Our second day at Disney began with getting to Animal Kingdom right as it opened so we could run to the Kilimanjaro Safari in the Africa section. We'd heard it was awesome and that there were some major lines for this attraction so we were determined to beat the crowd.
Let me also say that I thought this park would be one we visited several times during our stay because we are some animal lovers. That was not the case, though, because this park is stinkin' hot, y'all!! It's built to be very authentic so there's 30-40 foot bamboo all around you, which means NO breeze AT ALL, and the animals are so hot that they don't move around much...
Ok, back to the task at hand...we were one of the first people to the safari and it was awesome...
After the ride was over, we walked through the adjacent forest and saw some additional animals...
Then we decided to cool off with the Kali River Rapids. The line was actually only 20 minutes long but, after we'd been in line for about 5 minutes, it broke and had to be shut down for a bit...unfortunately, we didn't make it back...So we headed to Expedition Everest, which was a fabulous roller coaster. Tay spent all of her time in line trying to decide whether she was going to ride it or not. She changed her mind about every 30-45 seconds but eventually decided she'd risk it...and she absolutely loved it! :-)
One really fun thing about this park is that you really felt as though you were visiting Africa and Asia. The storefronts were very authentic and there were street performers throughout. It was absolutely amazing...and amazingly hot as well...
Then we stopped in front of the Tree of Life for a couple of photos. I think you can tell by our faces how miserably hot we were. Our moods were heading downhill quickly at this point...
But we had lunch reservations (thank you, God, for giving me the good sense not to make dinner reservations in this park) at Yak & Yeti so that was our next stop. We were a bit early but they weren't very busy so we didn't have to wait at all. This is actually not a Disney restaurant as it's owned by Landry's...which you know means it was fabulous.
Tay thought it was amusing that they only had paper straws (for the animals' safety), Dave thought they were soggy and refused to use them and I was just happy to finally find Sweet 'n Low at Disney...this was the only time in seven - count them, seven - days that I was able to have my sweet pink nectar from above...
Anyway, lunch was awesome!! Dave had steak and tempura battered shrimp with rice and stir fried veggies. Tay had chicken nuggets and fries with fruit and I had tilapia covered with Japanese bread crumbs with rice and stir fried veggies. (Did I mention this restaurant is in the Asia section?) We should have taken a picture but we didn't...sorry...
Then came dessert - oh my sweet heavens...it was amazing. Tay had an ice cream sundae, Dave had assorted sorbet (yes, my bullriding hubby had sorbet) and I had fried cream cheese wontons served with vanilla ice cream and all drizzled with vanilla sauce. It was heaven.
This was at the entrance to the restroom...
At this point, we headed over to Dinoland U.S.A. but it was packed. The line for the Dinosaur was really long and I had heard it was super scary so we thought it probably wasn't best to test Tay twice in one day. We were hot, cranky and the long road trip was catching up with us so we left. And never could make ourselves go back because of the heat...maybe next time we'll go in February...
Once we got back to the hotel, Dave took a nap while Tay and I went to the pool. It was awesome to spend that one-on-one time with the little one. We went to the pool a lot during our week...pics of that to come later...
We headed over to Epcot after everyone got dressed again and rode Spaceship Earth (pics below) and Mission: SPACE (which was absolutely awesome...Tay got scared again but ended up loving it...it's a pretty intense spaceship simulator and you pull some serious G's)...
We walked around a bit after those two rides but then the heat (the first two days we were under a heat advisory) and the lack of a nap caught up with Tay and me. To say we were cranky would be putting it lightly so we had burgers at Electric Umbrella and them headed back to the hotel for some zzz's. You may be happy to know the third day (Tuesday) was much better albeit after a rocky start...
Next up: Chef Mickey's and Magic Kingdom, take two
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