Sunday, July 13, 2008

Walt Disney World - Day 2 - May 21 - Chef Mickey's, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios

We began our first full day at Disney World with breakfast with Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald, and Pluto at Chef Mickey's in the Contemporary Resort. The Contemporary Resort, which I don't think looks like much from the outside, is absolutely gorgeous on the inside! I hope to stay there someday if we ever win the lottery. (Although really I would love to stay in each and every one of the hotels eventually.)

The breakfast was such a great way to start our day! The food was of course fantastic. They has these really yummy Mickey-shaped Belgian waffles! We looked for mickey waffle makers all over the park, but sadly we never found one. Each of the characters stopped by our table for a photo op. Yeah, so maybe we were the only people there without kids, but we had a great time acting like big kids!









After breakfast we headed to Animal Kingdom. As we walked in, we wandered though the Oasis and saw the Tree of Life.








Next we went to the Africa section.We got fast passes for the Kilimanjaro Safari and went for a walk through the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail. Here we saw many different animals, including the okapi, naked mole rats and gorillas. We learned that if you ever meet a gorilla in the wilderness, it would not be a good idea to pound your chest unless you would like to be permanently maimed.






Next we rode Kilimanjaro Safari, which was one of my favorite rides at Disney World! We saw giraffes, elephants and lions. It was really amazing how close we were to these wild animals!









After the safari, we trekked to Camp Minne Mickey to see the show the Festival of the Lion King. It was one of Dustin's favorite things we did all week! The show was great, and my favorite part were the acrobatic monkeys!

Next we went to explore the Asia part of the park. We got fast passes for Expedition Everest and went to see the Maharajah Jungle Trek. Here we saw a variety of animals including giant fruit bats and tigers.







Finally it was time to ride Expedition Everest! Wow! This ride is so amazingly fun! Definitely my favorite ride of the week! We liked it so much that we got in the single-rider line so we could ride it again right away! After that we went and rode Kali River Rapids. We all got soaked, of course, but Karen really got the worst of it! I wish I had gotten a picture of it!

Next we headed to Dinoland. It is set up to look like a carnival with dinosaur-themed rides. We rode the Primeval Whirl, which is like an old carnival ride, and Dinosaur which is a ride in which you are on a mission to travel back in time and bring back a dinosaur.

The last part of our time at Animal Kingdom was spent seeing Finding Nemo: The Musical. This musical is awesome! It is a combination of people and puppets that is colorful and beautiful to watch.

After we left Animal Kingdom, we took a bus to the gorgeous Boardwalk resort. The guys wanted to have dinner at the ESPN Game Zone. It was pretty neat, the guys loved all the TVs playing sports everywhere, even in the bathroom! The food was average and I thought overpriced, but I realize you are paying for the atmosphere.



We walked down the boardwalk and boarded a bus that would take us to Hollywood Studios. We planned to see Fantasmic, but we had a little time to do a few other things first. We rode Star Tours and then went to ride the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. We all had a blast! Dustin was hilarious! We all just kept hearing a very high-pitched voice saying "Oh my Lord! Oh my Lord!" When we got off the ride and saw the picture they had taken at the top, Katie and I were looking at each other screaming. It was so funny and I can't believe we didn't buy it.






Finally we went to see Fantasmic. We were all super tired by this time and in general people were just getting on our nerves. But when the show started I think we all enjoyed it. To be honest, I thought it was a little strange, and not exactly what I expected. I thought it was mostly a fireworks show, but there were hardly any fireworks at all. I think the show would be scary for kids, there were a few times I jumped myself. But overall it was entertaining. When Fantasmic was over, we were all completely exhausted. We headed back to our hotel to get rested for what would be another busy day on Thursday!

1 comment:

Joanna said...

wow, those animal photos are really good :)