Disney Day 5

    Wednesday was the day that we headed to Animal Kingdom.  They also opened earlier than usual.  We wanted to take advantage and attempt to ride Flight of Passage on standby so we could ride twice that day.  I think they opened at 7:00 a.m., so we were up bright and early again.  Sleep never happens much in Disney World. 

Ready for Animal Kingdom

Just a chipper boy for how early it was

Pandora in all it's glory

    We got right into the park, and headed right towards Pandora and Flight of Passage.  We could not believe our luck when we saw the wait was only 20 minutes.  We were all so excited that we would get to ride it twice!  The ride takes a long time to board because there are a lot of different "pre-flight" areas, but we really didn't wait long at all.  It was a fantastic flight.  I just love that ride so much! 

    After Flight of Passage, we decided to ride Navi River Journey since we had never ridden it before.  We walked right on.  The ride was beautiful, but really boring and anti-climatic.  I can't believe people wait over an hour to ride this ride. 

    Next, we decided to head over to one of our favorite rides: Expedition Everest.  The kids can't get enough and the lines are always really short in the mornings. 

It was clearly not busy at all

   This was Gracie's first time being tall enough to ride.  She was so excited.  The ride is intense and has some scary parts.  She is such a brave girl I knew it would phase her a bit.  I was right!  She LOVED it.  I think we rode it four times in a row. 

Ready for an adventure

Boarding

    I think we would have ridden even more, but not everyone will ride that ride and we felt bad making them sit around and wait for us.  It was time to move on.  We had a fast pass for the safari to get to. 
 

Dawson got this Yeti last year and he brought it with him and this Yeti went everywhere with him.  

     Our fast pass was nice and we walked right on.  The safari always feels like you are on a real African safari.  Probably as close as we will all get anyways.  It was a good safari and we saw some good animals. 

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     After our safari, we had some time to kill before our next fast pass.  We all got some refreshments to enjoy while we waited.  We found some really nice covered tables on the water and it was just breathtakingly beautiful. 

Gorgeous!  

Only in Disney do we get to have ice cream in Sprite as a snack

The lovely humidity makes for some foggy pictures

  Next, we rode Kali River Rapids.  This is a water ride that gets you very wet, so I didn't get any pictures.  We had fast passes and the line was so short that we rode two times in a row.  We managed to not get drenched which was a win.  

   After our water rides, we headed back over to Pandora (this is why we get in so many steps).  We wanted to go back to the quick service, Satuli, for lunch.  Last time, we all really liked this place.  I don't think the food was quite as good as last time, but it was still pretty good.  The nice air conditioned break was much needed!  

Tired kids

Little friendly arm wrestling 

  After lunch, it was time to ride Flight of Passage.  It was an awesome flight and just as good the second time around.  I am so glad we got to ride two times.  Such a treat!  We made our way over to Dinoland for our next fast pass. 

Grace has the best seat.  She is getting big for a stroller, but she does not have the stamina to walk all day.  I did not care to listen to her whine about walking constantly, so I brought the stroller and am so glad I did.  

    Over in Dinoland, we had fast passes for Dinosaur.  We didn't need them because we walked right on.  We all love this ride, so of course we rode it twice.  

Ready to see some dinosaurs

This is the loading area and how empty it was

Posing with a dino

Group shot

Another group shot

   After Dinoland, we headed back over to Asia to ride Expedition Everest.  We lucked out again, and there was no wait.    Ella and Dawson decided is their most favorite ride.  We rode another three times in a row.  They begged to ride again, but we had dinner reservations so we had to drag them out of there.  

   For dinner, we were heading to another resort for dinner.  It was a restaurant we had eaten at two years ago and enjoyed.  Last time, we were at MK when we ate there and just took a boat over.  We figured we would just take a bus over the resort and it would easy.  The problem is, this particular resort is massive and has cabins, campsites, etc.  The boss just dropped us off at this random bus stop.  We had no clue where we were.  My dad just started walking.  I told him we better not just start walking because we had no clue where the restaurant was.  After asking several bus drivers, we figured out which obscure bus we had to wait for.  Once it finally arrived, we took a very long bus ride to the side where the restaurant was.  I kept reminding my dad that it was a good thing we didn't walk.  We would have been walking for miles!  It was quite time for our reservation, so we killed time outside.  

Not a bad view

Eating snacks

   For some reason, I didn't get many pictures of dinner.  It was a buffet and the last time we ate there it was really, really good.  This time it was awful.  They seated us so far away from the buffet.  By the time we walked back to the table with our food, it was cold.  The food was not good at all and I would compare it to Golden Corral.  This place will definitely not be one we come back to. 
   The best part is that to get back to the hotel, we had to take a boat back to MK.  The boat ride was really lovely.  It was dusk and it was just the perfect night.  We all really enjoyed it.  Much better than a bus any day! 

Gorgeous sunset

      We got to MK, and then got on a bus back to the hotel.  It was an early night, but we were just beat from yet another very early morning.  We were all ready for some sleep that night!