Animal Kingdom!

Tuesday, February 24:

Animal Kingdom!

This morning, we headed off to Animal Kingdom. We left the house at 8:30 a.m. for a 9:00 a.m. opening. Got parked, headed to the front, got through the gates prior to rope-drop. We sent Jeff to Expedition Everest to get fastpasses. The rest of us headed to the Kilimanjaro Safaris and waited for Jeff. He met up with us and we only waited about 15 minutes in line. Fortunately, Jacob really enjoyed the Safari. We saw a good number of animals and took lots of pictures. Our fastpasses for Expedition Everest were for 9:50 to 10:50 a.m. and we walked straight on after the Safari. Jeff and I rode first while John and Kat waited with Jacob. Expedition Everest is one of the most awesome rides in Disney. I love Soarin’ and Tower of Terror too. Those are my top three. I’m not sure what order I’d put those three though! Anyway, John & Kat went next and Jeff got a pretty good picture of them coming down the big drop. John’s face is priceless! Several years ago, we went with John & Kat and we bought the picture for Tower of Terror and John has the most terrified look on his face. Hilarious!

After our Expedition Everest adventure, we headed off to Dinoland. Jacob rode Triceratops Spin once with me and once with Jeff. He LOVED it! He is at such a great age for Disney! We are so enjoying ourselves. It’s like its our first REAL vacation with him because he is so much more matured now. Then, we waited in line for Goofy and Pluto. Even while we were waiting in line, he enjoyed just watching them and was laughing! Jacob loves the characters. Just loves them. He hugs them and gives them high - fives. We got great pictures with them.

After Goofy & Pluto, we headed off to lunch at Flametree BBQ. Jeff and I split a Beef BBQ sandwich with baked beans and onion rings. Jacob had a hot dog with grapes and carrots. Kat had Beef BBQ too, and John had the slab of ribs. The food was actually pretty good and we all enjoyed it. The ducks come right up to you and want to eat, but you can’t feed them! They have paper straws too, that go sort of mushy after a while.

We headed off to It’s Tough to Be a Bug (the 3D movie) after lunch. Jacob was a little inpatient in line, but hung in there. When we got into the theater, he seemed okay during the movie, but half the way through, he wanted to take off his glasses. It’d been a while since we’ve seen it, but it’s actually pretty darn scary. I was really regretting taking him to the movie pretty soon into it. He seemed okay the whole time. Didn’t cry. Only flinched once. But when we left, he said over and over again, “That was too scary. That was too scary.” Poor guy!

We took him to Camp Minnie Mickey next. We saw Mickey, Minnie and Donald Duck. He loved loved loved them! It’s such joy seeing him with the characters! We left the park after that. He fell asleep in the car, and went down for nap at the house when we got home.

This afternoon, we spent some time hanging out at the house. Jeff & Jacob went swimming, but the pool, even though it’s heated, it is still pretty cool. We are used to gas pool heat, as that’s what my dad has and that’s what we had last year in our Disney house, but this one has electric heat and it only gets about 15 degrees warmer than the ambient air.

Tonight, I made my Beefy Bean Enchiladas for dinner. It’s nice having a house and not going out to eat. We’ll enjoy a few cocktails and maybe play some games or cards tonight.

Tomorrow we are off to Epcot (again), but with Jacob this time. And tomorrow night, we are going to Ohana for dinner! YUM.