The Summer 2012 trip - better late than never! Day 2

[jocat]

Trip Index here.

Day 2 - 27/07/12

Woke up at 4am, which wasn't good. Luckily though, I did manage to get back to sleep until 6:45 am, when I woke up starving again. I feel I have adjusted quite well to the time difference, but my stomach has adapted less well. Usually I can't even think about food in a morning until I've been up for at least an hour.

After my toast and orange juice I begin to feel more normal, then went to get ready for our first park day. The plan says it's Animal Kingdom today. I know many people usually choose Magic Kingdom as their first park day. We haven't really got a tradition, usually choosing the least crowded park as stated on the Busy Day Guide. However, Animal Kingdom has often been the first park we visit. We like that it eases us in gently, when we may still be feeling the time difference.

Left the villa at 8:43 am, which was later than I'd have liked. DH suggested taking a short cut he'd seen on a map. I was disputing it would get us there, and perhaps we should take it another day when we were earlier, and it wouldn't matter if the shortcut didn't exist. DH pointed out that by taking his shortcut, we might still get there for 9am. Katie agreed, saying "yes, put that in your book!" I have got to have more respect from them for making trip notes! Instead they just keep making fun of me.

Well we turned down Black Lake Road to find the 'shortcut' that DH had seen was fenced off with a 'Construction Traffic Only' notice. It's great to be right, and of course I obviously struggled not to mention that fact! Traffic had been a little heavy this morning and every traffic light seemed to be against us, resulting in us not getting to AK parking booths until 9:10 am - disgraceful for the start of the holidays! Parked up in Dinosaur 31 and caught the tram to the park entrance. Paused for some photopass pictures near the entrance, watching the people before us, who were having to roar, followed by having some magic shots taken. Katie said 'I'm not doing that!' and tried to avoid having her picture taken at all. I said that we should just have a nice one of the four of us. Well we had the nice photo taken, then had to do the Animal Kingdom roar.

We were then handed a box to look at that, for a magic shot. She was seriously not impressed but did laugh it off. I apologise now for my face in it – it appears that acting is definitely not my forte! At least I put some effort in though unlike the rest of my family.

As we walked in, we stopped to have more photos taken in front of the tree of life. We had a normal photo taken, but were then instructed to point to the floor looking shocked. She did point to the floor, but did not look shocked, just smiled. Unfortunately, this magic shot didn’t work.

They also did another magic shot of just Katie and Brandon which she was happy about this time, as it was the shot of Simba in her arms. She doesn't mind them if she can just smile, but is not keen on acting shocked.

We headed straight to Kilimanjaro safaris which had a standby queue of 20 minutes. In reality, it was only 15 minutes. I’ll try and keep the photos to a minimum!

[jocat]

Came out and decided to catch the first showing of the Festival of the Lion King at 10:30 am.

Left there to go to Kali River Rapids which showed a standby queue of 40 minutes, so picked up a FP with a return slot of 12:30 - 1:30 pm. Decided we'd visit the 12 noon showing of the Finding Nemo show. Walked over, bypassing Everest for the first time ever due to DH's bad back (he’d had sciatica for about 3 weeks before we came away and had brought some very strong painkillers out with him). Katie and Brandon didn’t want to ride – Brandon doesn’t do roller coasters and Katie dislikes the backwards bit on Everest. It was only 11:30 when we got to the theatre so decided to while away a few minutes having a wander around Dinoland. Katie and Brandon decided to have their photo taken with Pluto and Goofy as the queue looked short. It ended up taking just over 20 minutes.

We left there and rushed back to the theatre, arriving just in time. We sat down and the show began.

Headed back to Kali river rapids for our FP slot, where we weren't the wettest people on our raft, but all four of us got splashed - most of mine down my back.

We then decided to eat. Katie wanted pizza, so we headed to Pizzafari. We shared pepperoni pizzas and Caesar salads, 2 diet cokes and 2 sprites. We then looked at the map before deciding we'd almost had enough and wanted to head back to the villa to cool off. Martin and Brandon dropped in on It's Tough to be a Bug, while Katie and I chose to have a look around the shops - neither of us are keen on the 'Sting'.

The park had been busy today with lots of tour groups - we must have seen at least 12 different groups. Some were fairly small groups, but the majority were large groups, who did get in the way at times, blocking whole pathways. I had made it my mission to overtake them on the way to where we were going, although this hard work was in vain when we had to wait for Katie when she visited the restroom, allowing them to overtake us!

We headed out of the park and back to our car, where Katie came out with some words of wisdom regarding the air con in the car - she asked if the aircon was set on extreme. Well not sure where she got that from - there is a maximum setting, but it's certainly not called 'extreme'. It made us laugh though and Brandon suggested that this should be added to my notes. I'll convert them soon enough!

Got back to the villa, quickly got changed then got straight into the pool, playing the water equivalent of 'keepy uppy' Katie was a bit vicious, seemingly forgetting that we weren’t playing volleyball! It was a lovely hour, and we soon felt much more refreshed. Got out of the pool and decided to get showered and head out for an early dinner at Applebee's.

Left the villa at 5:45pm and drove for 10 minutes until we reached Applebee's at Berry Town Centre. The car park was already busy, but we were seated straightaway. Katie and Brandon ate off the 2 for $20 menu, choosing onion rings as their appetiser plus each chose the chicken tender baskets. I had fish and chips and DH chose the sirloin steak. Katie's coming round to my little ways and knowing I'd want to take photos, duly waited to eat until I'd finished with the camera. You see, she is getting used to me now and I didn't even get any sarcastic comments!

Drinks were a Pepsi, a diet Pepsi and two waters. We all enjoyed our meals, but had no room for pudding. The bill was a bargain $51 plus tax and tip - we left$65.

Headed back to the villa to chill and watch the US coverage of the Olympics opening ceremony. We also wanted to prepare our bags, ready for our day at Discovery Cove tomorrow.

Day 3 - Discovery Cove

[littlejem1]

Another great report. I love the lion king my favourite at AK.

[Guest]

Great Pic's and report. food looks good

[Helen0705]

Great day .
Loved your surprised face in the one photo

[jocat]

Originally Posted by Helen0705

Great day .
Loved your surprised face in the one photo

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I nearly didn't include that photo as it is so awful. Well at least I can laugh about it.

[Irishrover]

Dont you just love the magic photos?

especially when you have a huge queue behind the photographer looking at you...

Stunning!

Im loving your animal photos, and next time I go I think Ill just nick your photos for my trippy.

[ladeh]

Brill AK day

[happyhope]

Sounds like a good day

[jocat]

Originally Posted by littlejem1

Another great report. I love the lion king my favourite at AK.

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Originally Posted by Mikebuddy

Great Pic's and report. food looks good

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Originally Posted by ladeh

Brill AK day

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Originally Posted by happyhope

Sounds like a good day

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Thanks all. It was a lovely day.

Originally Posted by Irishrover

Dont you just love the magic photos?

especially when you have a huge queue behind the photographer looking at you...

Stunning!

Im loving your animal photos, and next time I go I think Ill just nick your photos for my trippy.

See more...

I don't mind magic photos when there's no one else around, but feel a right idiot when others are watching. Blame the great British reserve!

Quite pleased with the animal photos - they usually end up as a blur. We had a new camera which had got a better zoom than we've usually got. The anti-shake mode (hopefully that's a proper term and not something I made up) proved to be particularly good, because I have no talent for photography normally.