Five Days of Disney - Day Three

Whew. I’m finally sitting down to finish this little reflection of our trip. We’ve had family in town and life has been a little chaotic. Now that we’re back on our weekly schedule and D1 is back to Thursday night basketball, I have a little free time to blog. Any other night of the week I save for him {especially after his summer as SAHD} and blogging is just not a two-man activity…..

Before we left for Orlando, we had purchased three-day passes to be used at any of the Disney parks. Originally, we thought that we would spend all our time at the Magic Kingdom since it sounded like it was the most kid friendly for our boys’ ages. However, after a few suggestions from others, we decided to change our plans and hit up Animal Kingdom on day two.

Now, bear with me. It has been three weeks since we were there and my memory is just not what it used to be {which might not be a bad thing in this case….} The setting was the same – HOT and humid. Nonetheless, we were still at the Happiest Place on Earth and, by golly, they were going to be happy. Oh, and I would like to mention that on this particular day, half of Brazil’s teenage population was joining us in AK. Did you know that when you're an international tourist at Disney, you all wear the same shirts, follow a feller carrying your country’s flag and sing the anthem {or so I assume that was the song they were humming}? In any case, we shared the park that day with them and 5 million other people because it was uber crowded. That I do remember.




After we made our way through security and ticketing, we did a quick scan of the map and decided to take the safari tour first. This was pretty neat. Everyone loads onto a Jeep and the driver heads out into ‘Africa’ where there are giraffes, lions, elephants, etc. within a stone’s throw of the vehicle {I’m not good with distances – could have been 50 ft or 500. Who knows. It was close.}

We did the safari early in the day because it was a popular attraction and the lines grew very long as the day went on. However, that meant that we had to forego some of the other fun rides, like Everest and Dinosaur, because once the safari was over, those other lines were long and the Fast Pass times were later than we planned to stay. This is where we were a little disappointed in our choice of AK over MK. There just wasn’t much that didn’t require a ridiculous wait and, with our brood, that just wasn’t an option. I'm sure it had to do with the enormous amount of people there that day but, in any case, it was a little frustrating.

Another fond memory I have {yes, I did have some} was when we took a train out to Rafiki’s Planet Watch where there was a petting zoo set up with some unique animals. We particularly liked the llama, probably because we're fans of the ‘Llama Llama’ books. Check out this poor chick's chompers….



Later in the afternoon, we were able to score some seats in the ‘Finding Nemo’ musical. The show was awesome, especially since it brought some much-desired, non-stop A/C for an hour or so. The colors were bright and the music was loud, which translated to three amused boys. There’s a valuable piece of advice for anyone asking – hold off on any indoor activities until later in the day when you are beat-down tired and desperate for some relief. I’m sure I wouldn’t have appreciated it nearly as much in the morning when I was synthetically energized by my XL latte as I did in the afternoon when I was running on fumes and dropping sweat by the gallon.

I guess d1 didn't hear me correctly when I offered gum as a bribe for a good picture. He's too busy tossing me the 'Rock & Roll' sign while d2 is non-verbally declaring his love for me. I can tell you which one got that sweet little nuggest of spearmint goodness.....

I think we lasted about 7 hours at Animal Kingdom that day and it was really not easy to do. Our overall take on the park was that it is a glorified zoo with a few extra features of an amusement park. d1 and d2 probably would have been interested in the little exhibits and in learning about the Pangani Forest but we couldn’t….oh, who am I kidding? They’re all about the rides – movement, noise, thrill – and after a day at MK, it wasn’t exactly what they had expected. Although, I have to say that I’m not sure who was more disappointed – the older boys or their daddy. I could be wrong but I think D1 may have wanted me to encourage him to wait in line two hours to ride Everest alone while I just ‘hung out’ with the midgets not tall enough/brave enough to endure the coaster. Had there been a safe place for me to ‘hang’ with them, I might have suggested it but without harnesses or handcuffs, it wasn't happening. There were way too many people to go to a 3:1 child-parent ratio and a nervous breakdown over losing a child in a crowd of Brazilians wasn't high on my to-do list. Maybe next time, dear.

As we did the night before, when we left the park, we headed back out to the uncle’s pad for dinner. Have I mentioned how blessed we were to have had the opportunity to do all of this without paying lodging? It saved us tremendously and we cannot say enough about how thankful we were…..and the boys LOVED hanging out with their second cousins at night, just swimming and watching 'The Karate Kid.' Their excitement was totally worth the nightly panic attacks I had from fear that something irreplaceable {either from sentiment or our lack of cash} would shatter from their energy bursts and new kung fu moves. Fortunately and only by the grace of God, we survived and so did their house.....