The Pumpkins: Day 10 - The Circle of Life (Aug 11)

[Mrs Pumpkin]

Our trip report index: The Pumpkins Pop to Florida for the First Time! August 2011
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The Cast
Me - Mrs Pumpkin online, Michelle in real life - 34 years old and a plus size chick who is on the shrink, having lost 5 stone this year (so far). From my perspective, I'll be giving other plus-size dibbers my experience as a plus-size guest.
Him - Steven19720 online, Steve in real life - 38 years old and I think even more excited than me about going to Florida! Wants to try many American delicacies including catfish and corndogs (among other things!) So there will be lots of pics of food in our report!
The boy - my son and Steve's step-son, Liam - 12 years old and very excited about visiting Orlando.
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I love photography and take a LOT of photos, so my trip reports will be as photo heavy as a post allows! Most of the photos in my trip report were taken by me on my iPhone4, which I used the most because it was easy to carry around with me. Some days I did use one of the 3 Lumix cameras - the DMC-FZ18, the DMC-TZ18 and the waterproof DMC-FT2 - that we also took with us! Full sets from each day can be found on my Flickr. You can also follow my photos on Instagram - @cherry_o or if you don't have an iPhone, online at Statigram.
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Day 10 - The Circle of Life
Animal Kingdom, Tusker House Character Breakfast
All photos from this day can be found on my Flickr!

(Now that we are in the parks, I'll be adding in a plus size rider guide for those that are concerned. I'm 5' 4" and a size 26/28.)

We had two ADRs booked for today, but we decided to cancel the evening one at Rainforest Café as we didn't think we'd manage two big meals in one day. We wanted to experience character dining and so kept our reservation at Tusker House for the character breakfast ADR at 9:15.

Up and out early, we made our way out of the gated community of Tuscan Hills and I spotted an animal running past through the bushes - I pointed it out and said "is that an armadillo?!" On closer inspection it was! He was moving ever so fast, but managed to get a photo of him, and we were then on our way to Animal Kingdom!

Homer (our sat nav) decided to take us down a service road for some reason, and after farting around, we eventually found our way to Animal Kingdom. Parked up and took a photo as usual to remember where we could find our car at the end of the day (Unicorn) and hopped on the tram to take us to the entrance.

We got there in time for what I presume is the rope drop? There was a truck with Mickey, Minnie and Pluto telling us to make sure we had our maps and then, I am pretty sure they sang a song as well, from my diary I had written about this the day after and I couldn't even remember!

So taking their advice, we grabbed our map and walked in the direction of Tusker House.

We got there earlier than our ADR time so I sent Steve off to go and get some Fastpasses for Kilimanjaro Safari. The return time was 10:30 - enough time for us to have brekkie and get over there.

First up, a photo with Donald Duck. You're not allowed to get his autograph and was a little upset at this (how sad!) and also, he wouldn't be joining guests in the restaurant, which makes sense I supposed as he can't be out front taking photos AND walking round - duh! They do take pics with your own camera, the guy didn't focus my iPhone properly, but we have this one from our Lumix so all is not lost!

Once our photo was taken we were shown to our table. Our waitress was a Japanese girl, and sadly I couldn't understand a word she was saying :/ We eventually managed to figure out what juice to have and was about to go up to the buffet when Mickey walked into our part of the restaurant - yay! Couldn't risk not getting a photo with him, so whipped out my autograph book that I lovingly made way back when I was supposed to go in 2003…

I do have a photo of the book I made - but do you think I can find it?! When I do, I'll add it here! Anyway, a John Hancock and a photo with Mickey later, we took ourselves off to the buffet.

Our first port of call at the plentiful buffet was a Mickey waffle that I so desperately wanted after seeing them on a TV show about Disney lol. Liam LOVED the tater tots and came back with a plate piled high with them! Steve, as usual piles his plate high with as much as possible - I don't know where he puts it!

As I said, the buffet was plentiful, and this is me we're talking about, so here are some photos I managed to take whilst juggling my plate!

Daisy Duck was next to make an appearance, she signed our autograph book and posed for a photo. In our book I put a sticker of each character that I thought we would meet and it was cool to see the character's reactions when they saw a pic of 'themselves'.

We then took another look at the buffet - always wanting to get our money's worth! Whilst eating, Goofy entered the room, banging a tambourine and getting all the little kids to follow him around, playing instruments. He wasn't very happy if the big kids (read: adults) weren't clapping along, so we made sure to do so, so that he wouldn't have the hump lol.

He then disappeared before coming back a short while later to pose for photos and sign autographs.

I made one last trip to the buffet for some dessert…dessert at breakfast time? Oh America, you're so funny! I had some banana bread I think it was - it was delish!

I also snagged a couple of pastries and bagged them up for a snack later in the day…

Tusker House was excellent - the food was, I felt, much better quality than that at Hollywood & Vine (our other Disney dining experience so far) and the atmosphere better too - helped by the characters I think. The area around the buffet was nice and open with plenty of space - I felt cramped in H&V and all round, for us, it was a nicer experience at Tusker House. The waitress kept our drinks topped up and we didn't feel rushed with the characters. And whilst it is an expensive breakfast at around $86 for the 3 of us, I thought it was well worth it and would definitely come back here again.

Continued in next post...

[Mrs Pumpkin]

Pretty full up, we headed over to Kilimanjaro Safaris for our Fastpass return. I'm so glad that we did this early in the day as there were a lot of animals out and about. Our tour guide was informative and the experience just re-affirmed my wish of doing a safari out in Africa some day. From a plus size rider view - it's fine -it's a bench seat with no seat belts to worry about.

Had to stop for these horny guys as they were blocking the road

We had a near altercation with some rhinos who were coming way too close for comfort and they had to corral them away from the safari truck before we could complete the tour.

Some ostrich also decided to get in on the act!

Once our tour was over, we took the Pangani Forest Exploration trail with a lovely, non-crowded view of the gorilla.

We then decided to board the Wildlife Express Train to Rafiki's Planet Watch.

A walk through Habitat, Habitat and then into the lovely air-conned Conservation Station…

…where we met and was photographed with Rafiki, Jiminy Cricket and Pocahontas.

An animal keeper then came out with a ferret and talked about this animal for a while, we sat and listened for a bit before returning back to the train.

How time does fly when you are in a park! By now it was after twelve and we wanted to see the Festival of the Lion King. Knowing that this was pretty popular, we went to line up for the next show.

A very hot queue with random fans only hitting certain parts of the crowd, and not much in the way of shade at that time of day. Made worse by announcements to fill all available space so people were cramming in...the show (as most things in Disney parks I've found) was worth the wait. Very impressive. I LOVE the Lion King, especially the music and this different spin on it was wonderful. There is some audience interaction as well, and with everything going on all around you, I can only say that this is a must see show.

The Circle of Life is probably one of my favourite Disney songs, it gets me every time, and I even have little prickles of tears at the back of my eyes thinking about it (blush). Here is a I took on my iPhone of that song - the woman had an amazing voice! We do have other ones and will upload them to my YouTube channel as soon as I can, so please feel free to subscribe for updates when they happen!

With the dark theatre, fast action and only my iPhone (as Steve was taking video with our camera) these pics aren't all that, but I'll throw them out there!

The plan after the show was to go to the greeting trails in Camp Minnie-Mickey to see Donald and Minnie who were absent from the character breakfast, but the queues were huge and I figured we could go back on another day (we didn't :/)

Continue in next post…

[Mrs Pumpkin]

On the walk out of this area, Lilo & Stitch were signing autographs and taking photos - there was a small queue, but I HAD to meet these guys - I love them!

This is one of our photopass pics (we got the CD in the post this morning)

Stitch was just awesome, well, they both were, really played their characters well with Stitch 'licking' me and giving me hugs (too cute!) and Lilo telling him off for being naughty.

After photos, we headed over to 'It's Tough to be a Bug' which had the longest queue area/walk to the theatre. The ride itself was a walk-on, so we grabbed our glasses and sat down, waiting for the show to start.

Friends of our parents had been in Orlando recently and commented how much they loved this, and I have to agree - we loved it too. I love 'A Bug's Life' and the animation style of this Pixar movie, so it was nice to watch. I think very small children would find parts of this quite frightening as at one point you are plunged into darkness, so a heads up for people with young kids.

Liam then decided he was hungry and didn't want the donut that I had procured earlier from Tusker House for him, so we grabbed some fries, onion rings and a couple of drinks from Flame Tree Barbeque ($13).

Pinching a couple of Liam's chips, we then bought a corn dog. Not as nice as the Universal ones! But it got nommed up all the same :P

Realising it was nearing Mickey's Jammin' Jungle Parade time, we went to go and grab a spot near Asia. They were roping off the area, so we sat on a bench behind it and waited. Black clouds and thunder started to roll in, and the grim realisation that the parade may be cancelled set it. I asked a CM and they said it hadn't been cancelled…yet, so we continued to hang around and popped into the gift shop. Eventually the announcement was made that the parade was to be cancelled due to the weather conditions…gutted! We never did see this parade as didn't make it back for the afternoon parade time.

So with a heavy sigh we moved into Asia.

I loved the themeing in this part of the park - actually, I loved the themeing all over this park!

We made our way to Expedition Everest to start queuing, only to discover that that too was shut due to weather conditions.

I tried the test seat out in the meantime, and the CM said it would be fine - at least I would know for when we ride it…which sadly, we didn't (sob).

So continuing through, we went to watch the last showing of Finding Nemo - The Musical. Another fab show! Loved it! The production was brilliant and the costumes especially so. I know some find it weird that you've got the puppeteers on the stage holding the characters but you almost zone out on them - at least I did! I think it helps a bit if you've watched the movie (and guess what, I love this film too!) and I would happily watch this show again.

We didn't take many photos - really hard on both cameras, and to be honest, I was more interested in just watching and enjoying it than snapping away. Hubs did do a right at the end.

Animal Kingdom is a park of epic proportions and we seem to have spent today getting from one place to another. Park closing time was now edging closer, so we went back through to Asia to see if EE was open - it was, but a 50 minute wait and Liam didn't really want to do this, but wanted to do Kali River Rapids instead, so that's where we went, making note to come back to AK to do do EE (again, we didn't).

KRR had a short queue and we hopped on. Plus size guide - lap belts which I was fine with. We rode with an American family and had a great time, we rode the rapids twice over with them and we all got drenched! Had our waterproof camera with us, so took a of them getting soaked the first time out lol.

We slopped back to the exit as the park was now closed. Steve picked up our Donald Duck photo which we had bought at breakfast time and had sent to the entrance while Liam and I watched the closing song from Donald, Minnie and Goofy.

A tram back to our car to dry off (we brought towels to cover the leather seats in the car - they came in very useful!) and a drive home for a dip in the pool before a snack for dinner and hitting the hay.

All in all, whilst we didn't do everything here, we did most things. EE and Dinosaur (which we didn't even see!) were the two things I'm most gutted about missing out on, and I would say that this is a two day park. We did visit on our very last day, but it was a really flying visit so didn't do much I'm afraid.

I really enjoyed this park and can't wait to go back one day.

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Read the next day:
Day 11 - Seafood & Shopping: Red Lobster, Factory Outlets, Premium Outlets

Read the previous day:
Day 9 - A Sonny Day at the Lake - Sonny's Real Pit Bar-B-Q, Dairy Queen & Lake Louisa

[asdageek]

i am absolutely loving reading your reports! some reports i enjoy more than others and yours is def in my top ten! i love your honesty and your pictures are stunning! we have never been and dont go until 2013 but i get sooo excited when i read your reports i sit with big grin on my face and have definately jotted down some things we want to do from seeing your wonderful holiday! i so hope we meet lilo and stitch they were my daughters favourite when she was little and even although she will be 15 when we go she is bursting to meet them... as for me... i want to see everything and everyone lol!
Thanks for sharing and keep them coming (i will be kinda sad once i've read them all hehe! )

[Mrs Pumpkin]

Originally Posted by asdageek

i am absolutely loving reading your reports! some reports i enjoy more than others and yours is def in my top ten! i love your honesty and your pictures are stunning! we have never been and dont go until 2013 but i get sooo excited when i read your reports i sit with big grin on my face and have definately jotted down some things we want to do from seeing your wonderful holiday! i so hope we meet lilo and stitch they were my daughters favourite when she was little and even although she will be 15 when we go she is bursting to meet them... as for me... i want to see everything and everyone lol!
Thanks for sharing and keep them coming (i will be kinda sad once i've read them all hehe! )

See more...

Aww, that's such a lovely thing to say! Right made my day that has

As I've said before, I'm so glad that my reports are helping you (along with all the others that you have read)

It's going to be quite sad when I've finished typing them out too...that's why I think I'm taking my time with them - still got 9 days left to do...

[Guest]

Awesome trip report!

[disneyforever]

Great report. I agree with Asdageek, they are great! We love Tusker House, and the Nemo show is my absolute favourite.

[MFras23]

Really enjoying the detail and opinions of your time in Florida So glad you had a great day at AK.

[Milner]

Lovely day at AK and great photos.

[Cinderella]

Shame you missed the parade.