Animal Kingdom

I only have 2 more posts left from our Disney trip and then I'm done! Sorry if this is boring but this is my family journal so I want to document all the fun we had before I forget.

We decided to visit Animal Kingdom one day. I was on the fence about whether we should go or not because I've heard such mixed reviews. Some people say it's just a "glorified zoo" but I'm so glad we decided to make a day of it. If you don't like animals, I definitely wouldn't go but we do so it was great.

We started the morning by checking out the amazing Christmas tree at the entrance of the park. It was beautifully decorated with a ton of different animals.

We first made our way to the Its a Bug Life 3D show. Lauren hated it, seriously. She was mortified of the loud noises and bugs. Needless to say, we didn't do that again. I guess we didn't start out the day right based on the picture below. She wasn't crazy about that big ole' gorilla as you enter the show.

A massive frozen yogurt cone cured the fear. And no she didn't eat that whole thing by herself, sheesh. All 3 of us split it. I could have eaten the whole thing by myself though. It was sooo good!

We migrated over to the awesome roller coaster there. It's my favorite among all the parks. That's Todd below waving at us. There was a great waiting area where you could easily take pictures.

There's a huge play area at the park that is wonderful. We could have easily spent 2 hours there but we needed to get moving to the rides we wanted to ride. Lauren spotted the slides in .2 seconds and had to give every single one of them a test run. She loves her some "iiiides."

We then chilled out to watch The Lion King show. It's amazing. The music is wonderful and Lauren truly enjoyed it. We've learned the hard way that we need to sit on the end when we go to shows. Our little peanut needs room to get her groove on :)

Now on to my favorite part of the entire park, the safari ride. It's seriously awesome. You board a vehicle that feels just like you're in Africa. You go on a lengthy ride throughout this part of the park that is filled with animals you'd see if you went on an actual safari. It's truly unbelievable. The ride closes at 5:30 (I think) because of it getting dark. If we would have known, we would have ridden it first so we could have done it multiple times. It was that good. 

Look at the mommy elephant with her baby!

After the safari ride, we boarded a fun train to take us over to a petting zoo. We all know that Lauren LOVES animals and petting zoos so it was great. However, they didn't have chickens and those are her favorite. Remember her birthday party post??? She will gladly hold a chicken if she sees one :)

Before getting to the petting zoo, we stopped for a character picture. Who is that dude? Lion King? I don't know. Lauren covered her eyes. Love it :) And just to set the record straight, we aren't mean parents who make our kid take pictures when she doesn't want too. Lauren can fool ya in a heart beat. 2 seconds after we walked away, she was blowing kisses and asking for more. It's just a show on her part.

In her animal glory...we need to live on a farm. I take that back, Lauren needs to live on a farm. Not her city mama.

Below is a video of us riding the dinosaur ride. Its just like the Dumbo one at Magic Kingdom. We rode it over and over again because there wasn't a line. It was seriously the best time to go to Disneyworld!