Day 18 - Animal Kingdom

TLDR: Tiredness is setting in for all of us. Animal Kingdom today after a hearty breakfast. Pandora stuff in abundance for today, as well as the Nemo show and a few others we missed first time around. Mexican foods for dinner and then headed to a huge Supermarket before heading home late.

We’re really starting to feel the exhaustion kick in in these late stages, as we got up an hour later than planned having slept through our alarm. We can sleep when it’s all over (not sure when however being back at work on the Monday :eeek:). We’d arranged to be an Animal Kingdom for pretty much the rest of the day so went to Perkins to grab some breakfast (something we’ve not had a lot of this holiday). We stocked up on Pancakes, Waffles, Eggs, Bacon and the most important component of any breakfast - coffee! Were certainly doing a lot of exercise but Im now feeling the impact of the sheer volume of food we’re been consuming - a healthy few months is definitely on the cards when we get back! One thing of note is how they process tips here, you pay the bill with your card and once it’s done then you get to write on the receipt what you want to tip and they take it off you card after the event. It makes things so much simpler and easier.

So on to Animal Kingdom, previous visits have only ever warranted a single visit to the park, however with the addition of the new Pandora world, a return trip is definitely a nice to have if not required (which for me it is). Arrived just after noon and our first Fast Pass wasn’t until an hour after, so we headed to Pandora first to get some memory maker photographs with all of the exotic alien flora, waterfalls and magical creatures. GG also wanted her face painted like a Na'vi, and she chose a design which included wood sprites, that look a little like fluorescent floating jellyfish or ‘blue glowies’ as well call them (yes, Star Wars family here).

Nemo touched the butt!

So Navi River Journey was our first ride, a nice easy one to start with and even though it was second time around, it lost none of its Pandora magic. We then wanted to catch the Finding Nemo Musical, which was on the other end of the park, so we left Flight Of Passage until later and crossed over to the other side (of the park), to catch the show. We made good time so had our selection of seats and were a few rows from the front. No food or drink for some reason, but the kids managed to sneak in their ice-creams and eat them ninja-style (except for Grace who thinks ninja-style is making sure everyone around her knows what she doing). And then it started, a musical based on the animated film (a film which has no actual songs weirdly enough). Great show, vibrant and funny and the kids loved it, especially the end when they released loads of bubbles in the air (which Grace tried to eat - she is a weird child).

Once the show was over, it was back over to the other side of the park again to ride Flight Of Passage. I might have said this before but this ride is truly amazing! The experience and jaw-dropping visuals create moments of pure joy and there are times you believe, even for a split second, that youre actually flying through the air instead of riding a simulator. Awesome, awesome stuff. Our next Fast Pass was way back over the other side AGAIN, but this time we went via Dino-land and caught Dinosaur! A fast trek through the fabric of time back to the Prehistoric eras. A little bit bumpy and a little dark for Grace but still a pretty good ride overall. We also bumped into Russell from Up, Roberts favourite movie. He was as high as a kite when he met him, and it was a change occurrence too so glad we caught it. So the next attraction was one we didn’t mange last time, Kali River Rapids. It just started raining as we were boarding but as we were promised to get soaked it didn’t really matter in the end. Fast and spinny, and none of us really got wet at all, well until the very end when we hit a small dip and a huge arc of water sprayed all over me :/ As the weather wasn’t great I was wet for quite a while after that, but it was all good fun and glad we caught it this time. We then had a Fast Pass for Everest but Robert who was the only other one who was willing to ride it, wasn’t feeling to well so we passed on it.

With all of us pretty tired, before we left for the day we thought we’d like to do Flight of Passage again and so we did! :) It’s such a… well just look above Im pretty sure Iv'e raved enough about it already :P We did all speak about watching the movie again once we were home as I think weve found a new love for everything in Pandora. We headed out of the park, ending the day there on a high with one of, if not THE best ride there is to offer. It’s now that I bestow upon you, Gracie’s Fun Fact Of The Day. What? Wait a sec, did I say Gracie? YUP! Patrick did give me a fact, which is a rather cool one, but the others were feeling a little left out so today’s submission is for the girl herself:

> Elephants babies are named calves.

A pretty cool and relevant Fun Fact for today, don’t you think? :)

Stay on target, stay on target…

Ann had missed Chili’s for dinner first time around, so we decided to go there for dinner tonight and had an absolute mountain of Mexican food (and a few 2-4-1 beers for myself :P). Struggled to finish. As we had been pretty tired and finished up a little earlier than usual it was time to head home, so we did what we normally do and… went shopping. To Target, well actually Super Target to be specific. I was on the lookout for good coffee and Ann was looking for new sun glasses as she had misplaced hers, but instead of hitting Walmart again we thought we’d try somewhere new. It was MASSIVE and had EVERYTHING! We didn’t really give ourselves much time to look around as it closed at midnight but we did get coffee (though not quite what were looking for but coffee all the same), and Ann did get her sunglasses and we also did get a few more things (that we probably didn’t need). Time is running out for us now, but if we ever do need anything else, I’m pretty sure we’ll be back. Home (this time) and crashed (after watching a wee bit of Liam Neeson in Taken :P)