The animals wake up early in Animal Kingdom. It was a 7:30am start time for us today so we were up by 6:00am. I had a great sleep but apparently Carter did not. I briefly woke up around 2:00am to hear Carter and Kerry talking about me. Callie refuses to sleep in the same bed as her brother so it's Callie and Kerry in one bed and Carter and I in the other. I don't recall much of the conversation except the line from Kerry of "Did you punch him? That usually works." Anyways, we had cereal and granola bars in our room and then got on the bus to go to the park.
Our first ride was Avatar - Flight of Passage. It took a few minutes to walk to the end of the line but in the end it was only about a 40 minute wait. This ride has you sitting on what looks like a motor bike but is meant to be a banshee from the movie. There is a weird bit at the beginning where you 'merge' with your animal and there is a lot of buzzing and vibrating. While the ride is going you can also feel the animal 'breathing'. All a bit creepy but the ride is a lot of fun. Banshees fly so there is a lot of swooping. I generally close my eyes for the swooping.
We considered going on the other Avatar ride which is a river boat but it was already a 75 minute wait so the rest of the family went on Expedition Everest while I watched the character boats go by in the harbour. It was at this point that I realized that my camera battery was about to die. Of all the days I needed my regular camera it was Animal Kingdom. A zoom lens is a must for when you are out on safari. I then got a bit stingy with the big camera and switched to my phone. A good reminder that I should get a second battery for our next trip.
Next up was Dinosaur which is very similar to the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland. I was reading recently that when California Adventure first opened, it was a bit of a flop and one of the key reasons was that the whole park was devoid of characters. That seems to be the issue with the dinosaur area of Animal Kingdom. This ride is really well done but the line up is usually pretty short. There was also a rickety roller coaster that has now been closed down with no apparent replacement planned. We skipped the sand box archaeological area. It was fun when the kids were younger.
We had attempted to go on the safari ride earlier in the day but it was closed for 'technical reasons'. Our assumption was that the lions were playing with a sleeping zebra. We eventually got on and were able to see the majority of the animals including hippos, elephants, giraffes, zebras and several others. The only thing we didn't get a great view of was the lions. We did however learn that their roars could be heard across the park so it was fun that as we were leaving we heard them. We would have assumed it was a recorded sound but apparently it's real.
After the safari we went on the gorilla walk which includes gorillas as well as a number of kinds of monkeys. It is interesting sitting and watching the gorillas. They are more like us than the monkeys and I can't help but wonder what they think about each day. They don't have a job and being in captivity they also don't have any dangers to worry about. We saw a couple of rabbits in the cage and of course there were a lot of questions about how they interact with them. They are vegetarians but they have caught them a few times but they just hold and play with them.
As a family we all went on the Kali River Rapids which is a tube ride and there is the potential of getting very wet. Kerry and I had our jackets which were water resistant and Callie wore one of the ponchos we brought. Carter chose to go with nothing but it wasn't a big deal since this was one of the warmer days of our trip. After the ride, Kerry spent some time drying out our things and the rest of us went on the tiger walk. The tigers look much less happy than some of the other animals at the park. This one was making horrific sounds to his mate in one of the other areas and doing a lot of pacing.
We had a dinner planned at the Rainforest Cafe. This is a tradition for us and we usually have at least one kid that is upset about something. This time both kids remained happy. We finished up the day with the Lion King Musical, A Bugs Life stage show and the Avatar Na'vi River Ride. The Avatar ride was one of the few poor experiences of our time in the park. The line moved incredibly slow and even when we got to the front, they were letting several minutes of fast lane riders ahead of us while avoiding looking at the other line up. Translation - "The mean lady wouldn't let us on." The ride is terrible anyways. Don't go on it.
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