Disney 2015 Day 3: Animal Kingdom

When we were planning our trip, there were a few things that we had to keep in mind for our fast passes.  The main constraints were that we definitely wanted to be at Magic Kingdom for Hudson's fifth birthday, and that we had dining reservations for three of our days.  I love park hopping, but I didn't want to have to go from park to park just because we had a reservation for lunch at one place and dinner somewhere else.  And even though I logged in to My Disney Experience at 60 days out, fast passes for some of our most wanted experiences were already booked at the beginning of our stay...and we always prefer to have Magic Kingdom be our final experience, anyway!

And that brings us to the second day of our trip, which began at Animal Kingdom.  We went straight to the safari, and this little girl loved it!

We fast passed meeting Mickey and Minnie.  They were all so excited!

Even though Hudson's face says otherwise...

When my seven and eight year olds both get this happy about hugs from Mickey and Minnie, it's a winning day.

They all participated in the Wilderness Explorer program this year.  Since we had done it before, it was a little easier to make sure we hit all the stations on this trip.  It really is a fun way for kids to learn new facts about animals and about other countries!

This little guy was feeling very adventurous!  The day before his fifth birthday and ready to ride Everest.  He had an absolute blast on the ride.  I can't believe how excited he was...and he was totally not nervous AT ALL.

We heard that Tarzan was at the park, and we'd never met him before.  I'm going to have to echo Finley's "sketch face" here, and say, "Come on, Tarzan.  Put on some clothes!"

We rode the safari one more time (with a fast pass this time), and left the park semi-early to head back to the hotel.  These two spent MOST of the bus rides playing Rock, Paper, Scissors.

We stopped to visit with Rafiki on the way back to our Lion King room at the Art of Animation.

And then we got ready to head to Disney Springs (formerly Downtown Disney).

We have eaten at T-Rex a few times, but we decided to try the Rainforest Cafe on this trip.  And really only because Wyatt asked if we could switch while we were walking to T-Rex  The wait time ended up being about 15 minutes after they told us an hour.  Brian was actually walking to T-Rex to check the wait times when they paged us.  I think the food at Rainforest Cafe may have been better!  This guy certainly loved having a sloth behind him!

While this little one passed out while we were shopping!  We actually ended up renting a Citi-Mini from Kingdom Strollers for the first time.  It was awesome!  They delivered the stroller to our resort and picked it up the day we left! I loved having a stroller that was reliable and easy to open and close - and it rides like a dream - so much better than out Combi!  I wish I'd discovered them sooner.

He needed this rest - he was about to turn FIVE at the Magic Kingdom the next day!