Day 3: Animal Kingdom and MY BIRTHDAY!!

Tuesday September 13th was our third day and my birthday! I wore my birthday pin and Armour yelled to everyone "She is 33 now-pretty old-older than dad again!" Funny!

As mentioned we were going to spend the day of my b-day in Epcot with all the other extra magical hours resort member peeps, but decided to try Animal Kingdom instead in hopes it was less busy. I think it was a good choice. We liked the whole fell and theme of the Animal Kingdom, but for me it felt a bit like a poor man's Omaha Zoo with the addition of a few awesome rides and a killer show! I loved, LOVED the Nemo live show-SOOOOO good-go see it if you are at WDW anytime when it is still there. Seriously awesome...I have NO pics of it though...I was too enthralled by it to take out a camera (plus flash photography is not allowed).

The park is only open from 9am until 5pm. We only did maybe half the stuff, but we enjoyed it. (After we left, we took the bus to Downtown Disney and walked over the the Hilton to eat at Benihina...the most expensive Benihana EVER. Even with my $30 birthday gift certificate we still spent like $130 on ONE meal...Wes will never let me live that down, especially since we could have eaten for free with our dining plan...I will post Benihana pictures in a separate post!) I will review the things we did in the Animal Kingdom in another, later post, but for now, enjoy some of the pictures I took in the Animal Kingdom.

First I should note we felt really welcome...they even made a sign especially for our baby:

Ok, maybe it wasn't FOR him...it may have been part of the Expedition Everest ride sign, but still awesome! Here are a few other Expedition Everest pics (BTW-probably my favorite ride at WDW):

We actually met Pluto and Goofy when a nice employee pointed us to where they were headed and we were first in the massive line to see them totally by happenstance:

And I took the most pics on the Kilimanjaro Safari:

Did you make it through those? Did you note the baby elephant, then the baby Everest?!  :)

Now, look at what Everest and I were watching as we waited for the others to come off of Kali River Rapids (which was the longest line we actually waited in the whole trip at a whopping 45 minutes-no fast passes were available and the kids REALLY wanted to go):

As you can see, Everest liked watching monkeys as much as his momma! I love little Monkeys!
Here we are in front of Mt Everest:

We also accidentally walked into a parade so we had to stop and enjoy it:

And here are a few other random shots of Animal Kingdom:

Again a great fun day and we had time after to go check out Downtown Disney (post on that coming soon) and to go eat at Benihana (Ouch---that post also coming soon to a blog near you). So, Keep your arms and legs in the boat at all times and enjoy the ride as I continue posting a little later on!!

Tower of Terror...staring Solace, Ender & Armour

As I mentioned in one of my earlier Disney posts, Kindle is 40 inches tall and thus barely tall enough for a lot of the big rides. At first we got her to go on a few, then she decided she only likes flat, slow, non scary rides. Yeah-she's a real dare devil! So, by the time we got to Tower of Terror, we were pretty sure it was not for her as it falls (not flat), is fast and scary. However, we got to the line, got a rider swap, and Kindle measured herself and walked over to Wes to go in. We told her it was scary, it drops, and was fast, and she insisted she wanted to go on it with Wes. INSISTED. We didn't think she would like it but we had decided before we left that we were willing to let them try the rides and form their own opinions. So, Wes entered the line with Solace, Ender, Armour and Kindle. I went to a shady spot to wait.

About 5-10 minutes passed then I saw Wes and Kindle coming out the front. I assumed he was bringing her to me, then running back in line with the others. But he told me that right at the point it takes you into another room, at the point of no return, Kindle refused to go through the door. The other kids were already in the room, so Wes yelled to them to go on and we would meet them at the exit. Solace tried to bail and go with Wes but he told her she needed to stay with the the boys.

They were on their own on the Tower of Terror...an 8 year old, a 7 year old and a 5 year old...interesting...I went into the exit and talked to a very nice lady about what had happened and she told me they would come out this way whether they went on or got too scared. She let Wes, Kindle, Everest and I wait in the area where you can buy pictures. I got more and more anxious as I waited and after what seemed to me like an eternity, the 3 of them walked out holding hands with Solace in the middle. All with fake grins. We asked how it was...Ender and Solace started reciting a rehearsed answer about how good it was and how they were hardly scared at all. Armour said "It was terrible. I did not like it." We asked them all 3 who wanted to go use the rider swap with me...they all refused!
We were glad to have our crew back and were grabbing the stroller to go when a lady-a random stranger came over and handed us a card and said "This is their picture number-you will want this one!"

Our curiosity peaked and although we had vowed not to purchase any Photo pass pictures at the outrageous prices, we went to the counter to see the picture (how could we resist with the strangers recommendation). We bought the download...Have you ever seem sheer terror before? Well, check out this picture:

Well-we managed to test out their fear level and scare them sufficiently. And they got to be big kids and do this all on their own! How grown up are they?!

Day 2: Disney's Hollywood Studios (I call it the poor man's Universal Studios)

Well, as you can see from the title, I was not exactly impressed with Disney's Hollywood Studios. But once again that brilliant Disney family has found a way to make it an unmissable park by throwing Fantasmic over there. Oh and it DOES have a couple good rides-mainly I liked Rockin Roller Coaster & Star Tours. Plus there is the Tower of Terror (I have a fantastic story about that one which I will post separately.)
Anyhow...we went to Hollywood for our 2nd Day, Monday September 12. Probably due to the fact that Monday and Thursday are the only nights to see Fantasmic, it was ultra crowded and we spent a lot of time in lines. They also gave us an outdated show schedule so we managed to miss the stunt show we tried to see. It was not my favorite park, but we did have fun there anyway.

Here are a few random pictures of us in Hollywood:

Entering...

 Dad feeds Armour...silly...

 Armour (Who actually is the King of Awesome)

 Everest was there too, see...and he learned to take a bottle better this week...

 Pretty Kindle

 At the DinoLand gift shop Ender found this beaded T Rex that he wants to try to copy and make at home. This picture was taken by Ender himself so we can try to copy it...yes I know this is a hilarious picture, remember though, It was taken by an innocent 7 year old...

And one of the first things we did (after getting fast passes for Toy Story Mania-which was a mad house all day by the way) was to see the Beauty and the Beast live show. Two very nice LDS couples sat behind us and shared their granola bars with the kids. Since they shared with us I had to forgive the fact they were wearing BYU hats...

I did manage to get a few pictures at the show:

You will have to read the next post so you can hear the funny/crazy story if Tower of Terror. We went on that right after the show. Then we tried Rock n Roller Coaster but it had a crazy long line. So we went over to the other side of the park and did Star Tours, and saw a Phineas and Ferb show. Wes took the little kids to Muppets 3D, and then it was time for us to go back for our Fast Passes of Toy Story Mania. FYI, that ride consists of little arcade type shooting games then it spins you around fast to other games. So, it is a spinning ride which FYI-make Wes really sick.

After getting off that ride, we went over to get a snack (we had 2 snacks per day per person with our dining plan after all). A couple kids got popcorn, and the rest of us got frozen strawberry lemonade. Armour had been a little abnormally quiet and low energy since the Tower of Terror. As soon as we sat down on the corner of Hollywood Blvd and Sunset Blvd to eat. He said "Dad I need a drink." There was a drinking fountain across the way so Wes told him to go get one. He got over and started to drink, then started to throw up in the fountain and then ALL OVER the street and himself. We saw everything come up and I will never look at Mac and Cheese the same again.

Wes jumped up and grabbed him by the elbows and we asked where the nearest bathroom was (as a lovely cast member was rushing over to clean up the mess). As it turned out, we were about as far from a bathroom as possible so Wes had to take Armour, covered in throw up, by the elbows all the way down the street. HE said it was like the parting of the seas with the crowd as they saw them coming. Then they got in the bathroom and they have those water saving sinks that only go on for 30 seconds then you have to move and the motion sensor has to think another person has stepped up. Obviously Wes had to clean up Armour's body and clothing, so he took off his shirt and pants and cleaned up Armour then hand washed the clothing, but he had to wait and reactivate the sink every 30 seconds so it took a long time. Meanwhile I saw how the Disney magic works on cleaning up barf, and it was gone and spic n span clean in no time.

After that, we decided we better go back to the hotel, and see what was up with Armour-we assumed it was from the spinning ride. Then we planned to return by 10 pm to see Fantasmic and to let the oldest 2 kids (and mommy!)ride Rock N Roller Coaster...That was the plan, but when we got back to the hotel we realized Armour had a pretty high fever and he had no energy. Wes was still catching up on sleep at that point and knew I really wanted to see Fantasmic. So, that night Wes stayed at the hotel with the 3 youngest kids, and I went back with Solace and Ender to the park for Fantasmic.

We got there early enough that we rode Rock n Roller Coaster, got a snack, THEN went in to Fantasmic. We were able to sit right where we wanted to (FRONT row) and we loved it. I got some OK pictures, but nothing really good of the show...There are some great kiddo shots though:

After the show we decided to go on Rock N Roller Coaster again, waited for 45 minutes and when only 10 people were ahead of us in line, Solace faked sick and we had to leave. In one of my worst parenting moments I yelled at her for faking sick (obviously she was just scared) and she still feels bad...I hope that is not the main memory she takes from this trip, but fear it will be! We had a great night out with just the 3 of us (Solace, Ender, and me) before that happened! Hopefully she will remember that too!