10/26/00 Thursday

Disney's Animal Kingdom and Downtown Disney

After breakfast at the Crossroads shopping center we went over to Disney's Animal Kingdom.
click to enlarge - Mary demonstrates her love of lemons during breakfast

Just as we entered the park I spotted a 10 foot tall character, a mobile plant known as DeVine. The girls had heard of this and were eager to see it, but were taken aback by the green face peering out from close to the top. They would not get anywhere close. Louisa told me later that the plant had swallowed somebody and she did not want it to eat her!
click to enlarge - DeVine!

While watching DeVine, I saw another Chinese adoptive family. Aha! More CCAI people!

But NO! They looked at me funny when I asked "CCAI?". Imagine that, there were other families with Chinese kids in the parks beside us!<grin> They used LaVida and they had already noticed an increase in the number of families although nobody had spoken with them yet.

I took a look at the park map and I was not sure how we were going to find enough to do to fill the entire day. (I should not have worried. We missed about half the park and most of the stage shows.)

All the girls were fussy. We decided the best thing for me to do would be to see what the wait for the Kilamanjaro Safari was like and get fastpasses if needed while Marie took the older girls to meet Minnie and Mickey. Mary and I swept through the crowd to find that the wait was so short for the safari fast pass that there was no way that we could get over there in time after seeing the Mice. In the meantime the rest of the party had an adventure while crossing the bridge to Camp Minnie-Mickey. It seems a dragon lives in a cave along the river and he woke up and breathed fire.

Louisa saw some flamingos and decided she would be a flamingo.
click to enlarge picture of a real flamingo click to enlarge a picture of Louisa as a flamingo

I made it back to them before they got too far into the line for Minnie and Mickey. It was starting to get quite hot and everybody was still cranky. We almost bailed out of the line while the Mice took a break but stuck it out. (Amazing how quickly Minnie and Mickey changed clothes during that 5 minute break!<grin>) When it was time for the Mouse encounter, everybody was too shy to get close. Julia got all the autographs, though. She was intrigued by Minnie writing XOXOXO - hugs and kisses - and now she writes that everywhere.
click to enlarge - Julia's Mouse Encounter

All this and it was past 11 and all we had done was look at a few animals and had the character greeting. We needed to start looking for lunch but did not want to spend too much. We would take a look at Pizzafari and try for Safari fast passes again.

Yikes! Pizzafari was expensive for standard fast food Italian. We grabbed the fastpasses and headed over to have lunch at McDonalds in Dinoland. Marie and I had salads and french fries. Everybody continued to be cranky in the heat.

Lunch really helped!

It was time to trek all the way back to Africa for the Kilamanjaro Safari ride. This is a long bus ride through animal habitats with an anti-poaching story stuck in for good measure to entertain us in case there were no animals around. There were plenty of animals and it was a lot of fun. Our driver seemed bored but the older girls really got into the poaching story (they called them "the bad guys"). I thought the jeep with the rhino horns and other grisly poacher stuff at the exit was a particularly good touch. I was able to lift the girls up and both show and tell them what the "bad guys" had done.
click to enlarge - My Gorilla Girls (l to r - Louisa, Mary, Julia)

We took the train to Conservation Station next. The cast members made a big deal out of not letting the girls on unless they sang a song. Julia came through with flying colors but the oldest and youngest were still unsure of how to handle the magic. The cast members finally let us through on  Julia's performance alone.

The petting zoo was a big hit and I loved the elephant hand washing station.
click to enlarge - Elephant Trunk Handwashing Station

We sat down for a presentation of a very big snake and I saw my first unexpected hidden Mickey on the fence backdrop of the stage. One of the cast members kept waving a little Mickey head around behind the stage and poking it out here and there which delighted Louisa, as she was in full Hidden Mickey mode.

We never made it inside the Conservation Station building. Louisa wanted to get over to the Boneyard to dig up bones. She was convinced they were dinosaur bones. After she saw them she realized they were a "hairy elephant".

As we were approaching Dinoland we noticed that the "Tarzan Rocks" show was getting ready to start. Julia had fallen asleep in the stroller. We stuck earplugs in her ears and I carried her into the theatre. When the show started, Mary freaked out so Marie whisked her out the exit. Louisa loved the show but was still eager for digging up bones. When Julia started waking up I led everybody out to the Boneyard even though the show was still going on.
click to enlarge - Mary and Louisa on a Dino skeleton

click to enlarge - Mary showing how small the sand particles were

click to enlarge - Louisa being consumed by a T-Rex (with a little help from Daddy so she doesn't slide out)

click to enlarge - Louisa, Julia, and Mary in Dinoland

We quickly found Marie and Mary in the Boneyard interactive playground. It was interesting to me as well because of the amount of detail that went into it. Wow! The block and tackle on the "olden gate bridge" dino skeleton was the best detail. A couple of days later Louisa commented as we passed under it that "They haven't put the tail on yet!".

I deposited Julia and Louisa with Marie and headed over to the Dinosaur ride. The wait was 15 minutes. Wow! I was grinning from ear to ear when I got off.   I sent Marie to it while I took over watching the girls at the playground and she reported back less than 10 minutes later that the wait was too long. Wait time had tripled in the amount of time it took me to ride.  One of the ride vehicles must have broken down.

Julia and Louisa managed to collide with each other while playing and Julia got a bloody nose from her Louisa encounter. It was 4:30 and the park would be closing soon so we headed out.

After a rest we decided to go shopping in Downtown Disney. Parking was at a premium so I let Marie off with the older girls in front of the Disney store.  We exercised the credit card a little.

We ran across another CCAI family that recommended a very special gift to purchase for Christmas giving. I will reveal what it is AFTER Christmas.

We also found a wall outside the Christmas store with images of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum as guards. Louisa thought this was great.
Louisa as Tweedle Dee (or maybe Tweedle Dum)

• E-Mail me Email Kirby wukong@bellsouth.net