May 25: Animal Kingdom

If you do not already know, there are approximately a million different things to do in the Disney Parks. I've slightly narrowed down all of the things I want to do on my program here - and one of those things is to be at park opening for all of the four theme parks. 

Today, Tamsin, Val, and I were all off, so after a late night at magic kingdom I woke up at 6am to make it to Animal Kingdom for the 8am opening. And we made it with time to spare! Check that one off the bucket list!

We headed right away to Kilimanjaro Safaris, where we saw giraffes, black and white rhinos, elephants and tons of different animals - this was also the point when i realized i left my camera's memory card in my computer. whoops! so, apologies for the lack of pictures! 

We hit up kali river rapids - one of my favorite rides in AK! It's like a very controlled rapids ride, and it's just tons of fun! Heads up: you will get wet. there isn't even a slight chance that you won't get wet. so either be okay with that, or grab a poncho.

After Kali River, we headed down to dinoland, USA because Val had talked us all into getting fastpasses to primevel whirl. okay. I'm not a fan. Val loved it - i was terrified and am pretty sure i'll have bruises tomorrow. to each their own i guess. haha! We also rode Dinosaur! and that was kind of cool. it reminded me of jurrasic park (except i've never been on jurrasic park....so do I even know what i'm talking about? you be the judge.) 

We had fast passes for festival of the lion king, but we weren't really in the mood to wait around the park all day, so we stood in line for the next showing and IT WAS GREAT! I had thought it was similar to the Lion King musical, so i thought it would be a disappointment because i was so impressed with the broadway production, but it had a whole other dimension and purpose behind it. It was more like a festival of african culture that just happened to feature music from the lion king. 

We took the train out to Rafiki's planet watch, petted some animals, and val met rafiki and also chip and dale! I was just so tired I wasn't in the mood for meet and greets, so we sat it out. Just before we were going to leave there was a nice rainstorm, but it let up enough for us to take the train and get lunch at Pizzafari - which was sooooo good because we were starving. I've also decided to start buying the kids meals whenever i can because A) i'm the pickiest eater in the world, B) it is actually the same meal size as the adult, but the individual portion size is smaller, and C) it's like half the price! After we ate we decided to call it a day. On the way to the bus we were hit with another rain shower, but by that point i was soaked already so i didn't even bother to fight it. 

By the time we made it home we were freezing from the air conditioning on the bus, and exhausted. I ended up napping for like 3 hours, then making supper. I was going to head to the pool, but I just stayed in a chilled out. Tomorrow I don't have to work until 2pm, so thankfully I'll get to sleep in for a bit before heading out! It will be my first shift with my trainer, so i'm excited and nervous! Hopefully all goes well! 

love + pixie dust,

sarah