Animal Kingdom Day

Day 1 - Animal Kingdom here we come! After sleeping in (alittle) and getting up & moving, we took the shuttle bus over to Animal Kingdom. Please keep in mind we never had ANY intention on staying at this theme park for more than a few hours with our toddler - no way, no how! I wanted him to have a nap and still be pleasant later that day. So, game plan was to see some of the park (the areas that would mostly interest him). Neither Brian nor me had ever been here so we were anxious to see what all the hipe was about. We finally got into the park around 9:30ish and grabbed a quick bite to eat. Speaking of eating - we bought the Disney Dining Plan (DDP) which is completely worth every cent. I'll try and remember to comment more on that later.

We headed to the back of the park where "Africa" was so we could see the animals before it got too deathly HOT! We ended up getting on the Safari Ride and Thomas loved seeing many of his favorite animals up close and personal (well... as close as you can expect to get to these kind of animals). Not to mention, we were sitting in the front seat and I could feel the driver's AC blowing out of the front cab and onto me... it was very nice considering my preggo state and the hot 90s outside! So here are a few of the animals we saw...

Big Gorrilla

He didn't like all the attention, so strutted by us went and sat behind a tree & ate his banana. Huh? Excuse us for being interested!
Rhinos

This was a very interested little boy

Thomas thought this was a big cow with horns. Sounds good to me - I can't remember what kind of deer, antelope, bull, etc it really is.

Giraffes - he loves to tell you they have LONG necks...

Big Elephant (& big ears)

Ostrich

Rhinos up close

After the Safari ride, we headed indoors (cool AC) and looked around a very neat research center. Had to get a quick picture with a very real looking tiger!

I didn't think Thomas would want to get a picture taken with any of the Disney characters - however, my little boy has proven me wrong once again. As we were walking around the research center, he noticed a small line of boys and girls waiting to say "hi" to Jimmy the Cricket. Of course, he didn't know who he was, but he sure did look neat. So, upon his insistance, we stood in line and said our hellos and got a picture. He wasn't scared at all - huh? He even gave Jimmy the Cricket a "high-5"!

Following our AC break inside, we headed out to the petting area and Thomas got to see & touch some "sheep" along with some other furry critters.

It was a good day overall, but Thomas really enjoyed the pool time we got before dinner once he had taken his nap back at the resort. We decided to have a later dinner, which was totally worth seeing his face while we were swimming.

Day 1 turned out to be pretty good. We are glad that we didn't rush anything and took things in stride with Thomas. We didn't get to see all of Animal Kingdom (we would have liked to make it to the Dino Land area), but what can you do when you have a tired little boy? Maybe next time. What we did see & experience, we all really liked! Day 1 = successful!