Animal Kingdom

Our flight left DC at 10:00 AM and we arrived in Orlando at 12:30 PM.  Even though it was "low season", there was a big line to take the Disney Express for our resort. But they were very efficient and before we knew it, we were at Port Orleans.  We were the last ones to get our luggage off the bus,  and the line for check-in was long ( I recommend doing on-line check-in, there is a separate line designated for guests who have done that, and it is much, much quicker)! The good news is we were able to have access to our room an hour earlier than normal check-in and get settled in our room!  Then we made our way to the bus stop at the West Depot (which was less than a 5 minute walk away from our room) and caught a bus to Animal Kingdom!

The day we chose to go to Animal Kingdom was an extra magic hours night and it was open until 8 PM.  

There were four things on our agenda for the park but we didn't realize that the safari truck experience closed at 5 PM, so we had to give up one of our activities (the Nemo puppet show).  It may seem crazy that we would buy admission to the park for only a few hours in the park, but after you purchase four days of admission to Disney, you only pay an additional $12 (for the fifth day) and $10 (for the sixth day)!  Also, it is cheaper than paying for the option of park-hopping at $57 per person and we knew that we only wanted to spend half-a-day at Animal Kingdom. So, to us, it seemed like a bargain to get to experience Animal Kingdom, even if it was just for a little while on our first day! 

Animal Kingdom is a beautiful park.  The Tree of Life is especially fun to discover when you walk into the park!

Our first activity was Mickey's Jammin Jungle Parade! 

The parade includes elaborate animal puppets, spectacular stilt-walkers, rhythmic performers  and musical safari vehicles.

We had "great seats" right behind the rope, so the girls got hand-shakes and high-fives from several of the parade performers. We all loved the festive African music and dancing along with everyone! :-)

The "animals" were incredibly creative! 

And we loved seeing Minnie in her safari gear, along with....

giraffes, 

alligators...

and Goofy too! 

I loved the backside of Goofy's truck.  He is one messy camper.  His golf clubs were nearly falling out of his bag and his BBQ was still steaming from all the cooking he had done! 

And then we had our first glimpse of Mickey at Disney World, it was super special! 

After the parade, we did the safari experience.  Anna especially was very excited to be in a safari truck, just like the one she has at home for her Little People zoo. We saw some beautiful, active animals.  The hippos and the giraffes were a lot of fun to see up close.  But my absolute favorite was the lion who was standing on a cliff and walking back and forth.  He had the most magnificent mane.  In honor of our safari experience :-), we used one of our snack credits to buy a yummy chocolate lion cupcake!  (We did not have our camera for our safari, but we took video of our experience instead.)

Then we attended the #1 show in all of Disney World: The Festival of the Lion King! 

The show definitely lived up to all of its hype! The girls were especially impressed by the "monkeys" (men dressed up) who did acrobats flying from one tree branch to the next branch!  We also enjoyed the man who ate FIRE! The music was beautiful and was an extremely interactive show.  We loved it all. 

After the show, we made our way to dinner. On our way, I captured a close-up photo of Brad, Jillian, and Faith in front of the Tree of Life! 

We ate at one of the best quick fix dining places (according to reviews and I would have to agree) in all Disney World: The Flame Tree Barbeque. 

The girls were in love with the BBQ ribs and Brad and I ended up enjoying the pork and turkey sandwiches. It was a delicious, filling meal.

We also enjoyed our view of Mount Everest across the water. 

It was a nice, fun day, and little Anna was a little tuckered out by all the excitement! She fell asleep while we were on the bus home.

When we got "home" to the resort, we had a phone message awaiting us.

Each of the girls took turns listening to Mickey Mouse welcoming us to Disney World!

Anna got tucked into her pack and play with Minnie Mouse for bed-time.

Faith enjoyed the pull-out trundle bed with Miss Daisy for her bed! 

And then we plugged in our Mickey Mouse night-light before turning out all the lights and saying good-night to our first day at Disney!