Sunday, Dec. 30 was our last full day of this trip and it started off VERY early. We had the Sunrise Safari booked for this morning and we had to meet in the Club lounge at 6:30am.
So that meant with 4 of us and 1 bathroom (and 2 being "teen" girls), we got up at 4:30am to be ready for our 6:30am meeting. YIKES! No sleeping in on the last day of vacation for us...but it was well worth getting up early for!
Everyone gathers in the lounge and then we moved down to the main lobby. Once in the main lobby, we were organized into 2 groups. There were 2 animal specialists from Animal Kingdom park, each leading 1 group.
Unfortunately I believe this was the coldest morning of our whole trip! Our guide said it was 39 degrees outside!!
Because it was so cold that morning, they had provided blankets for us. You could grab them in the lounge and then they collected them at the restaurant after the safari ride. This was very nice! We had brought a blanket of our own too and dressed very warm and even though it was so cold, we were fine with these preparations.
We enjoyed a few more lobby photos since there was almost no one around at this time of morning. As you can see, it was still quite dark outside.
So we loaded onto the buses (in the same area where ME drops off and picks up). It indeed was chilly outside.
The ride over to Animal Kingdom is very quick, obviously. You enter through a back way and get to see lots of behind the scenes things like the buildings where the animals stay at night. Of course, no photos were allowed backstage, but it was cool to see how it all works. When you're on the safari ride, you don't realize that each different animals "barn" is basically right behind where they are located on the savanna.
It was still a little dark when we drove through the backstage area, so it wasn't super easy to see everything.
After we got to our drop off site, we walked a little ways and entered the safari ride and got on 2 different trucks.
Soon we were on our way and got to see the animals.
The advantage to this safari over riding it in the park as a normal park guest is that they stop and really talk in depth about the animals and their environment on the savanna. It makes it so much easier to take photos. Plus you could interact with the guide, ask questions, etc.
Here is our nice & knowledgeable guide for our safari. He kind of sat on the back of the front seat of the safari vehicle, so he was facing all of us and spoke into his microphone so everyone could hear him easily.
In no time, we were off and seeing animals!
Hippos!
So many birds!
Crocodile!
Up next, lots more animals!
