Day 12 - Animal Kingdom - 8th June

Day 12 – Animal Kingdom – 8th June

 

ROOOOOAAAAAAAR!!  We are ready to get them today, all of us feeling refreshed and batteries recharged!!

Animal Kingdom today and we have a semi-plan on how to get ourselves round the park and home for an early-ish time!  We have organised our Fastpasses online so we have our three Fastpasses and our first one is at 10.25am at Medievel Swirl.  We got to the park 9.30am-ish

 

 

Jumped on the tram and ready to explore!!

 

Here we are!!

 

We are walking through the Oasis Exhibits, tropical gardens where you can see exotic animal exhibits when the lady just appears out of the tree, WOW she is moving so gracefully even on stilts!

 

The first glimpse of the Tree of Life with all the wood carvings of animals on its trunk, wow even from a distance you can spot animals, amazing!!

 

Walking through the Oasis Exhibits

 

Our first stop was It’s Tough to be a Bug a 3D show to discover what it is like being a bug! 

 

Ready for the show and waiting to be transformed into a bug!!  There were wafts of air when someone tried to swat us bugs and few other things like that but then at the end it said please remain seated until all the cockroaches and other bugs exit the room as they have enjoyed the show with us!  So we felt a lump move across our bottoms as if it really was bugs under our seat leaving the room, it was funny but felt a bit weird!

 

Ok let’s go and get our first fastpass on Primeval Whirl in Dinoland USA

 

Think we are in the right place by the looks of the Dinosaurs hanging around the place

 

Primeval Whirl like a wild mouse that spins around too!

 

We headed to Finding Nemo the Musical next

 

It was amazing with the singing and dancing, it said on the flyer ‘step inside for this adventure of spectacular music and stunning puppetry!  Nemo and his dad in the photo

 

Crush and Squirt the Sea Turtles.  The whole show was amazing and captivating with the puppets!

 

Oh boy that is the roller coaster we are going on later the Expedition Everest – Legend of the forbidden mountain, cool!

 

We went to Flights of Wonder show next.  An educational show with exotic birds

 

The final bird on show was the Bald Eagle the national emblem of USA

 

The finale all the birds coming out for applause

 

 Next stop was in Asia

 

Amy stopping to watch her favourite animal, monkeys!!

 

Ok let’s go and do it!!

 

Just checking where the Yeti is before we head onto the Expedition Everest roller coaster

 

We must be getting close now!

 

Here is our photo taken whilst we are on the Roller Coaster

 

Jungle Book meet and greet but Amy doesn’t want to go and see them, phew!

 

Another view of Tree of Life

 

Close up, wow so many carvings!

 

We stopped for a snack, Amy had a Turtle Brownie just a chocolate brownie and Colin and I had a must have in a Disney park ……….

 

Mickey Mouse ice cream, yummy!!  It was so hot that it had to be eaten quick as it was melting as we were standing eating it!!

 

Snack over it is now time for the Festival of the Lion King, looking forward to this show!

 

WOW there were puppets, acrobats, singers, people on stilts and characters! Amazing show!!

 

Close up of Simba when the show was over.  Simba in Swahili means lion, I didn’t know that!

 

 

We jumped onto the Wildlife Express Train to take us to Rafiki’s Planet Watch

 

 

The main reason for coming to Rafiki’s Planet was to see Rafiki and Chip N Dale!!  He’s that way!!

 

Rafiki met next it is Chip N Dale!  Amy’s autograph book is getting mighty full!

 

 

 

Oh here they are playing a game of pass the Acorn and then follow my leader to make the queue for meeting them!

 

Chip N Dale messing about with Amy

 

Eventually they settle down and pose for the camera ha ha!!

 

We jumped back on the Wildlife Express and who would be the attendant on the train but a person from Aberdeen!  On all the workers they have their names and where they are from on them!  When Mike was making an announcement on the train he sounded American and then when we started speaking to him his accent was strong, he was from Bridge of Don area.  Funny the people we are coming across on our Big Holiday Adventure!!

 

Our final fastpass of the day was on Kilimanjaro Safaris, the tour lasts for 20 minutes through the African Savannah

 

The views around the Savannah

 

Ewh part of our track through the Savannah

 

Hippos under the water

 

Lovely clear water

 

The vulture’s drying off in the sun!

 

Big area for the Hippo’s

 

Alligators

 

Loads of them, eek keep on driving Mr!!

 

Termite mound

 

One of the elephant's shaking her booty!!

 

We go on this rickity bridge and then the driver says oh dear I don’t think we will make it over the bridge and then the bridge starts rocking as if it is starting to fall down, hee hee!!

 

It was a bit tricky taking photos as we didn’t really stop the truck so it was aim and fire and hope for the best!!

 

 

 

 

Baby Flamingo’s they turn pink with their diet of shrimp, cute varying shades of pink going on around the water!

 

Ostrich looking for some food from the trucks!

 

Another safari troup coming behind us!

 

Cheetah’s chilling in the shade

 

Lion’s sleeping on the rocks.  Learning something today as didn’t realise Lions sleep 20 hours of the day and hunt at night! 

 

Ostrich eggs just lying around the park

 

These animals change colour with season they are white in the summer to keep cool and then they change to brown in the winter

 

These are the jeeps we have gone on our safari on

 

Mombasa Marketplace the safari and walking through this area reminds Colin and I of being on honeymoon to Kenya near Mombasa

 

 

Beautiful settings around the park

 

Time to have our last ride in the park Colin goes off and does Dinosaur and Amy and I go on the more sedate ride of TriceraTop Spin so our description says ‘Fly high on a friendly dinosaur above Dinoland’ Colin’s description for his ride is similar not sure why he went off on his own ha ha ‘Take off on a rip-roaring prehistoric tour in the dark to save a dinosaur from extinction’ oh yeah similar don't you think NOT!!!

 

 

Amy decided she would like to ride on her own so I got reprimanded to the back seat but I think I ended up with the controls to go up and down and Amy only had the tilting controls, not sure that is what she had planned!!

 

 

We were meeting Col at the Boneyard playground, Amy is gone!!

 

Play over as Amy’s face looks like it is away to explode as it is so hot and humid for running around in!  The car said it was 100 degrees F! 

 

Sweaty girl back on the tram to take us to our car!  Amy is so sweaty that there is only one place that will help cool her down and that is …….

 

In the pool!!!!

 

Oh oh she has gone hee hee!!!

 

But then rain, thunder and lightning stopped play L Amy normally dilly dally’s coming out of the pool but it is funny as soon as the thunder starts the pool is cleared in less than a minute and Amy is inside.  We sat and watched the storm whilst having tea tonight though!  So Alison our cruise buddy told us that storms are normal daily during the summer!  We have been lucky as we have only had maybe 4 in our two weeks stay and only a couple of times has it had an impact on our park visits, lucky really!

 

Storm is clearing now!  Time for pudding and then bed.  We are tired by the end of the day after each park but we make time in the evenings to research the park we are going to the next day so we are prepared hence why I am falling behind with the blog!  So Epcot tomorrow for our final day at the parks and our final day in Orlando!!!  Where has that 2 weeks gone???  It has been really nice having a house, washing machine and ofcourse our pool just to dive into after a hard day at the parks!!