Day 7: The Animal Kingdom

For our final theme park day, we headed to the Animal Kingdom. This park is really different from all the other parks and we really enjoyed it. It is a little more relaxed and so green! It is beautiful! We headed straight for the Dino Land section and tried "Triceratop Spin"! It is basically a Dumbo Dinosaur ride and Logan LOVED it! We ended up doing it 3 or 4 times while everyone else rode the roller coaster! Rylee also went on in once and really liked it, too.

Then we rode Dinosaur. It was pretty scary! It is similar to Indiana Jones at Dinsneyland with Dinosaurs. We thought about taking Logan, but he was barely too short and they wouldn't let him go, which was probably good because I seriously almost peed my pants when one of the dinos came out. My brother took a picture of the picture they took of us on the ride and I thought it was so funny!

Logan got a little spoiled on the trip from everyone! He knew just what to say to get what he wanted - He told Aunt Heather and Uncle Jay that "a popsicle sounds good", so he of course ended up with one! He LOVED it, even though it made quite a mess!

The Animal Kingdom had a lot of really fun things! The Nemo Musical was SO amazing! We all really enjoyed it! We also rode the Expedition Everest roller coaster and loved that too. It had a part that went backwards in the dark and did corkscrews and was SO CRAZY!!! Logan and Rylee also liked playing around in the boneyard and some of the fam tried the river rafting ride. Then we went on the Safari. It was pretty awesome! We saw crocs, giraffes, rhinos, elephants, ostriches, monkeys, zebras and lots of other antelope and stuff. I was a little bummed we didn't get to see the Lions, but it was still really cool. Logan insisted on riding the safari with Grandpa and Rylee wanted to ride with Uncle Jeff. They both loved seeing all the animals! Then we walked around some animal exhibits and saw gorillas and some other animals.

We saw a bird show and then were taking pictures in front of the big tree when the rain started!!! Within seconds, it was POURING and we were all drenched! We got our ponchos on and ran half-way across the park to see the Lion King show since it was inside. It was INSANE!!! The rain was coming down so hard that even with our rain gear, we were SOAKED and running through huge puddles! We were very glad for a chance to sit down and get dry and watch the Lion King, which was also a really cool show. By the time the show was over, the rain had mostly stopped and we saw the Jammin' Jungle Parade, which the kids loved because it had so many Disney characters!

Logan and Rylee trying to get a view of the parade!

By then, the park had mostly cleared out because of the rain so we went to meet some of the characters at Camp Mickey-Minnie. Logan loves meeting the characters! He gets so excited and runs right up to give them a hug and will chat to them and everything. It is the cutest thing and one of his biggest highlights. Rylee, on the other hand, is usually terrified of them but by Day 7, she was handling them very well! She loves to blow them kisses! I think she has decided if she blows them kisses from a distance, she won't have to get much closer! Because it wasn't too crowded, we got to meet Donald, Mickey, Minnie and Goofy without really a wait at all! We went to dinner at the Rain Forest Cafe. It was really fun! The kids really loved the cool rain and thunder storms that happened during dinner and all the robotic animals. They had yummy food and we got a HUGE volcano cake that was SO great! We, of course, celebrated Dean's birthday... AGAIN! I think that was cake #4! Rylee also loved "jumping" from stool to stool with Uncle Dean's help! She thought it was the best game and wanted to do it over and over again!


After dinner, the big kids all went on one more ride and me and my mom took Logan and Rylee to explore the HUGE tree in the center of the Animal Kingdom. It is SO amazing! It is made up of a whole bunch of animals carved into the trunk and it is so incredible to look at! There is even stuff carved into the roots! I took SO many pictures from all different angles because I thought it was so awesome! Here are some of my favorites!

All in all, we really liked the Animal Kingdom, although it would have been nice to be able to really explore it a little more without all the rain! They had some really cool things and we loved the different atmosphere!

We had thought that we would get back to the hotel really early, but we didn't get back until a little after 9. We hadn't been to the pool yet, so we decided we should try it out, even though we didn't head out there until almost 10! It was a little crazy, but the kids LOVED the pool and had a great time and it helped them get to sleep a little quicker! Both Logan and Rylee loved jumping into the pool and did it OVER and OVER!!!