Animal Kingdom

Monday was Animal Kingdom day. Matt headed to the conference for the first part of the morning, and I was charged with rousing and readying these sleepyheads. It was well past 8 and this was the scene....

After a fast breakfast downstairs in the hotel, the girls waited for Matt by spending some time outdoors doing more vacation journaling.

The trek to Animal Kingdom took us 2 hours. Yes, that's right. Our hotel only offered direct shuttles there until 9:30, and we couldn't leave until 10. So, we had to just shuttle to tickets and transportation, then ride a ferry to Magic Kingdom, and then take another bus to Animal Kingdom. It was not super awesome. At all. I nearly wet my pants, and Jillian had plenty of drop-to-the-ground moments of drama. Waiting is hard, OK?

Once at Animal Kingdom, we had lunch at Yak and Yeti (fairly decent food for Disney) and managed to convince Adrienne to sit through the 'It's Tough To Be A Bug' show that Matt had to take her out of screaming last year. Then we hit our first fast pass--the Kali River Rapids ride. As we were waiting in line, I saw people putting on ponchos. And so I got nervous. I really didn't want to get soaked. Right as we boarded our circular river raft (with a few other people), I read the sign that said, "You will get wet. You may get soaked". Awesome. The ride was fun, and the usual ride-fearing Jillian absolutely loved it. What Jillian and I loved even more is that Matt and Adrienne got completely soaked, while she and I remained mostly dry. We lucked out with our seat position! While I always carry extra clothes for the kids with me, my sherpa refused to do so, and therefore Adrienne had to just dry out (as did my sherpa).

We hauled a wet Matt and Adrienne to the Lion King Show. After the show Matt asked me if Adrienne (who sat on his lap) was still THAT wet or if she peed her pants. We asked Adrienne, and she didn't know (wasn't sure who to ask at this point...). Then she piped up and said--"if it's warm water, it's pee. And that was warm water". I guess she figured she was already wet so it didn't matter? Daddy wasn't super thrilled about this, but it certainly drove home my point about carrying extra clothes. Oh well. I took A to the bathroom, threw her underwear away and so she went commando the rest of the day. Thank goodness for dry-fit skirts with built in shorts.

We enjoyed another Safari this year, with great views of giraffes and elephants and lots of other safari animals.

But it was the rhinos who stole the show. A couple of them decided just to block the path of the trucks, so we had to wait for them to pass

You can see the rhino out the front windshield of our bus here.

When we finally could creep past the rhino, we were so close that Matt and Adrienne could have touched it. I hollered at him to move her away from the side. This rhino was a momma protecting her baby and I didn't want her getting feisty with MY baby.

The sweet baby. So cute!

After the safari, we hit the trails and saw some fish and hippos and gorillas.

Baby gorillas!

And then it was time for the highlight of the day--Adrienne convinced Matt to take her on the biggest coaster there--Expedition Everest. She was one inch above the height requirement and just begged to go. Jillian started crying when he agreed to take her, because "Adrienne is going to die if she goes on that ride!!!" We have quite the dramatic flair. I managed to calm Jillian enough to not cause a scene, and then we went over to watch for Matt and Adrienne to come barreling down the first drop. You can see them about mid-way back in the car.

Matt said it was a seriously scary and legit coaster, and that Adrienne screamed with glee the entire time. She came bouncing out the exit after they were finished.

We did some shopping and then played in the dino park. Jillian loved finding things to climb.

We had no dinner plan (very bad idea at Disney), thanks to deciding we could not make it back to the hotel in time for the welcome reception party because of all the transportation drama. So I happened to place a hail mary call to Rainforest Cafe, which was at the entrance of the park. We lucked out and had ourselves a table in less than an hour. The girls were over the moon, and Matt and I just did our best not to completely lose it. Talk about overstimulation.

We successfully navigated back to the hotel in just over an hour, and then tucked the princesses in with their growing pile of Disney purchases.