Another Brit in Orlando Part 1.5

UK~STU

Mouseketeer
Joined
Jan 3, 2001
this should have been part 2 but I'd already posted that.... Dooooh!!

October 2001
Sunday Part 2 Animal Kingdom.

Cast:
Me – 37, using Disney to combat a mid life crisis!!
DW – Theresa, someone has to put up with me
DD1 – Emma 12, not quite a teenager but may as well be
DD2 – Lisa 8, Butter wouldn’t melt.

I’d set the wake up call for 6:30am so we could get an early start at the Animal Kingdom.
At 4am I was awake, I tried in vain to go back to sleep but my mind was full of what the day would offer, our first day in the parks for this holiday. After what seem like half an hour I glanced at the clock only to see it saying 4.05. Eventually I gave up at 4:20 and went for a shower, I know when I’m beaten.

When I came out of the shower, Lisa was also awake. We got dressed and sneaked out of the room without waking the others. It was a lovely morning, all quiet apart from the crickets, it’s so peaceful at this time of the morning. We wandered around the Movies resort taking in all the larger than life figures. I’d grabbed my camera before we left and took a few pictures of Lisa posing with the various characters, she particularly liked posing with Herbie the Love Bug on the winners podium.
I love the themes here at the movies, after seeing the giant love bug the next area is Fantasia where we are staying. Here we see the four storey Fantasia hat and the walking brooms and the toy soldiers all guarding Fantasia blocks. The large pool is also here with Mickey conjuring his magic from his pedestal at the foot of the pool. Around the corner we meet 101 Dalmations, Lisa has her photo taken in the Large TV with spot watching, this area has very large bones scattered in the pavement and on the grass, even the benches are shaped like bones. The next area is Mighty Ducks, this is probably my least favourite area, not because of the theme as such but more to do with me not watching the mighty ducks cartoon. This area has it’s own pool, the Duck Pond. Around the pool are giant hockey sticks and face masks, even the restrooms are made to look like sports lockers.
Next area is Toy Story, as we walk towards the blocks the pavement suddenly becomes a road and there is a life size remote control car from the film (sorry can’t remember it’s name). After this we come up to a 4 storey wall with a giant door that lucky for us is already open ajar. Through the door and we are greeted by Andy and Buzz, Buzz is standing and Andy sitting, I’m always amazed at how big these are, especially when your stood next to them. There are some giant alphabet blocks and a giant checkers board, Lisa and I hopped around the board for a while, with me looking over my shoulder to see if any one was looking!!

We head back to the room, when we get there the others are awake, including Emma. I’d just like to point out at this point that Emma is usually the hardest to get moving in the morning, you have to take your life in your hands when you wake her, I should get a stick and prod her from a distance, but I never learn. Anyway with everyone awake I go to the food court with our bargain mugs to get the morning wake up juice. It’s past 6am and there are a few more people around now.
I get back to the room just in time for the phone to ring, Lisa wins the race to the phone – it’s Mickey telling us to wake up and have a wonderful day. Ok if I wasn’t sure that we were actually here then Mickey just confirmed it.

All ready now we exit the room leaving the tip for the maid on the pillow, we get in the car and head for the Ponderosa on the 192, arrived around 7am. 3 adults and 1 child All-You-Can-Eat buffet breakfast, Coke, Coffee and OJ’s please, oh and I have a coupon, that’ll be $19.64 please sir. What a bargain all you can eat for less than $5 per person and I’m a Sir also, oh I love this place.

Well and truly stuffed armed with another coupon and a handful of ponderosa sweets we make it out to the car, I hope those seatbelts will stretch over my now very expanded waist line!!

On our way to Animal Kingdom, we arrive at the car park around 8am. We are parked in Peacock row 3, ok the mission for the day everyone is to remember where we parked. We are very close to the entrance so a quick stroll and we are faced with a beautiful sight, the waterfall flowing over the Rainforest Café on the left and straight ahead the opening to the park.

This is our first experience of the new park security measures, we lined up and had our bags searched, well Theresa had her bag searched, that was all we had with us.
Bag duly searched and we’re though the turnstiles.

The only plan I have is to do the Safari first, so we grab a couple of park maps and head through Oasis. Now last time we were here this was where we met Divine, Devine is a lady on stilts all covered in vine leaves and unless she was moving it was virtually impossible to spot her as she blended in with the background. Apart from the Tree of Life Devine was DW’s favourite bit of AK. We spent several minutes scanning around looking to see if she was here or not. We didn’t see her so either she is very good, we’re blind as bats or she isn’t here.
As we wandered through Oasis we stopped to let the Macaw stare at us for a while, I’m sure it was impressed with our display!
We head off over the bridge towards Discovery Island then we see that majestic sight which is the Tree of Life. I take a couple of photo’s then try to dismiss it from my mind as I remember that the Safari is beckoning. Past the entrance to ‘It’s Tough To Be A Bug’, I look forward to doing that later. Over the bridge into Africa. I like the entrance to Africa with the big wooden gates although that’s just about all I see as we blindly head straight for the Safari Entrance.

Welcome to Kilimanjaro Safaris, wait time five minutes, great, we meander through the queue area and straight on to the next truck.
We get front seats just behind the driver. The driver we had was excellent, he put a lot of effort into making the safari and really played the part well. I think your experience of the safari really depends on the efforts of the driver. Later in the holiday we discover this as another driver we have is totally disinterested and spoils the effect.
We take off on our journey, see you in a week! I won’t spoil the safari for those that haven’t done it yet. Suffice to say we were lucky the bridge held and we saw off the nasty poachers to save the day, even noticed the baby elephant in the back of the truck this time. Along the way we saw many animals, at one point we stopped as a Mother and Baby Rhino slowly passed in front of us and then right at the side of the truck, it was such a great sight that I even forgot to take an pictures!
At the end of the week! (I hope my three week holiday doesn’t go this quick) we end up back at the safari station. I thought that this safari was much better than the one we did last year, but then I guess on a ride like this there are so many things that can change.

We exited the Safari and had a look around some of the shops in Africa then headed for Asia. We had missed Asia completely last year as we left early because it was just too hot.

It was too early for the Flights of Wonder show, so we headed for the Maharajah Jungle Trek. The theme of this is excellent and we enjoyed every bit of it as we wandered around, we were virtually the only ones on the trek. DW who hates bats was absolutely mesmerised by the Giant Fruit Bats, I haven’t got a clue why! I almost had to drag her away. We spent a while watching the Dragons or were they watching us. Then we found the Tigers, these were sunning themselves in that couldn’t care less kinda way. Giving the impression of cuddly pussycats that you could just pick up and take home, but you know reality is somewhat different.
We exited from the trek having spent quite a bit of time in there, we’d missed the start of the Flights of Wonder and we didn’t fancy doing the Kali River Rapids just yet. So after looking around and taking in the scenery we left Asia and headed for ‘It’s Tough to Be A Bug’.

There was no wait time posted so we went straight in. Now I don’t usually advocate queues but I think here you need a queue to appreciate the Tree. As there was no queue we walked around and around the tree until we eventually reached the entrance to ITTBAB. Once the entrance had been reached I remembered last year spending time going round the tree in the queue admiring all the carved animals, we’d missed most of them this time, the queue is really part of this attraction.
We picked up our Bug Eyes and then stood waiting for the theatre doors to open. The cry from the CM for us all to move forward seemed strange as there wasn’t that many people behind us, maybe it was a recording :)
After about 5 minutes the doors opened and we all pile in to become honorary bugs, I love this show, I wont go into details for those who haven’t seen the show. At the end of the show and all the bugs had left we made our exit.

After ITTBAB we headed for DinoLand, on the way we stopped off for some well deserved Frozen Lemonades. The roof of my mouth was now colder than a iceberg I was ready to face those nasty dinosaurs.
We decided that as we’d be coming to AK again then we’d do Tarzan Rocks then. We head straight to Dinosaur Ride, there is no wait and we walk straight on. This is the first time I’d experienced this ride and quite liked it. Having survived the T-Rex we went around for another go. In the time for us to do a ride the queue had built up to 10 minutes, where did everyone come from?? Another ride and again we foiled the T-Rex and survived..
We looked around some of the shops then decided we’d leave early and do the shows next time.

At 1:30pm we were back at the car, having succeeded in not forgetting where we’d parked it. 10 minutes later we were back at the All Star Movies.
The kids headed straight for the pool whilst we tested the comfort factor of the pillows.
By 4pm the breakfast and snacks had worn off and hunger was now the main topic of thought. Having heard so much about Jungle Jims on these boards we thought we’d try it out.
By about 5pm we were at Crossroads and had found Jungle Jims.
DW and I had burgers, although I think the term burger do these huge plates of food a great injustice. Dw had a Mushroom Swiss Cheese thing, I had a Tarzan Special, Emma had the chicken and Lisa plumped for the Pizza with special fries. Iced Tea, Cokes and Pinnicoladas a grand total $38, I feel like a stuffed pig and they only want to charge me $38, I’ll be coming here again….

We stagger out of Jungle Jims and manage waddle up to the Disney store, having relieved ourselves of some dollars we make it to the car and head off to WalMart for some needy supplies. A much need Cooler, ($6 for a fold away plastic type ), a crate of Bud for medicinal purposes and some snacks.

Back to ASMo by 10pm for an early night.

Tomorrow, Disney Studios
 

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