Day 4 – Animal Kingdom
It’s all about one’s frame of reference. Today we went to Disney’s Animal Kingdom and in our pre-trip research, we had read basically two different reviews of the park. On the one hand, there are those who said that people could do the whole park in 1/2 a day and then there are those who say it’s a full day (plus) kinda park. One reviewer summed it up by saying that the trick to enjoying the park is to remember that Animal Kingdom is all about “BEING” and not about “DOING.” I went to the park, expecting to look at animals, enjoy some shows, and maybe ride some rides (as opposed to expecting to ride rides and maybe do a show or two) and you know, that’s what we did.
The day started out racing to the back of the park to take the Safari. For those of you who don’t know, Animal Kingdom is essentially a zoo; a Disney-fied zoo, to be sure, but a zoo nonetheless. The Safari runs through a wildlife preserve and we got to see a bunch of animals. There weren’t any animals you couldn’t see at any respectable zoo, but Disney puts a nice spin on it by including a storyline for the tour.
We spent a large portion of the day walking about looking at animals (including a petting zoo in which folks could groom / brush the animals — mostly goats) and watching shows (the bird show, Finding Nemo, The Musical), but we also were able to get in several rides, including a roller coaster. One funny story — I have a thing about getting wet at theme parks, but when my family all said they wanted to go on the raging rapids boat ride, I said sure. As we were seated in the boat, a woman from another family sat next to me and I told her that I had incredibly bad luck with these kind of rides. Sure enough, *I* got soaked. I finally dried out by the time we left the park.
On the autograph side, we got a couple of new ones, including Baloo and King Louie, Pocahontas, Jimminy Cricket, and Rafiki. Interesting story about Baloo and King Louie: the cast member in charge of the pair made it a point to say that only Baloo would sign; however, when we got up there and MB asked Baloo to sign my shirt (explaining what the shirt says), King Louie decided he wanted to sign too. Now, King Louie’s costume doesn’t have flexible fingers, so the cast member wedged the pen into the hand and Louie gave me his autograph. The cast member said this is only the 3rd time she had ever seen King Louie do that. I guess there are some benefits to having cancer, but, truth be told, I’d be willing to give up Louie’s (and even Buzz’s) autograph in lieu of having cancer.
I told MaryBeth that we’ll come back to Disney in 2013 to celebrate my 5-year survival of this cancer. You see, Disney is all about people celebrating something — your first time to the parks, your birthday or anniversary, even your un-birthday. I have a button that says I am celebrating finishing chemo. Several people have congratulated me and today, I had the opportunity to chat with another cancer survivor.
Tomorrow, we head back to Disney Hollywood Studios; the whole family will go for the first half of the day, but MaryBeth and my daughter will stay home in the afternoon / evening, so I can ride some of the more scary rides with the boys.
And lest you think I forgot, here is the link to the pictures from today, as well as the embedded slideshow. Enjoy.
Merle
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