Disney 2013, Day Seven

Today we did the only park we hadn't been to yet, Disney's Animal Kingdom. Just a quick note here: There's not a whole lot of material to make jokes about at Animal Kingdom; it's more of a take a trillion pictures kind of park, so this report might be a little dry. (When I put it up on the blog it'll be spiced up with a trillion blurry pictures with captions like "I think this is a monkey" and "Is this a lemur?")

When we arrived we went straight to the Rainforest Cafe. Katie got the chicken stir fry again. I got the South China Salad, which was quite good. If you're curious, "South China Island Dressing" is sesame ranch. "Are you going to put this in your trip report?" Katie asked, pointing her fork at me accusingly. "Put what in?" I asked innocently. "That you're getting something exciting and I'm getting the same thing I already had." "No," I lied cunningly. 

Then we had desert which was the same mango sorbet from Day 1; It was good. Then we hit the Rainforest Cafe gift shop, and we got new mugs. You may have seen me carrying around my 32oz Rainforest Cafe mug; it served faithfully for four years, but the outer shell broke and the top fell into the sink while it was full of gross scummy water and the mug was finally retired with honor (tossed into the garbage), so I'm very excited about getting a replacement. Hey, you just read a paragraph about me buying a plastic mug; this is going great!
2015 update: Both Rainforest Cafe mugs died within weeks of our return, with the second one taking a very dramatic plunge down the stairs =[

Also, there's this huge fish tank you walk under.

Then we went on

DINOSAUR 

Yes, the official name of this ride is DINOSAUR. This is very based on an obscure movie from the year 2000. I'd been on this ride before, but it wasn't until this time that I figured out that you're actually saving the hero of the movie DINOSAUR by bringing him into the future so that he doesn't die with the rest of the DINOSAURs. Huh.

Anyway, the ride itself is that you're in a time machine in the dark that skids all over the place. They do that thing where they take a picture of you at the scariest moment of the ride, and Katie decided that the expression on my face was "concern". Unfortunately, we were then eaten by dinosaurs.

We had some time to kill after DINOSAUR (getting digested takes a long time), so we wandered on over to Finding Nemo - the Musical! This is a 40 minute stage show that recreates the entire plot of Finding Nemo, except everyone is an actor holding up an expressive puppet. It's cute. Also, being able to sit down in the dark for 40 minutes was nice. And at the end when Nemo was found (spoiler alert!) like a billion bubbles came down from the ceiling. 

Prisoner 24601 - your sentence is over and being a flamingo has begun!
I don't know what I'm saying.

Kiliminjaro Safari

This is the signature attraction of the Animal Kingdom: A 20-something minute tour of the nature preserve. Last time we went, there was some guff about poachers where the tour guide pretends to help out a African guy named Wilson who's trying to save a baby elephant, but this has been cut in favor of just showing more animals. I think this is a wise move; seeing all the animals is awesome, and you don't really need that extra goofery.

And did we see all kinds of stuff and take about a billion pictures? We saw all kinds of stuff and took about a billion pictures. At one point we had to stop because a rhino was wandering across the road. Also, while we were waiting in line there were two cute little girls kicking each other. The end. Or is it? Cue pix (click to enlarge):

Either an alligator or a crocodile

Giraffe hiding behind a tree. 

Pretty sure these are animals of some kind?

Zebras/SJWs

This gorilla really didn't want his picture taken.

*SIGH*

Rhinos love standing in front of the ride vehicle.

But not exfoliating.

Pangai Forest Exploration Trail

The Safari lets out next to a trail you can walk if you want to see even more animals. We saw a meercat and a bunch of gorillas who were not terribly pleased to have a ton of pictures taken of them and also one of them smelled bad as a defense mechanism. We also saw a hippo who was sleeping underwater with just a little bit of its hump sticking out of the water that three birds were relaxing on. Also Katie's Charmander evolved into a Charmeleon and wasn't cute anymore so she gave it to me but I didn't use it because I already had a Fennekin.

Next we wanted to go on the Maharajah Jungle Trek, which is just like the walk we had taken, but it's in Asia and has tigers and birds. We ran smack into a parade, though, and ended up as the tail end, walking about fifteen feet behind the float Mickey Mouse was blowing kisses from. This part was a little weird.

The Maharajah Jungle Trek itself didn't have as many interesting animals (although we did see a very bored tiger), but the atmosphere was nicer; whereas the Pangai Forest is just wood huts, the Maharajah is done up like a abandoned Southern Asian temple. Also, it had some cute bats. LOOK AT THAT DUMB LITTLE BAT FACE. WHO'S A DUMB SLEEPY BAT? WHO IS??

Look at these cute chumps!

This tiger is in jail for contempt of court. Thanks, Obama.

Yak & Yeti

The last thing we did was eat dinner as the park closed 15 minutes after we finished. We went to a new place called Yak & Yeti where I got the sweet and sour chicken, which was great (not very sour, but I'm not complaining). Katie got vegetable lo mein with her buddy tofu. "Are you going to put this in your trip report?" she asked, pointing her chopsticks at me accusingly. "Put what in?" I innocently asked. "That you're getting something exciting and I'm getting something I eat every week."  "No," I cunningly lied. 

Then we had desert which was a trio of sorbets for me (orange with red sauce, one that tasted like frozen lemonade, and raspberry, and apparently I like raspberry sorbet) while Katie got some crazy skewer of pineapple and fried wontons with cream cheese inside.

And that's it for Animal Kingdom. Tomorrow is Mickey's Christmas Party at the Magic Kingdom. Oooooooooooooooooo!!!!