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The first park we visited in Florida was Disney's Animal Kingdom. We headed there first thing Monday morning, hoping to take in the whole park before our 2:00 PM lunch reservation, for which we had to go over to Disney MGM Studios. We strolled through and looked at all the animals first... the "zoo" part of the park. When we stopped to take photos of the Tree of Life, another guest kindly stopped and offered to take a picture of us in front of it. We wished we could have had him follow us around all day! He must have been a professional photographer or something, because he kept trying different angles, taking several shots before he was satisfied... it was funny, but we ended up with a great picture in the end!
After we had oohed and ahhed at all the animals, I had a moment of temporary insanity (one of several I would have during the week) and agreed to go on the Expedition Everest roller coaster with Chris. We were in line for forty-five minutes, and I have to stop here to say that none of the lines at Disney were as bad as I had thought they were going to be. I had pictured long lines out under the blazing sun, creeping along slowly for hours... and it wasn't like that at all. The lines are strategically arranged inside of the attractions, where it's air-conditioned, they move at a slow stroll, and many of the attractions have things to keep you entertained while you're waiting. For instance, the line for Expedition Everest winds through a museum dedicated to the legend of the Yeti. Anyway, just as we were reaching the front of the line, the ride unexpectedly shut itself down for some unknown reason - with people on it. Since they were unable to determine the problem, as well as needing time to rescue the people who were stuck out on the track, they had to close the attraction and turn away everyone in line.
Now, during those forty-five minutes in line, I had plenty of time to gradually come to my senses and wonder what in the world I was thinking when I agreed to go on this ride. So I was quite relieved when the thing malfunctioned and they kicked us all out. But at the same time... what if that line had been just a little bit shorter when we got there? What if we had been just a few minutes earlier? We would have been on it when it shut down!
Everyone who had been in line all that time and didn't get to ride was given a re-entry pass allowing them to come back later and bypass the regular wait line. However, from the conversations we heard around the other Disney properties and on the buses throughout the week, the ride continued to malfunction off and on for several more days. Needless to say, we did not use the pass.
By the time we left Expedition Everest, the time was approaching when we would have to catch a bus to MGM for our lunch reservation, and we hadn't yet gotten to ride the Kilimanjaro Safari, the one attraction you can't go to Animal Kingdom without riding. So on Thursday, which was our day to revisit any parks we felt like revisiting, after having visited all of them once, we went back to Animal Kingdom after lunch, specifically to ride the Safari.
Getting good photos from the safari truck proved to be a challenge, for although they encouraged taking lots of pictures and even pointed out good photo opportunities, the driver never slowed down enough to allow anyone time to do so. We had a lot of misses which had to be deleted, but we did manage to get a few good shots, which are here along with the rest of our photos from Animal Kingdom.
Next installment: Disney MGM Studios!
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