Sometimes I think there are more giggles and laughs out of the kids when they're "trying to sleep" than there are at the parks. Outside of Uncle Shane yelling at all the kids to go to bed, everyone's pretty easy going about things. Just kidding, he doesn't yell. That much. It's his love language. Or so he says. :)
I know I mentioned a little bit about the heat the past couple of days, but today was crazy. Within 15 minutes of being there I was completely soaked. It looked like I went on a water ride but really it was all sweat. And it didn't help that the Animal Kingdom didn't have as many places to duck into to get cooled off either. By the time we got to our first ride Caleb was white as a ghost. I didn't think he was going to make it. I figured either he was going to pass out or puke, or both. The good thing about him though is when you tell he should have some water, no questions asked, he drinks some water. Between drinking water and then pouring some on him to cool him down, he recovered quite nicely and made it through the entire day, but it was close.
The one thing about the Animal Kingdom is that there aren't a ton of rides to go on, but the ones they have there are high quality. Ride #1 was Expedition Everest - Legend of the Forbidden Mountain. They did up the waiting room pretty good too, with a lot of info about the Yeti which the kids ate up. So, we got on this ride thinking it was going to be a replica of the Matterhorn in Disneyland. We were wrong. It took the best parts of the Matterhorn, threw in some Thunder Mountain and California Screaming and then added a couple extra twists (don't worry, I won't spill the beans if you haven't been on it) that made it a thriller. We got to the bottom with hands still in the air and lungs screaming for more ... the adrenaline was pumping. For the first time today we heard a resounding "THAT RIDE WAS AWESOME!" It wouldn't be the last.
We then made our way to Kilimanjaro Safaris where you take a ride on a safari vehicle through an African adventure. It was impressive and it was a decent length ride. Think of the Jungle Cruise. Triple the time, maybe more, put it on wheels, add real animals and keep the corny joke-telling driver and you have the Kilimanjaro Safaris. We saw lions, elephants, hippos, crocodiles, rhinos, giraffes, wildebeests, ostriches (Tawny's favourite) and a bunch more that I had strange names both difficult to spell and remember. Everyone loved it.
Next it was time for DinoLand, USA. They have a carnival type setting for DinoLand with a bunch of games, a few rides and big playground with a bunch of fossils in it for ambiance. All that and we started with a Nemo Musical. It was quite good. The actors danced around with their character held above them attached to a pole and they acted out the movie in just over half an hour. The best part about this was that we got to sit in some a/c for a good chunk of time. When we came out of the theatre it was raining. Not too bad, something like a mid-November sprinkle, except for it was 100 degrees out. It was quite funny, almost pathetic really, to see people scramble to get undercover, or grab an umbrella or poncho to keep themselves dry. Meanwhile we were jumping in the puddles, soaking up the rain cause we had a date with the Dinosaur.
We had Fast Passes (DisneyWorld really rewards the Fast Pass line much more than Disneyland does) which got us into Dinosaur in less than 10 minutes. The ride is very similar to the Indiana Jones ride in Disneyland, and it switches out the IJ story line with one from the movie The Dinosaur. As soon as Josh saw it, he said to me "I gotta a feeling this is gonna be my favourite ride Dad". And it didn't disappoint. When Josh was barely 3 he could tell you the name of pretty much every dinosaur and he even nicknamed his cousin Connor "Aladar" after the main character of the movie The Dinosaur.
***Spoiler alert*** To tell this story properly, I have to divulge a bit of the ride to you. Right near the end (this is the place in IJ where the rock starts rolling towards you and you go down under it) a carnatour jumps out at you and I mean jumps out. It was pretty startling. In fact have a look at the picture it snapped.
When we got out we ran into Cara Lee and Becky and they had some bad news. While they were in DinoLand somebody swiped David's bag and in it were his Ipad2, wallet, keys to the rental car and some cash. Talk about a downer. It was extremely frustrating, but I'm proud to say that he handled himself very well. Under the category of not having anything nice to say ... whomever took his bag, will get what's coming to them, maybe even a little Patty Cake right Shane? (sorry inside joke, ask Uncle Shane the new patty cake game he taught his nieces and nephews)
We then made our way to the Festival of the Lion King which was a live show with music, dancing, some trampoline work, and a bunch of the characters from the movie. The kids loved it and really got into it. DavidJ asked if that was like the Cirque Shows we see in Vegas. I figure it was probably the guys who got cut from Cirque, but they still did a pretty good job of bouncing around the stage. There was even a fire licker. Maybe he was supposed to be a fire eater, but it looked more like licking to me. He twirled his baton, balanced it on his feet and then started to lick it. It drew some ooh's and aah's and a few what's? And yes I still have the songs playing in my head ... Hakuna Matata and I Just Can't Wait to be King. Wait a minute, they'll start playing for you too.
After Lion King, it was time for Kali River Rapids. Emily was soooooo excited to go on this. She's not a big ride fan, but she found her sweet spot with this ride. She proudly marched us to the ride which was closed due to lightning. We waited around for a bit, hoping it would reopen but when it didn't look like that was going to happen, we started packing up to leave and just like that, the ride was open. The tagline for the ride is "You will get wet, you may get soaked." We've often talked about the water rides and the key to ensuring dryness or less wetness is the dry seat. Wherever the dry seat is from the ride before, avoid it at all costs, as that's the one which is going to attract the most water. Well, Abby shared this with Emily and they sought out the two driest seats they could and you know what? They definitely won. If they had a dry spot on their body by the time we were done, I'd be surprised. The rest of the crew got it good too, but the girls definitely won. The funny thing is that there were 9 of us on the boat, with 2 guys we didn't know. The 2 guys, barely got wet, while the 9 of us were completely soaked. And yes, there was a resounding "THAT RIDE WAS AWESOME!"
Still dripping we made it to Everest for one last climb of the mountain and one more "THAT RIDE WAS AWESOME!" before heading home. Once again, Everest didn't disappoint.
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