Disney - Day 4

Day 4 we were off to Animal Kingdom.  This was my view as we were getting ready to leave the room...I wasn't sure the day was going to go very well!

Kemper showing off his new Bolt, his Buzz Ears and his light up-spinning Buzz.  Nope, not spoiled at all. 

I wanted a picture of both boys in their ears...this was as good as it got.  After we got everyone ready and out the door, we jumped on a bus headed to Animal Kingdom.  As usual, Kemper struck up a conversation with the people sitting near us and talked their ear off the entire way. :)  He can make friends wherever we go which I pray serves him well as we move around with the Army!

First up, Kilimanjaro Safari!!  Kemper was excited to see the elephants.  Hudson was out of sorts and ready for his nap.  MeMe manned the camera so I could attempt to get Hudson to sleep.  Luckily, he gave it up about 5 minutes into the safari.  I couldn't even begin to name the many animals that we saw along the way but it was really cool and I'm glad we had taken the advice of our travel agent as well as a few bloggers I had been following and did this first thing in the morning.  Not only did we basically walk right onto the ride, but the animals were all up and moving about!

The elephant that Kemper was super excited to see!  Funny story - as usual, Kemper ended up chatting with the couple in front of us on the ride and she was pointing animals out to him along the way.  Towards the end, as she pointed something out to him, I noticed a VERY familiar looking ring.  I looked at Mom and she seemed to have noticed it at the same time.  I asked if that happened to be a Meredith College ring to which she grinned and said yes!  What a small world!  I wish I could remember what year she said (pretty sure it was even - boo! hiss!) but how funny that another Angel ended up on the safari ride with us!  

Rhinos 

The lions were even out and about and moving around!  After we went passed them, we heard roaring.  To me, it sounded very real - to Pops, he said it was fake.  I'm pretty gullible and easily fooled so who knows!

After the safari, I was miraculously able to put a sleeping Hudson into his stroller without waking him up.  From there, we headed on to Expedition Everest!  

MeMe had gotten us Fast Passes before we did the safari so we walked right on.  This was a GREAT coaster!  At one point, we were going backwards!  So much fun and so glad that we were able to ride this one.  Kemper was pretty bummed that he had to sit this one out but after the ride, I knew that he would have been traumatized if we had allowed him to ride!

We headed over to Dinosaur Land USA after conquering Everest :) so that Kemper could ride Triceratops Spin.  There was no wait so he rode twice in a row - once with me and once with MeMe.  I think that I am a jinx because on our ride, we couldn't move up and down just like when we rode Dumbo.  Luckily when he rode with MeMe, she figured out that you had to use the joystick in the back row of the car so they were able to ride high!  

On our walk back towards Tusker House, we happened upon DiVine!  Kemper asked why in the world someone would want to dress up like a tree.  She was very graceful and I'm glad we spotted her!

Quick photo op in front of The Tree of Life.

MeMe, Pops and the boys

Mommy with an armful of boys!

Our itinerary said that our dining reservations were at 10:30 but when we tried to check in, they showed us at 11:30 so we had some time to kill.  This guy was hungry so we got some fruit and had a little snack.  After his belly was satisfied, I saw that "It's Tough to Be A Bug" only had a 5 minute wait (thanks Neci and Touring Plans!) so we headed that way.  To say that it was not a hit would be putting it mildly.  The adults loved it.  Kemper HATED it.  MeMe said that he was shaking and she could feel his heart racing.  As we walked out, he said he did NOT want to do that ever again.

It was time for our lunch at Tusker House.  We had about a 10 minute wait once we checked in and had our picture taken with Donald (great picture of all 5 of us - too bad I don't have the digital file for it).  Finally it was our turn to be seated and from that point on, I felt like it was a rushed lunch experience.  

We had barely been seated when Donald came over.  My camera was acting up, Hudson was crying because he was at a table and there was no food and my temper was short.  Finally, I got my camera working, we got everyone some food and things kind of settled down.  Hudson was definitely out of sorts during this meal.  

The food was pretty good!  Definitely a bit different but I enjoyed trying a few random things I probably wouldn't have otherwise.  Hudson enjoyed the macaroni and cheese.  Kemper was just excited to see the characters.  I would 100% say that this character meal just didn't stack up compared to Hollywood & Vine but I'm glad we were able to get a little extra time with Donald, Mickey, Minnie, Daisy and Goofy.  (I was getting food for Hudson while Minnie came around.)

Kemper and Mickey.

They gave all of the kids instruments and said Goofy was going to come in to dance with them.  Kemper jumped right up and joined in!  Thank goodness he's got his Daddy's outgoing personality and isn't painfully shy like his Mom!  

After lunch, we were able to make it over for a showing of The Lion King which was a HUGE hit! Kemper loved it!  Hudson was even pretty well entertained with all of the singing and dancing.  

We had seen just about everything we wanted to see and wanted to get naps in so we caught a bus back to our resort.  Hudson napped much better today and I think Kemper even took a little nap.  Our dinner reservations were at the Beach Club resort tonight so we either had to drive ourselves or make it over to a park or Downtown Disney to catch a bus.  We decided to drive to Downtown Disney and catch a bus from there after we walked around a bit.  Kemper thought the Buzz and Woody made of Legos was amazing!

I had a surprise up my sleeve for Kemper so we stopped in Once Upon a Toy before catching our bus to dinner.  I had packed Kemper's Mr. Potato Head body but no parts because I had heard about this store and all of the extra parts they have.  For $20 you can get as many parts as you can fit into the box.  Since I already had the body, we didn't have to worry about packing parts around the body and were able to stuff all sorts of fun parts into the box!  When we got to the counter, the amazing cast member dumped everything out to make sure we had all of the right matches (good thing because we had 2 right hands with light sabres!) and even made a bit of extra room for us to stuff more!  Kemper loves all of his potato head pieces!  

Dinner at Cape May was delicious.  Hudson was a total pill so my mood was rather fractious again but the food (seafood buffet) was delicious and Kemper was on his best behavior!  We made it back to the room where Hudson crashed and the rest of us followed suit shortly thereafter.  Kemper couldn't get to bed without trying out his some of his new potato head accessories, of course!  

Animal Kingdom was fun - a little more fun than I was expecting.  It was a cooler day which I was very glad for (there were some spots that smelled a little funky and I can't imagine what they smell like when it's hot out) but Hudson was just out of sorts most of this day.  At this point, we had been to every park and had 2 days left...we decided that Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom were the 2 parks we wanted revisit.  After consulting crowd calendars, we decided that we would save Magic Kingdom for our last day and hit Hollywood Studios next.