The Hottest Place in All Orlando?

Thursday we got up and out the door and headed to Animal Kingdom. The park is only open until 6pm, so we really wanted to get the most out of it. It was supposed to be a hot day, but I thought there would be enough shade with all the trees. Ha! I think out of the 3 parks we went to, this one was the hottest!

It was so humid the camera fogged up!

 We wanted to make sure we took the Kilimanjaro Safari ride. So we flew up to Africa and got in line. It was only 20 minutes, so that wasn't too bad. We got to ride in a big Safari Jeep and it took us on an adventure to stop poachers. We went up and down hills, through water, made quick turns. It was fun! Along the way we saw elephants, giraffes, crocodiles, warthogs, hippos, and a few other animals native to the African Safari. I was most impressed that they had lions and cheetahs out in the open.

What our safari jeep looked like from the back.

The Giraffe were so close!

Jumbo termite hill. Gross.

Elephant!

Lioness!

Also in Africa, we walked through some trails, saw some birds and fish and then boarded a train to Rafiki's Planet Watch, where we learned about conservation and animal rescue. Gotta get some learning in on the trip!

Trying out a Gorilla's handprints.

WOW!

 

She even got to be in an interactive show with a bird of prey. She guessed he weighed 5lbs- and she was right!

I know the answer!

5lbs is heavy when you only weigh 35!

We headed down to Camp Mickey and Minnie after that and tried to get as many character signatures as we could. It was nice that they had a huge section of little pavilions to take pictures with each character. 

Minnie was sweet.

Goofy was a riot!

At 2, we stood in line for a half an hour to see the Festival of the Lion King Musical. One thing we were looking forward to, besides the show, was that it was inside- air conditioning! I'm told the show is similar to the one on Broadway. There were singers (one sounded just like James Earl Jones!), acrobats, stilt walkers, and all sorts of dancing. It was great! The best was when the whole crowd (minus Shayleigh- who was looking at us like we were all crazy) broke out and sung Hakuna Matata! Poor kid- we really have to get her to watch these movies now that we've met all these characters.

We headed over to Dinoland, USA.

By this time we were done! The heat had overtaken us. We stopped for the best $4 frozen lemonade ever. We all sat down and enjoyed our lemonade and then headed over to The Boneyard. Supposedly there Shay could dig up some dino bones, but all I saw there was a climbing structure and some fossils. It was ok though because after all the walking we made Shay do (yep- no stroller for this little trooper at all the parks) she needed some time to run around. While she was there, of course she made a friend. Working on her socialization all the way down in Orlando!

Wait for it...

Yep, holding hands!

One last stop to visit Pooh, Eeyore, and Tigger. While we were waiting in line, we saw a cast member who we had seen in just about every other line that day (she was the person that was giving breaks) and she was so taken with Shayleigh, she called her a special friend and gave Shayleigh her favorite pin from her shirt. Can I just say that made her day? Well, that and having Pooh give her some special treatment.

Dancing with Pooh!

Before heading to dinner, we stopped by the gift shop. How can you decide what to get? You can't. So we got one of everything! No, not really, but we wanted to. There was so much cool stuff there. The prices though- yikes.

In keeping with the Animal Kingdom theme, we headed to Rainforest Cafe. I had never been there before, but goodness is it noisy! On the way out, the sky decided to open up into a torrential downpour for what seemed like an eternity. I imagine we spent an hour at the gift shop there before we decided to take our shoes off (I was NOT going to drive 13 hours home the next day in wet sneakers) and make a run for it. I have no idea how long it rained for, but I am glad that it waited until after we were done with our day to rain.

The next day, we headed home, and it rained off and on the whole way home. Nothing really exciting to report there, and it seemed the drivers were on better behavior going North, which is good, because I was EXHAUSTED!

We had such a great trip. The memories will last a lifetime. I know Shayleigh learned a lot. We all did.