Christmas at the World (Day 2, Christmas with the animals)

Animal Kingdom Christmas Tree

Since my wife and I make planning our Walt Disney World vacation a part of the vacation itself, We knew in advance where we were going to spend the majority of our second day at Walt Disney world.  We had gone to the Animal Kingdom many time starting just a couple of years after it opened in 1998. Our first visit was during our vacation with my parents and my kids in October of the year 2000.  We had a great time.  Since that first visit the Animal Kingdom has had time to flesh out a little bit. Several new attractions had been added including Expedition Everest and Finding Nemo - The Musical. We had planned a head of time to eat at the Tusker house in conjunction with seeing Finding Nemo.  Our reservation at the Tusker House included preferred seating at the show. So after sleeping like a stone, my wife and I awoke in our room in the French Quarter at Port Orleans. We had our breakfast and caught the bus to the Animal Kingdom. Disney says that the bus service to each park arrives at each resort in about 20 minute intervals.  It seamed to me that the buses were normally closer together.  During the day finding a seat on the bus was easy. But sometimes, especially after an event, getting a place to actually sit down on the bus can be a challenge.  My wife and I spent several trips back from events and park closings standing.   For folks that live in a small city and public transportation, isn't used much, riding through the night while standing on the bus is a rare occurrence. Riding the bus while we were standing really wasn't a problem because we soon learned how to brace for the turns and stops.

Cover for the Kingdom Keepers Novel

The number of attractions at the Animal Kingdom has grown over the years, but what suprised us on this trip was the number of animals that actually live at the park.  Of  course I knew about the Kilimanjaro safari in Harambe Village, which we enjoyed twice on this trip, but I Didn't know that there were more so many more animals that I had not seen.  My wife has read every piece of youth fiction ever written. She worked as a teaching assistant at a local elementary school for many years and is now a librarian, masters degree and all, at the county public library. I bring this up because, knowing how much i enjoyed our Disney trips and how much I like most things Disney, she brought home the Kingdom Keepers series of books by Ridley Pearson.  Book II of the series "Disney at Dawn" takes place for a large part in the Animal Kingdom.  The book makes references to animals that I had never seen in the park, having spent most of my animal observing from the back of the big trucks that trundled through the savanna while on the Kilimanjaro Safari attraction. We had never walked the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail nor had we been on the Maharaja Jungle Trek.  So we were blissfully unaware of the number and varaity of animals that live at the park.  Of course we had seen Monkeys that are close to the Yak and Yeti Quick service restaurant, but we didn't know that very close to us were a colony of gorillas.   There were Big Silverbacks close by.  We also saw Okapi and Tigers.  It was amazing. The fruit bats were not out due to the cold weather but we did see pools full of colorful chiclids and even a hippo. Chiclids are colorful fresh water tropical fish that usually come form Africa.  Tolapia, the fish that many farmers raised for food, is a Chiclid.

Okapi, related to the Giraffe

Hundreds of fresh water Chiclids

Gorillas, but no mist.

Black and White Colobus Monkey 

Later that day my wife and I took the Wild Life Express train that runs from Harambe to Rifiki's Planet Watch.  The train has an unusual configuration for the passengers.  The seats are more stadium style facing only one side of the train.  I'm certain this was done to focus the passengers attention on specific things as they traveled out to Rifiki's Planet Watch. Park visitors get an opportunity to see the compound where the animals are kept at night and visit the Affection Station and the parks Animal hospital at the end of the trip. We were surprised to see the animal surgeries open to view behind the glass windows in the hospital and there were displays throughout the facility, all focused on the ecology of the planet. The Affection station had the obligatory goats and sheep that most petting zoos have, but I seem to recall larger animals like llamas and maybe even a donkey or cow there as well. The Animal Care specialists were kind enough to bring out a beautiful Pygmy Owl while we where there and answered questions of all kinds about all types of owls and birds. I found this true throughout the park where wild life was part of the attraction.  Disney cast members were always close by to answer questions about the animals and generally provide information about what visitors were looking at.  On more than one occasion i can recall a cast member giving a short lecture about a monkey or a bird that was on display in a cage close to where they were.  This only made the Wild life trails at the Animal Kingdom better and more interesting. It is important to note that the only visitor access to Rafiki's Planet Watch is by riding the Wild Life Express.

Crush and Marlin

In no time at all it seemed, it was time for our lunch reservations at the Tusker House.  The Tusker House restaurant had, over the past few years, evolved into a buffet style restaurant that served African and Asian dishes.  The restaurant offered a wide variety of foods that I had not eaten before and while some might not have been to my taste, the food was always hot and fresh. My favorite parts of the meal were some of the jams and chutneys that were served with some of the breads and the breads them selves were good and interesting.   In conjunction with our meal at the Tusker House, we received preferred seating at a showing of  Finding Nemo, the Musical, later that afternoon.  This greatly reduced our wait time for the attraction and we got seats right up front near the stage, parts of which surrounded us on three sides.  When the show started, there were times when we were enveloped by the performance.  I think that was a very cool thing.  Children were seated close to where we were and we took a lot of joy helping them look for Nemo as he swam across the curtain and appeared in the bubbles on each side of the stage.  The show started soon after we were seated and the auditorium filled.  For those that don't know the show,  all the characters are preformed by puppeteers in costume.  Some of the bigger characters required multiple performers. The affect is quite striking as you listen to the amazing voices of the singers and watch the puppets perform.  Having the live cast operating the puppets as well as being in costume and performing on the stage where everyone could see, gave the show a quality that was both real and unreal. The performers were all excellent singers and inspite of having to do this show several times a day several days as week, the show seemed fresh and fun.  We had seen it in previous visits to the park but there was no drop in energy and the performers all seemed to be still having fun doing the show.   Finding Nemo, the musical is one of my favorite attractions at Disney World.  I liked the movie and the Musical does a great job of condensing the movie down into a 30 minute show full of music and color. Its very hard to describe what makes the finding Nemo musical special. I can tell you that you will not see anything quite like it anywhere else in any of the other parks. Let me take a few moments to express one of my pet peeves.  Taking pictures during performances is dangerous for the performers and distracting to the other patrons.  Any photo I put in my blog of a performance was downloaded from an official source and not taken by me. Please respect those around you and keep the safety of the performers in mind.

Marlin and Dori

Acrobatic Monkeys?

 Disney does great adaptations for many of its films.  The imagineers go to great lengths to create environments that get the most out of the story the performers are trying to tell.  The Festival of the Lion King in Camp Mini Mickey in the Animal Kingdom was my favorite show at Disney until I saw Finding Nemo.  Even though I think Finding Nemo Eclipses the Festival of the Lion King in spectacle and story telling. The Festival of the Lion King is still a wonderful show capable of producing tears of emotional joy.  The performers are amazing.  The show is full of acrobatics and music.  The show starts with the four principle performers entering the theatre.  They interact with the audiance before the main show starts with animitronic versions of  an elephant, a giraffe, Simba and Pumba.  The stage is set up in the middle of the audotorium and the audiance is transported for 30 minutes to a colorful world of singing, dancing and acrobatics.  The costumes are pretty amazing.  World class gymnast dressed as monkeys perform on trampolines, high bars, gymnastic rings and a trapese. Later in the show to the song Can You Feel the Love Tonight, a woman dressed as a colorful bird does an lovey aerial ballet. The whole thing wraps up with the whole cast on stage singing the Circle of Life. The show is fantastic.  Now, That being said, while I enjoyed the show thoroughly, the energy of this paticular performance was not quite there.  Some of the vocal preformances were not what they should have been.  I had been to the Festival of the Lion King before and have returned since and been completely blown away.   Perhaps our long  previous day was catching up with us but this one time, the Festival of the Lion King fell just a little short.

How can people on stilts be bad?

Not riding the Primeval Hurl in Dinoland

There are plenty of other attractions at Disney's Animal Kingdom.  The Kali River Rapids is Disney's take on a river raft ride.  For many years we have avoided River Raft rides because my daughter had a bad experience on one. When she was quite young when she took a water spray square in the chest.  Another time our family rode on a raft ride and some stuffed animals I had won for her were stolen.  Having had issues on two different occasions she didn't want to ride them any more.  This was finally our chance to go on a river raft ride, but we had learned our lesson form the previous night on splash mountain. The low temperatures prevented us from goinging on an attraction where the rider is bound to get wet.  So the Kali River Rapids had to wait till we went in the summer of 2011 and my daughter wasn't with us.  When my wife and I were at Disney World that December, We thought that Expedition Everest was a little lame.   We have since had a change of heart. We had ridden it previously on another trip and it left us a little flat. So we chose not to ride Everest.  Since then, we have ridden the attraction and enjoyed it much more.  The Last attraction that I want to talk about in this post is Dinosaur.  I had ridden the attraction a couple of times and Dinosaur is on our list of rides that we do each time we visit.  My experiences with this attraction has been mixed.  The first time we rode Dinosaur it was wonderful.  On the next visit the ride seemed  rougher and jerkier. Of course this might have had to do with the residual affects form riding the Primeval Hurl. So it was with a little bit of trepidation that I approached the attraction on our Christmas visit to Disney.  But this time, It was once again great and fun.  Even though the rider might know the surprise that happens in the ride, It can still catch you. I don't want to give away anything so you will just have to ride the ride to get the surprise.

My Wife keeps the bamboo jungle from falling.

Delightful Eats at Jiko's.

Day two wrapped up with a delicious meal at Jiko's  A Cooking Place for dinner.  The African theme of our day  had followed us all the way through as we ended up at the Animal Kingdom Lodge for dinner.  Jiko's is famous for infusing African flavors into High Cuisine. The menu was full of things that would have been delightful to try and we decided to get as wide a variety of things that we could.  We concentrated on the appitizers.  We had flat breads that were very much like pizza only not really pizza. They were wonderful.  We ordered an assortment of spreads that went on a wide variety of African/Asian style breads. Some were spicy. Some were sweet. Some were both. All were intencely delicious.  We ordered a selection of cheeses that came with a number of accompanying foods. Each Cheese was different and it was great fun experimenting with the different types and mixing and matching the various fruits, jams, chutneys and breads that came with the cheese.  It was a very satisfying meal.  The wait staff was attentive and very friendly.  I've said this before but I think it takes a very special kind of person to be a Disney cast member.  You have be be engaging and friendly. You have to be very very good with people.  Our waiter was funny and attentive and engaging.  It made our meal all the better.  While it wasn't quite as late as the previous day, We still didn't get back to the hotel till well after 10:00.  Once again we collapsed in our beds so we could rest up for our third exciting day at Disney.