Day 3 - Animals Abound!

Sunday was spent at Animal Kingdom, the largest Disney theme park in the world, covering more than 500 acres, and is themed entirely around animal conservation. The first place we generally head towards is the Kilimanjaro Safari ride. Guests climb aboard an open-sided safari vehicle for an "expedition" seeing many African animals along the way, which freely roam through acres of savanna, rivers and rocky hills. You can see giraffes, hippos, elephants, gazelles, rhinos, lions, and many other animals and birds. Keeping with the Disney "magic" and theming, guests are led to believe that they are embarking on a mission to stop some ivory poachers. It's all quite fun, and early in the morning, you see so many animals. We generally get a Fast Pass when we get there so we can get back on again shortly after the first trip. There's always something different to see every time.














Next it's off to see Festival of the Lion King, a 30 minute high energy, musical stage show featuring four live singers, numerous acrobats, dancers, puppeteers and parade-style floats. As the performers fill the theatre, 4 huge moving floats are brought in. Simba is a 12 foot high animated character sitting on Pride Rock. There is an elephant, a swaying giraffe and then one with Pumba and Timon. It's performed in the round, and the pageantry, energy, and colorful costumes make this a performance not to be missed!

Dinner was at Boma-Flavors of Africa located in the Animal Kingdom Lodge Resort and is a buffet. According to what we've read, a "Boma" is an open and natural space which provides safety and shelter in the bush. The restaurant is located two levels below the lobby, and is decorated with an abundance of African art and wood carvings with the ceilings as high as the lobby. The kitchen area is open so you can see many of the items being prepared, and though there are several unique and unusual items, it's still a typical buffet with many offerings. The food was good, and I found more items to my liking than Russ did, but he still enjoyed it. One thing that Russ really liked was one of the desserts called Zebra Domes. Now he's read rave reviews about them several times on different unofficial Disney websites, and they did not disappoint him! Zebra domes are a coffee-mousse little dome with zebra striped chocolate covering it on a bed of shaved coconut. He ate several! Personally I could have eaten an entire bowl of the Chocolate Mousse Crunch! Though we're not sure that we would go to Boma again, at least we can say we've experienced it.

On past trips we've always left our hotel room some time between 7am - 8am and headed straight for one of the four parks. We would generally spend about half the day at the initial park and then hop on over to another park and not return to our hotel until after catching one of the night time fireworks displays. Often not returning to the hotel after 10pm, catching some sleep, and starting all over the next day. We can remember many nights when walking the final few steps to our room was a struggle. We would usually sleep in one day during our trip, but for the most part we spent all of our waking time at the parks. With the dogs staying with us this trip and not being able to go outside the RV when we are gone, instead of park hopping to a second park after lunch, we have been coming back home. We let the dogs out, rest for awhile, feed and walk the dogs, then head off for dinner and our nightly ritual of seeing some fireworks. We both agree that by taking this break each day we are not nearly as tired, and by being in the parks less, are actually enjoying them more.