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| Expedition Everest |
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| Outside the Animal Kingdom Ticket Center |
This is our families second favorite park and not by much. We will do this park multiple times in a trip while the others we have to really think about doing twice. This park also seems to get the lowest ratings. Some call it a glorified zoo, and it does have animals so I can totally see how they can mistake it for this.
Let me be perfectly clear, Animal Kingdom is not a zoo! It is a Walt Disney World theme park and it is done with just as much if not more care than the other 3 major Disney Parks in the area. I say if not more due to the animals. Disney already holds itself to a certain standard as far as safety and maintenance goes. Add in the extra care needed for the animals and you got yourself a very well cared for theme park.
This review is from Late May 2014, right after I started this blog and right before they added the Harambe Nights. This is an after hours hard-ticket event. Meaning it is separate from normal park admission. It is to celebrate the 20th anniversary of The Lion King, and is all-inclusive: food, drinks, and of course entertainment.
Another thing we missed was The Festival of The Lion King. We missed this due to construction. The show has since reopened at it's new location: The Harambe Theater. This is located next to the Africa section of the park and rightfully so as that is where the movie took place. This was an excellent show before they moved it and I have heard it is still absolutely amazing! We will definitely be checking it out on our next visit.
Keep in mind that there is still a lot of construction going on. However, it does not get in the way of much. They put large walls up so that you do not actually see the construction. Disney has closed down the old area called Camp Minnie Mickey, where the Lion King show used to be, to make way for Avatarland. Once completed it should be quite amazing.
Okay on with the review!!
We started our day off fairly early. We had our Fastpass+ already booked and as it was our first full day we decided no rope drop was necessary. This was to be a leisurely day. I must say, almost all of the days I have spent in Animal Kingdom were leisurely.
We arrived earlier than expected so our Fastpasses hadn't started yet. We decided to head to the center of the park. That is where the big tree is located. Under or in this tree is the 4D show A Bug's Life. It is very adorable and we enjoy it every time. This time my 3 year old even kept his glasses on the whole time!
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| Tree of Life in Animal Kingdom |
Then we headed towards Asia. This is where Expedition Everest and the Kali River Rapids are. These are two of my favorite rides! My husband and daughter headed over to Expedition Everest while my son and I headed to Kali River Rapids. At this point we still have no Fastpasses scheduled for about 40 minutes so I get on my app and what do you know I mess everything up!
The line for Kali River Rapids says 20 minutes so I figure it's perfect. My husband and daughter headed straight for the single rider line on Expedition Everest. Sometimes they get lucky and ride in the same car and sometimes they don't, but honestly they don't care they think that ride is soooo awesome!
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| My daughter in line for Kali River Rapids. Phone got put away as to not get we so no more pics beyond this point lol |
The line for Kali River Rapids turned out to be more like 40 minutes than 20 minutes. Which I must say, is unusual for Disney. They are pretty good at letting people know how long of a wait they are looking at. I think they are still figuring out how the Fastpass returns are affecting the wait times. This extra time did allow for two things, it gave me time to fix my Fastpass+ mishap on my phone, it gave me time to get over my frustration of the mishap, and it allowed my daughter to catch up to us and jump in line with my son and I. My husband hates rides where you get wet so he did not join us. He did however, stand on the bridge waving to us as we went by soaking wet! I love this ride as do the kids, and we dried pretty quickly. The ride is totally worth getting wet. Try to go when it's already warming up for the day so you can dry quickly.
After that we headed to our test run to see if our son was finally tall enough to ride the 40" rides..... and he was! He was so excited, little did he know we were about to take him on one of the scarier rides in all the Disney World Parks lol. We were in line for Dinosaur. Another one of my favorites, as you can see a lot of my favorite rides are here. This park does have a small amount of rides, but the ones it has are good. Add that to the shows they offer and the animals plus theming and you have yourself one heck of an experience. Anyway, this is a dark ride and it is pretty loud and jerky but in a purposeful sort of way, not like Space Mountain over in the Magic Kingdom. My son hid in my side almost the whole time, but said he liked it when we got off.
Next we headed over to Dinoland U.S.A. This is the carnival type area of the park located right next to the Dinosaur ride and it is kind of like a carnival. When we arrived they were having a character dance party. It looked like fun but the little guy is scared of characters so we walked past quickly. You know he is the opposite of my fearless daughter, so it goes to show you will not know what kind of experience you will have until you arrive.
We split up again here but remain within the same area. The little one and I go on Triceratops Spin, which is another version of Dumbo or Aladdin's Magic Carpet Ride, while the big ones go on Prime Evil Whirl. Both are good rides. Triceratops is good because the wait is never very long and it's just as good as the other two I compared it with. Prime Evil is good because, well it's just good! You have to ride it at least once and then you form your own opinion. We all like it, except the little guy he's to small. I think the height on this one is like 44" or 48".
There are also carnival type games in this section. Yes they do cost extra, just like carnival games do. We enjoy doing a couple of them because we always win at least one due to the lack of people competing against you!
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| Triceratops Spin |
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| One entrance to dinoland |
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| Carnival Games |
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| Prime Evil Whirl from Triceratops Spin |
After we did part of Dinoland, the part I just told you about we headed for lunch. We ate at a little quick service place right next in the area. The food was just ok. I don't even remember it, that's how just ok it was. We decided while eating that it was time to head back to the room for our afternoon rest. So that is what we did.
I will continue my Animal Kingdom Part 2 review tomorrow, with what happened after our nap lol.
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