Day 2 -- Animal Kingdom

Day 2 of our Disney vacation was spent at Animal Kingdom. This is the newest of all the parks and was being built and only part of it was open on our honeymoon 10 years ago. It was fun to see how much they have added since then. The park has an animal theme (obviously) and in the center of it all is the Tree of Life, a man-made tree with carvings of every animal you can think of throughout the entire enormous thing. The different sections of the park are broken up: Africa, Asia and a Dinosaur park area. There is also Discovery Island in the middle. Not too many people seem to be crazy about this park, but I loved it.

In Africa the streets are set up in a way where you really feel like you are walking down an average street in Africa. This is where we took a 2-week safari (condensed to 20 minutes) on a reserve that is set there. Saw all sorts of animals as you can see in the pictures. I love everying African from the art to the music so this was a fun place for me.

Asia streets are set up the same way, but the highlight of the whole day was the roller coaster they have here. It's called Expedition Everest. It's all about a quest to find a vicious yeti, aka the Abominable Snowman. I won't give away what it is like, but needless to say, Kendra, Todd and I (NOT Alli--it terrified her!) HAD to come back later in the week to go on it again!

Other highlights of this park for us were the shows! There was a Nemo show that was absolutely amazing. The actors can do incredible things with the puppets they control and they can sing! The way the story was portrayed was so cool. Who would have thought they could do a Nemo show on a normal stage sans water? Only Disney. The other show was the Lion King: acrobats, people on stilts, fire-dancers, flying dancers and great singing, etc. A friend of mine suggested we sit up front because the kids might be picked to come up on stage. We did and all the kids were picked! (thanks Jen!) The kids really felt part of the show and had a great time, circling the stage and playing the instruments. Again stunning colors, music and both shows just made me want to go to Broadway--yes, it's that kind of caliber.

Don't let the pictures fool you--this day was cold! Florida experienced an "arctic freeze" while we were there where the governor wanted to issue a state of emergency (due to crops). At night it dipped into the 20s and during the day it only got to just above 50. We weren't prepared, but luckily we had some sweatshirts and light jackets. The evenings got rather nippy. Not expected, not happy about it, but a little cold didn't stop us.