This guy decided to join us for lunch. He was cute and just stood next to us the whole time. Joe said it was because he wanted food, but I of course decided it was just because he liked us.
After lunch it was really getting dark and we had fast passes for the Safari from 12:10-1:10 so we headed over there.
Stopped and got some pictures of the Tree of Life where you couldn't see all the construction around it.
Once we got to the front of the line for the Safari, it started DOWN POURING. We had such good timing because we got on the truck without getting wet and were seated on the side that wasn't getting hit with the side rain.
All the giraffes were hiding under the trees!
This was awesome! I really thought this elephant could have been fake but then he started playing in the water.
We put our ponchos on while we were on the Safari since the rain was still coming down. We got off the Safari and ran over to the Lion King Show. We walked in probably 5-10 minutes late...but we were dry and out of the rain! The show was great, but I really want to see it from the beginning next time!
When we got out of the show, the rain had stopped and we decided to do the Safari again, no wait!
This time it was so funny because a giraffe was in the middle of the road so we had to wait a bit until he moved on his way.
I have written down we did the Trail in Africa after the Safari and realized the first Trail we did was in Asia... so I'm not sure the names of the two but we did go through both!
We had a fastpass for Kali River Rapids but Joe wasn't feeling it so since we had a big night ahead of us we decided to head back to our resort!
When we got back to the resort, we got a drink from the Banana Cabana (YUM) and found a hammock to relax on. We definitely fell asleep on it. It was great. I loved how relaxing Caribbean Beach was.
When we woke up, we headed back to our room to get ready for the fanciest meal of our lives! I can't wait to share more about it!