Disney Animal Kingdom- Friday, August 22, 2014

Julie "let us" sleep in an hour this morning, and we all got up around 7:00.   We checked out of our hotel at Universal (which we enjoyed, overall.  We kept commenting that Grandpa and Grandma Wright would enjoy the decor).  Then we had to remember what our rental car looks like, and drove to Disney.  We went straight to Animal Kingdom, and Julie realized that it opens at 9:00, not 8:00, so our extra hour of sleep didn't put us behind.  

We started at Dinosaur, which was too intense for Emma before but she loved it this time.  The three girls went on together.   After that, the three girls went on the Primeval Whirl while Scott got pictures.  We then went to Kilimanjaro Safari, which is always a favorite for us.   We noticed that they don't do the story of the poachers and "Little Red" anymore.   Most of the animals were trying hard to stay cool and not moving much.   

After that, it was 11:00 and we stopped for lunch at Pizzafari.   We're doing the Disney meal plan this time, and it will probably be very convenient, but since we hadn't stopped at our hotel before coming to the park, we didn't have the ID numbers we needed.   A manager quickly straightened it out for us because Disney.   Then we got to have an almost private lunch in a quiet air conditioned room, and the break from the heat was lovely.

The girls wanted to do some water rides, so we headed for Asia.  While we were waiting for our FastPass times to come up for the Kali River Rapids, we went to see the animals at the Maharajah Jungle Trek, including Julie's favorites- the fruit bats.  Emma made her sister carry her through piggyback through this section, but they both seemed to be having fun.  The girls rode the Kali River Rapids but were disappointed because they didn't get very wet.  They went to the Expedition Everest roller coaster next, where we also had FastPasses.  The regular line was so short, though, that the three of them went on using that first.  Anna and Emma liked it so much they went on it again using the FastPasses by themselves.   Then we went to Finding Nemo: The Musical.  It was good, but the best part of it was the air conditioning again.  

The temperature is in the 90s.  The heat index is well over 100.  Believe it or not, Julie was actually ready to leave before the park closed.  At about 4:00, we went to find our room at the Disney All Star Movie Resort.   We're in the building themed to Herbie the Love Bug.

Part 2:

We figured out why Julie was willing to leave Animal Kingdom before it had closed.  She wanted to cool the rest of us down and get us fed so we could go shopping at Downtown Disney this evening.  We settled into the room, and then got dinner with our meal plan at the food court in our hotel.  Then we hopped a bus and went to Downtown Disney, which is actually quite a ways from the hotel.  On the bus ride over, a heavy downpouring thunderstorm began, but by the time we got to Downtown Disney, it was just a little sprinkle.   We did some shopping here, but we also needed to get some necessities, so we made our way back to the hotel to get our car.  Julie and Anna are out looking for a supermarket, convenience store or drug store to pick up a few things.