But, it sure had us up and ready in time for our breakfast reservations. Today, we would head into Animal Kingdom to start our day at breakfast with Mickey, Daisy, Donald and Goofy at The Tusker House at 9:30. Here we are entering Animal Kingdom only a few minutes before "rope drop", aka the time they open the gates to the park. 8:55 am. Again, this is a sign of off-season vacationing. I suspect in the summer it is not this empty.
We entered the park and headed directly to the Kilimanjaro Safaris attraction to grab 4 Fast passes so we could be guaranteed a good time after our breakfast without having to wait in any line. By now, Lew realized breakfasts were not 30 minute events. He had originally tried booking our mornings pretty full right away. These character breakfasts were taking us about 60-75 minutes total. You needed time to meet the characters, be sure you weren't at the buffet when the characters visited, get to the buffet, eat, meet another character maybe, try to go back to the buffet, wait for the check, pay...So, while Lew bopped over to grab the Fast Passes, the kids and I stopped to listen to some "local" musicians. Gretchen & Carl were sitting in the stroller, but the smiling lady on the far right of this photo approached the stroller with a percussion instrument and held it out to Gretchen. As Gretchen reached for it, the lady extended her arm enough that Gretchen got up and went to the "stage" with her. Well, Carl wasn't going to be outdone. It was approximately 3 seconds before he, too had an instrument in his hand and was dancing. I got a little video, but as you have seen, I haven't gotten the kinks out of that yet. I do have a pretty plausible reason for the pixelation, but I haven't purchased the software yet to attempt to fix that issue. Hmmm... Santa, video editing software???? I have been good this year.
The Tusker House was right next to this music area, so when it was our time to eat, we were all set. Before you entered the restaurant, which was so well done with it's African theme, you met and posed with Donald. When we met him a couple mornings ago, Carl kept rubbing his belly. See his hand here? How cute!
The worker did a great job with my camera, too. Some weren't so good. This one did a nice job. Of course, I cropped the kids out of this one! Ha Ha!! They'll get over it!!
The first thing our server did was bring us Jungle Juice. Oh my! Gretchen was hooked at the first sip. She downed 7 glasses throughout breakfast! Carl turned his juice glass in for a cup of milk. Kid doesn't like juice. He missed out on something yummy here.
Then, immediately, Daisy appeared to lead a parade of kids throughout the sections. She handed Gretchen an instrument and grabbed her hand and off they went. It's kind of small here, but can you see how big Gretchen's smile is??? 4-5 is a perfect Disney age! Everything was so much fun for them and all so real!!!
This restaurant was my favorite for food. The juice wasn't the only yummy menu item. that bowl has Banana Bread Pudding in it! Soooo good!! (that was my purpose for Trip #2 to the buffet... seconds of that!) The ham was awesome, the veggie frittata was delish, they had a sweet potato casserole thing that was so good and if you look at the center of my plate, you see they had fried plantains with rice to serve them on! MMMM... I have never met a plantain I didn't like!
This was our second time meeting Goofy as well. The different outfits didn't confuse them one bit. they never questioned whether there were 2 of them, just knew that Goofy was here today wearing different clothes! I told you, they thought it was all real.
He is not drinking coffee! (Although, secretly I will confess, I would love to see them on a caffeine binge. They have so much energy normally, I can't visualize a boosted state!) That's his milk. Now, don't let the perfect looking protein filled breakfast fool you. Notice, all the protein has remained on the plate. He ate his waffle right out from under the eggs and ham! And didn't even finish the yogurt. At least Gretchen's yogurt bowl is empty! Considering how much belly-room she used up on Jungle Juice, that was a pretty good amount of food to get into her. I guess. Do you realize each of these breakfasts cost us $100? Mickey waffles end up being expensive if you think about it too much.
Got to meet the mouse himself! This would be the only time all week we got to meet Mickey!!! And that is why we paid $100 each morning for breakfast. The other times we saw Mickey out and about, his lines were amazingly long. If we had had to wait in one, it would have cost us getting to do something else they wanted to do. So, you pay for the experience. And like I mentioned in an early report, these buffet breakfasts were so filling for Lew & I that on those days, we skipped lunch. That offset the cost quite a bit.
Luckily, the one shot the waitress took for us came out fairly decent. You would think in this day and age of digital cameras, that everyone would know to snap 2-3 shots no matter what. Oh well.
Our return time frame for the safari was perfectly timed for after breakfast. We left breakfast at 10:30 and our return time was anywhere between 9:30 and 10:30. And we lucked out and got to ride in the very front row behind the driver. This wasn't our actual safari vehicle, our driver was a young guy who was very good at making us feel like he was not scripted completely. I'm sure this guy here did just as good a job.
Of all the animals we saw - and of all the so-so bright sunlight animal pictures I tried to snap, this swimming hippo was my favorite.
The kids were not as into the safari as I thought they would be. Oh yeah, another zebra. Whatever.
After the safari, we wandered a little to look over the beautiful park. We stumbled upon this next character by chance. I think this was a really cool thing to have gotten to see, too. From what I have read, seeing her is not something you get to do each trip. This is DeVine. She is on stilts and was walking slowly around a bend when we came upon her. No one was around her except one Disney worker. Had we been 2 seconds earlier, we'd have missed seeing her at all because she was so blended into the background. She approached us slightly when we slowed down and once we gasped and got excited, a crowd started to form. At that point, she left being out in the open and walked over to a trellis. She hugged the one side with her long, stilt-like arms and rested her head on the crossbar and seemed to be ready to perch there for a little while.
We worked our way over to the next area and the boys decided to ride another roller coaster. Gretchen was again, not tall enough. It's Expedition Everest. I guess the story is you are going to climb the mountain, but your Sherpa abandons you. A lot of it was in the dark. Lew said at one point, you come upon a section of the track that is visibly destroyed. The story goes that the Yeti has destroyed it and the car must go back from where it came. So, Lew said for like 30 seconds, you are in this roller coaster racing backwards. They rode it the first time and Carl loved it! He asked to go again... so they did. The wait time was something like 5 minutes. But, apparently, something occurred on the second run. Carl didn't exit crying, but he no longer wanted to do any roller coasters in the dark. He later told us he hurt his head. Lew doesn't know when, but he did say that the coaster was very jerky and bumpy. Carl could have easily bonked his big ol' melon on the seat at some point. But, that was all we could get out of him.
In this photo, if you look about 1/2 way down the cart, you will see Lew in a cranberry colored shirt on the inside seat. The seemingly empty seat next to him is Carl.
From here, we headed over to a dinosaur area in the park. We rode on a triceratops ride that was very similar to Dumbo. There is a ride over there called "Dinosaur" and Gretchen was tall enough! So, even though I had read this could be scary, I let Lew talk me into riding it with him and the kids. This one had about a 20 minute line to wait in. Gretchen loves dinosaurs and she was super psyched to be able to be going on this ride. I was not. The line brought us to a waiting room with dinosaur skeletons and there was one for a dromeosaurus. That is her FAVORITE dinosaur! She was even more excited. Then, the lights dimmed a touch and the announcer was giving us some trivia and history. This is where she started having doubts. Loudly. We kept moving and got delivered to a room with a video that really set up the story. We were to go back in time on a dinosaur adventure. But, a worker was asking us to capture a dinosaur and bring it back to current time with us. The lead scientist was not in on this illegal move and we were assured by her that we would not be back in time when the asteroid hit the earth, destroying the dinosaurs. By now, Gretchen was not getting on this ride. Thankfully, the Disney worker allowed Gretchen & me to exit back out from this movie room and sent us down the hallway to the gift shop. That's where everyone would be exiting the ride. So, we just hung out, shopped and waited for the boys. We kept hearing announcements about a dinosaur loose in the building and pages for palaeontologists. They do a good job of carrying the stories through the whole place. When they boys rejoined us, Lew said we made the right decision. Neither one of us would have liked it. But, Carl did! He kept telling me that dinosaurs roared like the Beast. His favorite part of the Beauty & The Beast show was the roaring beast! So, dinosaurs were cool, too.
Gretchen sweet talked us into letting her buy a dinosaur grabber that roars when you open his mouth. Kind of loud, but they both liked it so much and we had not been buying everything they asked for, so when this one was only a $6 purchase, we said "yes". (note - I took my cousin, Liz's advice and brought several Disney themed gifts with me from home to give them at night, It really helped keep the "can I have"s at bay. The first thing we gave them were beanie baby sized animals... Gretchen got a Goofy and Carl got a Mickey. Oh my! I had completely underestimated how much they would love these stuffed animals! Carl is still carrying Mickey everywhere and you should hear his Mickey impression. It's perfect! Yay for $6 stuffed animals!!! Yay for Mom!!
We ate lunch at Restaurantasaurus. The kids had some favs... hot dogs and chicken nuggets. I had chocolate mousse. A perfect lunch, if you ask me. The kids' meals came in a sand pail with a shovel. We didn't think much of it. But, it really came in handy for bathing the kids at night. The one thing the condo showers did not have were removable hoses to make rinsing their hair easier like at home. But, having a pail full of water to dump on them made it much easier. Cool.
After lunch, we took the kids over to a big playground called the Boneyard. I'll admit, I am not a fan of the Disney playgrounds. There was one in each of the parks we went to. This one was huge. Eh, they all were. This one was also filled with caves and tunnels and bridges... and you couldn't see the kids all the time. There was only one exit, but the worker informed me that they were not responsible for kids leaving without parents. Lew left me and the 2 kids in there and he went to ride Primeval Whirl, which both kids were too short for. He said it was kind of lame. He came back and I hadn't seen Gretchen in a few minutes, but Carl needed a potty, so Lew took him while I continued to climb this humongous playground equipment looking for Gretchen. This was how I learned they don't monitor the exits. The worker told me when I approached him after 15 minutes of searching for Gretchen. I finally decided that if she had left, she had a 15 minute head start on me and I might need some help to find her. So, I asked him if there was a chance she left by herself. And he said he basically did not know, but, he did tell me there was a bridge to a big sandbox. Sure enough, I crossed over this practically hidden bridge and ended up in a huge dinosaur fossil filled sandbox. And there she was, sitting happily with a Disney worker. I asked, "Has she been here for 15 minutes?" and the worked, Kayleigh, smiled and said, "Yes. She is a real chatterbox." I did think that was a very polite way to describe her! I apologized profusely for not being there to supervise her. I told Kayleigh that I had spent those 15 minutes racing around the other side of the playground, unaware of the bridge or sandbox connection. We thanked her for playing so nicely with Gretchen and left to find the boys. I didn't even snap a picture of the sandbox area. When we left, the worker who was not responsible for monitoring the exit told me not to worry - it happens all the time. He said, "You oughta see it here on Christmas!"
So, now, the adrenalin had left and the whole "I've been up since 5:30" thing kicked into full gear for me. We had accomplished pretty much everything we wanted to, so we decided to head for the condo. We did stop to have a Photo Pass photographer take some shots of the kids. They have the kids pretend to be holding a baby and then computer add-in a baby Simba into their arms. Each park had a different computer generated effect shot. We did them all.
We cooked in the condo for the night. Chicken for the kids and a couple curry dishes for us that Lew picked up at Super target. It was another great meal!
The kids napped today from 4:45 to 8:20 pm. In the evening, Carl cried a little and complained that his leg hurt so I gave him some Motrin. (Gretchen gets growing pains all the time. I have mentioned them to the doctor and I was doing the right thing to treat them.) About an hour later, I asked Carl if the medicine helped his leg stop hurting. He replied, "I don't drink with my leg, I drink with my mouth." As if my question had to be the most stupid thing he had ever heard. Really??? Did I really think medicine that went into his mouth could possibly affect his leg? What was I thinking???
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