The Fearsomely Fantastic FIVE!: Visit Florida: Explore Disney's Animal Kingdom

Today was our first day at Disney World. We chose to start with Disney's Animal Kingdom because Orlando was cold today and we weren't sure the children had the proper clothing to do to an outdoor after dark show. The other three Disney Parks have special night time shows, but the Animal Kingdom does not.

We arrived at the Animal Kingdom shortly after it opened to the general public at 9AM. (It opened at 8AM to Disney hotel guests.) We headed straight to the Kilimanjaro Safari ride. Mark says he read that it is Disney World's most popular ride. They advise that you go early in the day when the animals are more likely to be awake.

The safari ride is a half hour tour in an open-air vehicle through an African-style savanna where the animals roam freely. We saw rhinos, hippos, crocodiles, elephants, giraffes, lions, cheetahs, warthogs, gazelles, okapis, flamingos, and more. The children loved it so much that when we got off they wanted us to go find another similar ride immediately. They were pretty ticked when we told them there weren't more rides like it.

Instead we took a walk down the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail. The trail wasn't a big hit because it seemed rather lame after the safari. We saw gorillas and hippos and a few smaller animals in cages, but nothing to compare to the dozens of animals on the safari.

So we did the only thing we could. We went back to safari ride and did it again. It was as good the second time as it was the first. After that we had to find a follow up event, so we went over to Dinoland and did Dinosaur--"a dark, loud, and bumpy thrill ride." It was all of those things. On the ride we took an unauthorized trip back in time to the Cretaceous Era and we ran into a number of dinosaurs including T-rex. (Jake says it wasn't a T-rex, but some other carnivore.)

The children's take on this ride? Bentley closed his eyes half way through the ride and kept them closed. When the ride ended Bentley was anxious to get off. He urged me to "Quick get off! I don't want to go again."

When I asked Jake what he thought about the ride he simply said "No!", but a few minutes later he had a lot to say about it. It left quite an impression. Later in the day he was asking to go again. Viva told me "It was so scary it was stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid."

After Dinosaur we opted to see Finding Nemo: The Musical. It was a really good live show with amazing puppetry. The children were attentive the entire 45 minutes.

Then we joined the TriCeraTop Spin line. It was the longest line we were in all day--fifteen to twenty minutes. Part of the wait was that when we got seated, we were asked to exit again and wait while they did some repair work. Eventually we got to take our ride. It was fun enough. No great comments from the children though.

We stopped to eat a few snacks despite the children's protests. They don't like wasting time when we have lots more to see and do. After they ate they went to The Boneyard, a playground area. They weren't there very long when we realized it was time for the once daily Mickey's Jammin Jungle Parade. We were late to the parade route so good viewing was hard to come by.

The boys were invited to stand in front of some taller people and Viva went on Mark's shoulders. They seemed to like the parade. I even saw Bentley doing a little dancing.

It was 4PM by the time the parade was over and we only had two hours until the park closed. The children really wanted to go see Festival of the Lion King, but it played on the half hour, so we had time to kill. We went to Asia and did the Maharajah Jungle Trek. We saw a Komodo Dragon, two Siberian tigers (no biggie since we have a pair at our local zoo), and some super large bats. They were fascinating in a "yikes!" fashion. Keep them away from me!

On the way back from the trek we discovered that the Kali River Rapids had no line. Awesome! Mark and I wanted to do that ride, but we were too late for Fast Passes and last time we looked there was a 45 minute wait. We quickly joined the fast moving queue and in no time were at the front of the line.

This is when Bentley discovered we were going on water ride and could get wet. He started howling "I don't want to get wet!" The lady working the ride handed us a pair of plastic sheets, but that did not work for our finicky Bentley. "My head will get wet." He was very distressed about the ride, so I had to opt out and leave with him. Jake decided to opt out, too. Viva however, was all for going on. When I offered her the plastic, she said no. She wanted to get wet.

And she did. Boy did she. Fortunately we had a change of clothing. As I mentioned in my Legoland post, Viva isn't one to gush, so she didn't say much about the ride, but Mark said she enjoyed it. After the ride, Jake demanded to go, but it was too late.

It was time for the last showing of Festival of the Lion King. I referred to the show all day as the Lion King and it turns out that Bentley (and probably the twins, too) thought they were going to watch the Lion King movie.

After the show we asked B if he liked it better than the movie. He said no, it had too much singing and dancing. What about the gymnastics, we asked? There were four tumblers/gymnasts who did a trapeze act. This show, too, was really good. The only problem for me was the sound level. It was too loud. Much, much too loud. Again the children sat with rapt attention during the entire performance, but when I ask their opinions on the show, they don't have any. Maybe they were in Disney overload?

We stayed until the park closed at 6PM. We missed out on two areas in the Animal Kingdom. We didn't do the petting zoo or Wildlife Express Train and we never made it to Discovery Island. Time flies when you're at a Disney Park enjoying the magic!