D - Animal Kingdom

One thing you should probably know about me is that I am a very "by the book" kind of person. So as I read my Disney planning books, I took lots of notes and came up with "the best possible plan" for our family. While I read what they said about not trying to do too much so that you are not completely exhausted and can't enjoy the trip, I also read what they said about making sure you were there bright and early every day before the park opens.

So......guess what we did? Day 1 found us at Animal Kingdom because the park opened early for Disney resort guests. We were there.

We ran immediately for the Kilimanjaro Safari and loved our closeup with the animals. Our favorite was the giraffe that Mike could have touched.



From there we sped over to Expedition Everest where Mike proceeded to terrify our son. Turns out, it was a bad idea to take Noah to the scariest roller coaster in the kingdom as his first major ride of the trip.



He didn't like it much......or at all. He also had a hard time trusting us for the rest of the trip when we tried to steer him toward any other coasters. Oops.



I think I was the primary fan of the Finding Nemo musical. It was really well done.



Notice the seat belt? We got lots of pictures of those. Mike's company makes the belts that are on many of Disney's attractions. Smile little safety device! This particular belt was on the Dinosaur ride. Another ride which terrified - this time BOTH of our children.



They were NOT, however, terrified of the Boneyard and would have spent a lot more time there if we had let them. But we were hungry, so we made them leave. MEAN parents!

After lunch we went to see the Lion King acrobatic show. It was great!

A little autograph signing....

And yet another terrifying experience - this time just for Katie. The Bug's Life 3d show ruined her on all things 3d. She screamed in fear and practically climbed over the top of me trying to get away. Oops again! This pic was taken before the show; therefore, she was still able to smile.

After such a frightening day, we took the kids to dinner with Rafiki and Timon. They really enjoyed that. Both of them got pretty obsessed with The Lion King when the broadway musical came to OKC recently. So when I saw this particular character dinner on the books, it was a no-brainer.

Here's Katie playing with crablegs - just a little something her father taught her.

Fam pic with Rafiki

& Timon

Completely disregarding what my guidebooks recommended about going back to the hotel to rest during the afternoon, we just plowed on through the day. Not to let a minute go to waste, we headed over to Hollywood Studios after dinner.

It was really beautiful by night, but we only got to do the Little Mermaid show before the park closed. Probably should have gotten a little more rest that night.

Despite all of the scary times that day, Katie declares Animal Kingdom to be her favorite of the Disney parks. It was a wonderful day. The weather was fantastic and we had a lot of fun there.