2013 Orlando - Disney's Animal Kingdom

Animal Kingdom was probably my least favorite area of Disney.  It definitely seemed aimed at younger kids.  And it didn't help that it poured for quite a while in the middle of our visit.  My niece and nephew really enjoyed the Everest roller coaster, and the woman next to me on the ride screamed like a mad woman, so it really was toned down.  Eryn perused the ride list looking for anything marked "over x inches" so she could be assured of non-kid rides.  She did enjoy Everest, however and went through the single rider line several times.

I watched a Netflix video about behind the scenes at the park when I got home in order to see what the attraction was that I didn't understand.  It's an amazingly large park when you watch the video, rather than miss half of it due to rain.

Eryn and Mom posing at the tree of life.  We went to A Bug's Life near the end of the day and didn't even realize it was sort of built into the base of the tree.  I'll admit, that was neat, both as a ride/presentation and realizing it was built into the tree (I learned that from the Netflix video).


From the dinosaur area.  Animal Kingdom did have the best food deals out of any of the parks.  Our food was much more edible than elsewhere and came with an endless supply of soda while we sat in the cafeteria.  Definitely a change from all the other parks and a refreshing perk on a very hot and humid day.  Eryn and I went on the single car roller coaster near here that purports to take you back in time to see the dinosaurs (it's a time machine) in a silly way.  As we rolled up the first hill, there's a spinning disk that indicates you're time traveling. The kid in the car with us yelled Hypnotoad! Hypnotoad!  Which would have been funny if he hadn't been non-stop talk for the prior three minutes.  When no one responded he kept yelling Hypnotoad! until he gave up and said, "I'm sure I'm the only one who understands that reference."  Poor dork.  Denied on the roller coaster.  He's like a modern geek Jesus back from the dead.  Before you feel too bad for him, he talked non-stop the entire ride.  He was even annoying Eryn, and her geek tolerance is amazingly high.


The safari ride was open, thankfully, so we got to see all the animals separated by the hidden barriers so they look like they're co-mingling.  I have a limited selection of pictures because while Eryn was in charge and took many photos, there was a family on the ride with us who kept sticking their fingers in all her pictures while pointing at the animals.  More annoying than the pointing was that every time they saw a new animal the dad would say, "Oh, , snap!"  It was funny.  Then annoying.  Then funny.  Then hilarious when we rode through a puddle near the end and he exclaimed, "Oh, water, snap!"  I told my brother in law the story later and he realized they'd met the exact same people during the downpour.  It was the wife in that family who also announced at the start of the ride, when we saw the Okapi, "Look at the cock-ee, look at the cock-pee!"  Probably close enough.

Eryn's picture of a rhino butt.


A giraffe attempting to hide.


Elephants doing something elephant-y.


At the end of the day, trying to stretch everything out because our shuttle wasn't due until 2 hours after the park closed, we went to the Lion King acrobat, circque-de-soleil (I don't care to look up the spelling; hope I'm close), circus, Heart-of-the-Beast type thing.  It reminded me I hate those things on so many levels, including because it's Lion King.  That may be right up there for me comparable to Ming's dislike of Avatar.  Quite a coincidence given the big tree featured at the park and in the movie (Avatar).  Maybe we have a mutual dislike of anything revolving around enormous trees.  It was impressively choreographed, but I was brutally bored.  Give me Our Town over pageantry when it comes to plays any day.  But as I've ended several of these posts, Eryn loved it, and that made me happy.

Orlando - Magic Kingdom

Magic Kingdom.  We spent most of our time at Tomorrowland as Eryn enjoyed Space Mountain and the cars, but we managed to check out the other areas as well, including the Haunted Mansion and the animatronic presidents and the roller coaster out in Adventureland.  I remember enjoying Disneyland as a kid, but that was It's a Small World (which shocked Eryn a bit) and Peter Pan and the endless cartoons theater.  Eryn was scoping the list of rides to see which had a height requirement so she could be assured they were interesting.  It was HOT.  We had to take a number of stops just to hide in the shade.

Me pretending to be Perry the Platypus. Grrllllrrrlrlrlrlrlrlr....


Eryn at Tomorrowland on the car ride.


This picture gives you an idea of whether she was enjoying it.  For me it was a relaxing series of rides where I didn't have to do anything for three minutes except for when she was banging off the metal ridge that kept the car on the track.  There was no sleeping through that.


In case you want a POV of the full three minutes, here you go.  It comes with commentary although I'm pretty sure it's safe for work.  My wife is up on the peoplemover somewhere.



On the backside of the park, when it was getting hot, we checked out Tom Sawyer's Island.  It reminded me of the restaurant in Colorado with the tunnels in it and the diving.  My wife appreciated it as a nice place to hang out near the water while Eryn and I went to stand in the 40 minute line for the roller coaster.


The standard picture in front of the castle and Disney and Mickey, wearing a Daleks shirt.  I think you could get a pretty amusing stop motion/time lapse movie if you sat here for a few hours.  The people were most interesting than anything else.


Aww....when I took this I found myself wondering if a lot of people rub her nose for some reason.  Good luck maybe?  Or perhaps just because kids like to touch in which case I wouldn't get any closer without a handwipe.


We finished the day with the electrical parade.  It was a bit of a trick finding a good spot close to the exit so we could make sure we wouldn't miss our shuttle which was two monorail rides away.  We did a great job of getting there in time only to be faced with a shuttle that hadn't counted outgoing rides appropriately.  We ended up waiting for a secondary taxi whose driver lectured us about getting the return slip from the first driver despite having asked for said slip only to be assured we didn't need it because they had called in the extra car.  Good system.  Maybe you automate a few things for communication purposes.


We ended up on these steps.  Early on a woman stepped in front of Eryn and I had to shoo her out of the way.  Then another woman stepped in front of the little boy in front of me who had been in the second family on the steps after us.  His father asked her to move and she didn't replying, "I did not mean to be."  As in "I did not mean to be in his way."  SO FREAKING MOVE.  Dad looked a bit disappointed, so I did the big no-no if you don't want to end up being in a headline, "Stabbed in Disneyworld", put a hand on her shoulder, pushed gently and got more firm as she refused to move and told her, "You can't be in the way of the kid and he was here first."  She looked indignant, tried to hold her ground, and told me, "I did not mean to."  I replied, "That doesn't matter, you can't stay in his way" and just kept the hand on her shoulder until she slid over.  I think perhaps she was non-English speaking and someone may have taught her "I didn't mean to" was a polite way to say "I don't speak English" and make everything go away, but it doesn't excuse looking at the kid and deciding to stay in his way so you can film the parade.

That's  my crowds story.  I dislike crowds and I dislike shopping, so the whole amusement park thing can wear a little thin by the end of a long day.  But I like seeing Eryn having so much fun. Here's Pete's Dragon which I thought was one of the cooler floats in the parade.


The live version because you can't appreciate it without playing the music over and over:


And another live version:


The castle at night from near Tomorrowland.  We rode the carousel at Tomorrowland which shows you the history of tech and the future from the perspective of one family.  It must have been cool back in its day.  To me, it really pointed out how fast tech is moving, because they could capture snapshots of generational tech in the past and now it changes so fast you can't pinpoint it for even a year.  The current day display seemed to be the one most out of date.


Eryn in front of the castle with a big smile.