Disney - Day 3 (Tuesday, August 18th)

With another full day ahead of us, we were up at the crack of dawn on Tuesday and on a bus at 7:30am to get ourselves to Animal Kingdom.


As you walk into the park, you are greeted by the Tree of Life, which has literally hundreds of animals carved into it.


As much as we would have enjoyed staring at the Tree, we had to hustle ourselves to a character breakfast at 8:30am. We were greeted outside the restaurant by Donald Duck in full safari gear. Poor Giana slept right through it!


Breakfast was a delicious buffet, featuring all the Mickey Mouse-shaped waffles you could eat. While dining, we had a few visitors stop by our table, including Mickey Mouse,


Goofy,


and Daisy Duck.


After breakfast, we went on the Harambe Safari ride through the savanna.


Groups are taken through the wildlife reserve in big trucks with a genuine South African tour guide, who not only drives the truck, but also points out all the animals.


We saw giraffes,

an elephant,


and a couple ostriches. We also saw several ostrich nests, complete with unhatched eggs. There were even lions and cheetahs along the route, which were a little tougher to photograph as they liked to hide in the trees under the shade.


After the safari ride, we saw a spectacular Lion King show, which featured lots of signing, dancing, and even some acrobatics. After the show, we heard a rumor that Pocahontas was going to be making an appearance near the petting zoo. While waiting for her, Talia petted the sheep and goats.


Unfortunately, Pocahontas never showed. We were told that this was the first time in as long as anyone could remember that she took the day off. It was pretty disappointing, because Pocahontas really is one of Talia's favorite princesses (though we were told by official Disney employees that she isn't technically one of the princesses). The girls caught a nap, while Fran and I grabbed some bench. This was the point in the trip where the autofocus on our camera broke, so it was good that we had an hour to figure out to manually focus the camera. If any of the pictures from here on out look a little blurry, you know why!


After naptime, we went to see the live Nemo show. It featured live actors who basically reenacted the movie while holding large puppets of the characters. The Triceratops Spin ride was right next door to the Nemo theater, so Fran and Talia gave it a go. Here they are waiting in line.


Here they are on the ride (look real closely at the bottom right dinosaur and you can see Fran and the top of Talia's head.


What do you think of the Triceratops Spin, Gigi?



We had pretty much exhausted our options at Animal Kingdom, so we hopped a bus and headed over to Hollywood Studios for dinner and some shows. We had wanted to see Fantasmic, which is supposed to be spectacular, but unfortunately people were lined up three hours in advance to get a seat. We decided to save that show for our next trip. The rumor afterwards was that all seats were taken ninety minutes before showtime. Crazy! We did get the chance to see another fantastic stage show - Beauty and the Beast. Talia did say right after we got back home that this was her favorite part of the entire trip, though now if you ask her she just says "princesses".


After the Beauty and the Beast show, we saw the Little Mermaid show and headed back to the hotel. We were all pretty gross and sweaty, so we decided to take a dip in the pool. Afterwards in our pj's, Giana was having a good time getting up on all fours and rocking her touchie back and forth. By the end of the trip she was starting to scooch herself backwards on her knees. Go, Gigi, go!