June 2- Flying, Checking in, and Animal Kingdom

My alarm went off at 4:00 AM on Monday. Nick and I got ready and got the kids around. We stayed with my sister the night before so we were a little closer to the airport. As the good sister and auntie she is, she had breakfast for us- the kids' favorite cereals and some strawberries.

Look at Nick's and Norah's scowls. Tired?

That's better! We are going to Disney World after all!

Allyssa drove us to the airport and we got there at about 5:30 for our flight. The line for security was insane. It didn't seem very Des Moines like! When we finally got through security we found our gate (super easy in Des Moines!) and the kids watched the planes. They loved it. I think they may have been happy if that was our whole vacation. I grabbed a milk for the kids to share and some soda for Nick and myself. I needed a little caffeine to get me going even with the Disney anticipation. Our fight ended up taking off at 7:15 and we flew to Minnesota.

Making a decision on what flights to do was the first stressor when we decided to head to WDW this summer. I waited too long to book the direct flight into the less busy Orlando airport, so it was no longer much cheaper. The dilemma was to take the direct flight but pay for car rental and drag car seats or have a layover and use Disney transportation. We decided to do the layover and it was okay. I think either way would have been fine but it was nice to not drag car seats in the airport. On the other hand, there were times when I wish we had a car. Anyway, our layover was about 2 hours, but it took forever to get from our arrival gate to our departing gate. We got there, had a bit to eat, and then it was time to board.

The kids were really quite good on this flight, too, but Wes was getting impatient the last 20 or so minutes of the flight. I told him he could nap, but that didn't appeal to him. When we got to Orlando at 2:40, we went to the Disney Magical Express area. We didn't have to pick up our luggage, which was another nice thing about flying to MCO, Disney brought it to our room later that day! We were some of the last to get on the bus, so it left right away. I sat in one row with Wes and Nick and Norah sat behind us since the bus was pretty full.

Look how happy Wes is!

There was a video about Disney World while we drove to the resorts, which the kids liked. When we drove under the welcome sign, the girl in front of us screamed in glee. It was so cute, and it made Wes get even more excited! We dropped off about half the bus at Art of Animation, which is the brand new resort right next to the one we stayed at. It looked really neat, and I would love to stay there, but the suites were definitely more expensive than our room. We looked at staying in their regular rooms, which looked cute and were Little Mermaid themed, but then I couldn't use the discount we had. We stayed at Pop Century, which is themed by decades from the second half of the 1900's. We were in the 1960's area.

It was about 5 minutes and we arrived at Pop Century. Wes and I checked in (I had done most of this online), and Nick and Norah went to pick up the stroller we rented. Even though Wes hasn't ridden in a stroller in months, we knew we wanted a nice double stroller to use at the parks. It was nice that they dropped it off at the hotel before we got there and then we left it there for them before we checked out.  We also picked up our refillable drink mugs that were included with the dining plan.

We had this towel Mickey waiting for us!

We went to our room, packed a smaller backpack for the parks and we were off to Animal Kingdom. There was a bus waiting for us, and we were the only ones on it! Everything went so smoothly with our arrival, which was great since we were only going to have a few hours at Animal Kingdom. We arrived at Animal Kingdom just after 4:30.

We had to get a picture taken in front of the tree of life, of course.

We tried to be very efficient with our path and not backtrack since the park was closing at 8 and we wanted to see as much as possible.

We started by going to meet Daisy. The kids love Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and I knew we would see the other main characters at a meal later in the trip, but we needed to see her here or wait in line longer somewhere else. We had a hard time finding her, but I knew she was there from reading about her on http://www.characterlocator.com. I found a cast member and asked, and it turns out we were super close, but the entrance was not marked well at all. That turned out to be a good thing because there was no line at all. We whipped out the kids' Daisy pages for their autograph books, and Wes went in to see her. He loved her. He was a very intimidated by Cy and such until very recently, but he was brave and afterwards he started chattering away about Daisy being so nice. Norah was not impressed and quite scared. We didn't want to push her, so we let her look from afar.

We had a fast pass to see Minnie and Mickey in their safari gear starting at 5, so we headed that way. On the way, we saw some Jungle Book characters (Baloo and Louie?- I don't know, I only saw Jungle Book like once), but they were going on break. Nick was bummed. We saw Doug and Russell from Up, but there was a long line and it had been a while since Wes watched that movie, so we kept walking to Minnie and Mickey.

The waiting area for Mickey and Minnie was neat. They had pics of safari Mickey and Minnie with the animals.



Norah loves Minnie. Loves her. Takes her stuffed Minnie everywhere. When we went inside the room with Mickey and Minnie, she started pointing and saying, "Minnie Mouse! Minnie Mouse!" and smiling. She was intimated when we got closer but did cooperate, sort of, for a pic as long as Nick was holding her.

As you can see, Wes loved Minnie, too. That pic of them getting ready to hug is SO sweet!

The kids were hungry at this point.  We wanted to catch a train ride as it was closing considerably earlier that the rest of the park, so Nick stopped and grabbed us a could of Dole Whips while I parked the stroller. Dole Whips are a little bit legendary from what I have read as I planned this trip, and they lived up to the hype!

Yum!

It's essentially pineapple flavored ice cream. Norah loved it, Wes ate only two bites and then was too distracted by being on the train to care. We just rode the train full circle and got off where we got in. On the train ride we did see some rhinos and a few other animals, but mostly it was nice to enjoy the scenery while we had our snack. Of course, Wes loves trains, so he was elated!

Then, we headed to Kilimanjaro Safari. We had a fast pass but it wasn't needed. I had heard Animal Kingdom cleared out pretty well in the afternoons, and it certainly had by 5:30 or 6! We rode the safari, and we all loved it!

Wesley loves giraffes and seeing them on the safari was his favorite part. They were out on the driving paths and most of the safari trucks had to stop for them to pass. One walked right by our truck on the side with Nick and Norah. It was really neat. I just snapped and snapped pics as we rode!

Norah loved the elephants. She called them (and mostly every other animal we saw) cows as we drove, but she cried when the elephants went out of sight. Neither Wes nor Norah had seen elephants before since they haven't been at the Omaha Zoo for quite a while.

I enjoyed seeing the elephants and giraffes as well. There were lots of other animals to see. We saw lions, flamingos, hippos, and zebras as well. This hippo had his mouth wide open for us and then swam off. Disney has done such an awesome job of making this seem like how I imagine a safari would be. I never saw one fence or anything like that while we were on the safari, but, of course, they had to be there. Can't let the lions and zebras hang out together with a bunch of families riding by! I think the Safari was Norah's favorite thing in all of Disney World, besides maybe seeing Minnie later in the trip. I would have loved to ride the safari again, but we had other plans to get to! Another reason I wish we had more time there!

After the safari, we moved the stroller to The Festival of the Lion King. This show had been closed since winter and wasn't going to open again until July. Two days before we left, I read that it was opening on June 1, so I immediately changed out plans for AK to make sure we saw this show! We were going to see Nemo, but FOTLK seems to be the preferred show and we only had time for one, so this was it. My cousin, Olivia, lives in Florida and had told me this was the best live show she had ever seen at an amusement park.

I had heard it was packed the day before and some people were held over to the show after, so we needed to be early. The last show as at 7 and we got there at 6:30 just as the previous one let out. We stood in line for about 10 minutes before they let us in. We ended up in the 3rd or 4th row. While we waited, Nick and I decided this would be our last thing for the day as we had a long day planned for Magic Kingdom the next day.

This show was amazing. Like, wow. It was so good! We sat in the giraffe section. It was so fun to see and the kids loved it! I feel so lucky that it opened in time for our trip! Don't miss this if you are planning a trip to WDW! Excuse my awful pics. Cell phone and no flash plus holding a 4 year old!

As we left The Festival of the Lion King, we saw Expedition Everest in the distance. I had wanted to ride this, but since neither kid could ride and it was out of our way, we skipped it this time. It is a must do for next time! 

After the show, we started the walk out of the park. We stopped to buy some ears. Norah got the ears with the Minnie bow, Wes chose the ones that look like Mickey's pants, and I got a sparkly Minnie headband. Nick wasn't set on any at the kiosk we stopped at, so he decided to wait.

The kids and I got our pic taken with our ears in front of the tree of life and then we headed back to the bus stop. There were a few others on the bus with us, but it wasn't packed at all and we really didn't wait for the bus at all.

When we got back to Pop Century, we picked up supper and took it back to the room. The food was.... mediocre at best. I had beef brisket (super fatty, even for brisket) with macaroni and cheese (cold) and broccoli (cooked but cold). Since we were doing the dining plan, we got dessert. Nick and I both chose cupcakes, and those did not disappoint! That's good since the other food was barely palatable... The kids were happy with their mac and cheese, grapes, and cookie. Since Norah is 1, she didn't have the plan and just shared, but there was plenty for everyone.

We then put the kids to bed and relaxed a bit before setting the alarms and going to bed ourselves!

I loved Animal Kingdom. I am so glad we didn't skip it! I wish we had the whole day there, and I will make sure we do next time we go back. A lot of the advice I read about WDW said to not go to a park the first day. Glad I ignored that! We had so much fun. It was my second favorite park behind Magic Kingdom!