Wednesday 7 May 2008

Animal Kingdom

OK, I'm finally getting around to posting some Disney stuff!!

We left Friday right after I fed Jacob and we made it to The City (3hrs away) before he needed to eat again - just like I planned :) I fed him while everyone went inside Paradiso and ordered already - worked great! We almost made it to Minneapolis before he woke up again wanting to eat, so we made a stop at the closest town with a McDonalds so the kids could have ice cream and run around.

At Minneapolis we stayed at the Staybridge Suites - an excellent hotel!!! We had a two room suite with a full kitchen, we could park there all week, got a shuttle to the airport - for $110. Plus the continental breakfast was really a breakfast buffet - scrambled eggs, bacon, waffles, watermelon, canteloupe, cottage cheese, porridge, boiled eggs, name brand cereal, toast, muffins, yogurt - the best continental breakfast I've ever seen!

So, Saturday morning we flew to Orlando. The flight went well. I fed Jacob during take off and he was just fine. When we landed he was sleeping so I figured I'd just let him sleep. Probably a mistake - he was pretty cranky the rest of the day so I think his ears were hurting. On the way home I fed him during take off and landing and he was just fine. Emma was slightly dizzy during take off and landing - but nobody actually got sick, thankfully!

After renting our vehicles at the airport it was off to our house. It was awesome!!! The owners met us there was fresh chocolate chip cookies, muffins, juice and roses. They gave us some tips about Disney (including a short cut) and left us their cell number to call whenever we needed anything. They were great! I highly recommend staying with Romancing the Mouse. If you stay based on our recommendation you get a 30% discount (thats what we did), plus if you mention us, we get an extra discount off our next visit, 5% for every time someone stays there based on our referral.

Sunday we went to Animal Kingdom. It was a perfect day and it was not very busy. The first ride we went on was Kilimanjaro Safaris - everyone's favorite ride. The animals were incredible and the ride was fun - huge "jeeps" that sat 6 people per row. I had even worked it out that I could feed Jacob while on this ride. Yes, I was organized! We went on the Kali River Rapids - which was not the girls favorite since they got wet. We saw a show called "Flights of Wonder" with live birds performing tricks. We walked the Maharajah Jungle Trek. We saw an awesome 3D show called "It's Tough to be a Bug" - the girls were totally scared so they just closed their eyes through the whole thing - which was thankfully only 7 mins long. It was awesome though! The girls met Mickey Mouse and then we went back to our house for lunch, a swim and a nap. Then we went back to Animal Kingdom late afternoon (avoiding the worst of the crowd, and the worst of the heat) - the girls met Mickey again, as well as Minnie, Goofy and Donald. We saw the Festival of the Lion King - an amazing show - kinda like Disney on Ice without the ice. :) The girls rode TriceraTop Spin (like the airplane ride at our local amusement park, just with dinosaurs instead of airplanes). Then Shaun, Nathan & I rode Expedition Everest - an awesome roller coaster - while the rest took the girls to see Pooh, Tigger, Piglet & Eyeore. Then we went out to eat and came back to the house - phew - what a day!

We used the Unofficial Tour Guide tours for all our park trips - I highly recommend it, especially if you're going on a busier day.

Here's some pictures! I'll try and post more about our trip sometime soon....


3 comments:

andrea said...

sounds and looks like a ton of fun. great pictures too! was it really busy when you were there...how were the waiting times. We never went to Animal Kingdom...that's for our next trip. We tried getting that guide but since we went in insane season, no stores had it. happy to know that it was helpful though. My kids pray every night about Disney and that in five years we'll go again...we'll just have to see about that. happy that your time was so good.

Pamela said...

SOunds like a great Adventure!!

tammi said...

Sounds like a really awesome vacation! Glad you had a great time!!

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