Wednesday - Day 2 After the Lion King Show – Animal Kingdom

The girls and I hung out in Camp Minnie and Mickey as we waited for Mike to get back from Guest Services. I had been told by a couple of people to get a notebook for the girls to let the girls get the characters siggy’s. Well, we bought a couple of smaller spiral bound notebooks and some sharpie clicking fine point markers for them to carry with them. We then found a huge pack of princess stickers and had the girls decorate their notebooks before we went down there. So they are quite proud of their notebooks and were when giving them to the characters to sign as well. :)

We saw Kenai of Brother Bear across the way to meet. We went over and got our first autographs and pictures with a character. After we did that, we went back to a bench and Meaghan grabbed the camera and snapped a few shots of Katie and Honey.





Meaghan’s photo fun…






After Mike got back, we went back to the main walkway and decided to get some ice cream to cool off and have a snack. We met a lady in line for ice cream who had a fanny pouch on with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway logo. We got to talking and she comes to Indy for the races and knows a friend who has been a puppy raiser for a guide dog school.

We then took off to the Kilamanjaro Safari ride. Before doing so, we asked a cast member to break Honey, which she quickly relieved herself and we came back out and got in line for the safari, since our fast passes were at their time. This was an interesting ride, as Mike and the girls wound up in a seat to the back, actually I started out with them too. The cast member I was with when breaking Honey, we were chatting and she had said that I’d have to move up to the wheelchair seat and Honey would have to be clipped to a tie down there. Sure enough, I was asked to move up, at least I was expecting it. We moved up and Honey just laid down quietly most of the ride, occasionally popping her nose up at me for re-assurance that we were ok.

The ride was really neat, as we were very close to quite a few of the animals and saw a baby giraffe and Hippos in the water. The girls enjoyed the ride it seemed, as they saw in real life a few animals they hadn’t seen before.

Deer


Hippos


Crocodiles


Gazelles on the plain (and nasty storm coming up in the background)














After the safari ride, we decided to head back to the hotel to try to get the girls down for at least a short nap before we went to our dinner reservations at Tony’s Italian house at Magic Kingdom. We quickly realized that if we were going to make it out of Animal Kingdom, we had the hustle, as they were roping the paths off for Mickey’s Jungle Parade. So we were quite a spectacle as we were trotting along down the street lined with people down both sides as we were hurrying back to the entrance of the park. We finally made it up there and went to Guest Services to turn the FM back in and Mike had to take Katie to the bathroom. Those few minutes cost us dearly for being caught in a absolutely torrential downpour and severe thundering.

Honey was immediately shaking and without any choice, we put on the ponchos we’d taken and marched the hike back to the bus terminals in attempt to get to our bus. The girls were wet, Meaghan’s tennis shoes were soaked since her sandals had broken the night before, Honey was soaked, I thought I had my hood up on the poncho over my hat and when I put it up, rainwater just went down my back. Then since Honey was upset with the Thunderstorm, she barged ahead pretty much dragging me along and we went to the wrong bus terminal. *sigh*

So at this point, we had a change of plans, as it was almost 4pm, the girls weren’t getting naps and we decided to take the bus heading to the Contemporary hotel and either catch the Monorail or walk over to Magic Kingdom from there. We do that we were on our way to Magic Kingdom!