That was one expensive holiday!: Day 11 – Animal Kingdom

[wickesy]

We were up at 8:00, out of the room by 8:40 and ten minutes later we were parked up in Unicorn 25. We jumped on the tram to the main entrance and although there were long queues at the turnstiles we were soon inside the park.

First stop was Kilimanjaro Safaris, which was about a ten minute wait and the loader seemed to be having an off day as people from behind us in the queue were boarding a truck while we were left waiting for the next one. We saw quite a few animals and at one point there were six trucks queued up going nowhere because a couple of Ankole cattle had decided to stop in the middle of the road. We were on our way again after a couple of minutes and once again helped to save Little Red – I thought I had read somewhere that Disney had dropped that storyline?






After our safari we wandered through Pangani Forest Exploration trail before browsing the shops and picking up a couple of Animal Kingdom 10th Anniversary pins on our way to Theatre In The Wild for Finding Nemo The Musical. We were more or less at the front of the queue as we had arrived at 10:40 for the 11:30 show.

The Finding Nemo show was quite enjoyable but I’m not sure it is something I would hurry to see again as I did find the puppets/puppeteer thing a bit of a mish-mash.

After Nemo it was well past our usual lunchtime so we made our way back to Flaming Tree Barbecue where I had a mixed green salad with barbecue chicken and Dad had a pork sandwich and we had a coke each. Suitably refreshed we made our way round to Asia for the 1:00 Flights of Wonder show, which I really enjoy, especially with the birds flying right out over the audience.

After the show we had another look round the shops where I bought a 10th anniversary shot glass and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit DVD set before leaving the parks and returning to the Lodge for a couple of hours break before our evening at EPCOT for Illuminations.

We left the room again at 4:30 and before long we were parked up in Create 51 where a tram was waiting for us once again. We made our way through the turnstiles and were in Canada by around 5:10. We sat by the Off Kilter stage for a few minutes and then went to check in for our 5:40 reservation at Le Cellier. We were seated just after 5:40 and met our server for the evening, Sara from Halifax, Nova Scotia. We both had the Cheddar Cheese soup to start, which was delicious as usual, with the Mushroom Filet Mignon to follow and sorbet and coffee for dessert.

Although we were completely stuffed we managed to haul ourselves out of our seats and walked out of the restaurant just as the 6:30 Off Kilter show was starting. We stood and watched for a few minutes before walking round towards Canada. I noticed that the peninsula between United Kingdom and France was not roped off so we grabbed a spot on the first level down even though it wasn’t 7:00 yet.



We sat on the wall watching the world go by and when it started to get busy at around 8:00 we moved forward to sit on the floor by the railings. Illuminations started just after 9:00 and I think of all the evening shows at Walt Disney World this is my favourite. Once the show ended we sat where we were for 10 minutes to let the worst of the crowds get ahead of us and then had a stroll back to the entrance.





Again there was a tram ready and waiting and we were back in the room by 10:15 where I finished typing up today’s trip report and we went to bed with no plans for tomorrow.

Tomorrow: Day 12 - Rest Day

[Isafari]

There was no Little Red mentioned when we last did the safari at AK back in January....maybe he is back by popular demand!!

Loving your photos too

[nannav]

we really enjoyed ak we even used the rainforest cafe entrance to save time we loved the nemo stage show and little red was rescued by us too the birds of flight show was a hit for us too::