Animal Kingdom Continued - Tusker House & Rivers of Light

Tuesday, September 11, 2018

Our fun wasn't over at Animal Kingdom just yet.  Our next stop was dinner at Tusker House (one of the best buffets in Disney World) with Mickey and his safari friends!

  

 Love the one of Goofy's ear covering Emily's face!  Ha!!

   

After dinner, we had time to go back to Flight of Passage for a second ride, believe it or not.  Then it was time to make our way to the theater for Rivers of Light.  We had never seen this show before, but we got pretty good seats with our dinner package so that was exciting. 

The show was a lot like Fantasmic.  It was pretty, but no comparison to Happily Ever After at Magic Kingdom or Illuminations at Epcot.  I know they can't have fireworks due to the animals, so I would say that Rivers of Light is a pretty good substitute and some of the floats are really beautiful.

   

   

   

This was, I think, the only day that we left the resort at 8:30am and did not go back until the parks closed.  It was a very full (and very fun) day.  Glad tomorrow was our "day off."

Animal Kingdom!

Tuesday, September 11, 2018

   

After a really good breakfast, we arrived at Animal Kingdom ready to conquer our day.  Our first stop was Pandora.  Molly, Paul and the girls hadn't seen it yet because they missed the trip last year due to the hurricane so we were excited to show them around a bit.  We started off with Navi'i River.  It really is a beautiful ride...not the most exciting or exhilarating, but very calming a peaceful.

   

   

And no trip to Pandora would be complete without a ride on Flight of Passage so we did that too (of course no pics on the ride)!

   

Then we had to hustle over to Expedition Everest to make our Fast Pass...but there's always time for a picture or two along the way...

Even a fter the pictures, we had enough time use our Fast Pass and ride a second time too! Everyone loves the Yeti!

   

After conquering Everest we were hot and ready for a little rest. So, we got a snack and headed off to see Up! A Great Bird Adventure.  This show was  new when Daniel and I were here in the spring and loved the show.  I could't wait for everyone else to see it too.

   

My favorite part was these birds singing "You Are My Sunshine" and  "Old MacDonald"

After a little rest and a drink (and a great show) we were off to Rafiki's Planet Watch and the Affection Station petting zoo.  We love taking the little train out to this area and spending time up close with the animals.  It also tends to be much  less crowded here and kind of low key.

Wildlife Express Train

   

After enjoying the animals up close, it was time for Kilimanjaro Safari and enjoying animals more from a distance.  I swear I could just ride this over and over all day long.  I especially love seeing the giraffes.

   

   

   

 After our safari, we were hot again so it was time to cool down once again.  This time we opted to cool off on Kali River Rapids!  We've only rode this one other time and it was fun.  But, the risk of ending up really, really wet is pretty high so we pass on this ride sometimes.  A little bit wet is ok, but drowned, well, not so much. The first time through we came though pretty good - a little wet but not drowned.  Everyone wanted to go again, but this time I offered to stay behind and take some pictures. I was glad I did too because everyone was much wetter the second time!

  

Believe it or not, our fun was not over for the day...we still had dinner and a show coming up!!!

Boardwalk - Trattoria Al Forno

Tuesday, September 11, 2018

There was a new character breakfast launched last year at Trattoria Al Forno at Disney's Boardwalk.  We tried go last year, but with all the hurricane turmoil we lost our reservation.  So this year we were really looking forward to breakfast and the meet and greets with Ariel, Eric, Rapunzel and Flynn Rider.

The food was really good.  Breakfast started with a pastry basket and then we all ordered Rapunzel's tower of pancakes.

   

Then we got to meet all the characters.  They were all really fun and it was nice to have a new character experience in a new place.

   

   

After we finished our breakfast and getting pictures and autographs, we took a little walk down the boardwalk and visited a pin store.  We traded some more.  And with that, we were off for the parks...Animal Kingdom to be exact!

Hollywood Studios (Again)

Monday, September 10, 2018

Today we headed back to Hollywood Studios as a big group with Molly, Paul, Abby and Josie to check out the new Toy Story Land.  We decided that we should make Slinky Dog Dash the first stop before the lines got too long.  Turns out we still had to wait an hour, but the kids really wanted to ride so it was probably worth it in the end.  Slinky needs to work on his camera angles, though, because most of our photos didn't come out too good.

   

Go Slinky Go!!

After Slinky we headed off to enjoy our Fast Passes.  We started with Rockin' Roller Coaster.  Josie couldn't ride (still not tall enough) so I sat out with her while the others rode.  We had a parent swap ticket, but never made it back to actually ride it a second time.

After rockin' on the coaster and pin trading on a drum, it was off to lunch at Mama Melrose.  We had never been there before and were anxious to try it out.  We got the package where you got special seating for Fantasmic so we were excited.  The restaurant is in a little area kind of tucked away that I guess is made to look like little Italy maybe.  There are cute store fronts (including an adorable Christmas shop) and a couple of restaurants.  We had never made it back into this little nook so it was a nice surprise.

   

Kids meals came with this adorable spaghetti and meatballs cupcake for dessert!

After lunch we headed out to use our Fast Pass for Tower of Terror.  Molly, Paul and the kids had not been on this one before so it was fun to see the different reactions.  As always, Emily had a great pose/facial expression for the photo.

   

   It was pretty hot for our group Hollywood Studios visit so we decided to head back to the resort a little earlier than normal for a dip in the pool.  The plan was to come back later in the evening for our Slinky Dog Fast Pass and then see Fantasmic.  The kids loved their pool time and Emily even played some pool games.

   

After our pool time, we were ready to tackle more park time and Fantasmic.  Unfortunately, the Johns crew was tuckered out.  So we headed back alone.  We managed to ride Slinky again along with Tower of Terror and we snuck in a visit with Olaf!  My favorite! 

   

Then we made our way to the stadium for Fantasmic...

And then...it rained.  And we left.  Again.  So much for Fantasmic for like the 5th time.  Oh well.  We'll try again next year.