Animal Kingdom

We carefully planned out our trip in order to trick-or-treat while on vacation.  We went to 5 parks in 5 days and were there when they opened and stayed until they closed.  We rode all the rides, saw tons of shows and got the most possible out of the over priced admission.

As Dave said, “If Disney was a wet towel, by the end of our vacation I want to have wrung it dry, and then be sucking on the ends.  Every last drop!  Leave not a drop undrunk!”

So, for Halloween we went to Animal Kingdom because it closed at 5pm.

The only thing that we didn’t like about Animal Kingdom was the lack of air conditioning.  We chose the hottest day of our whole vacation to visit the animals.  The humidity was horrendous.  It was miserable.  So miserable that the kids and Dave convinced me to ride a water ride. I tried getting out of it because of the toddlers.

“I’m sure they are too short”.  Low and behold though, they cleared the line by millimeters.  “I’m sure that they won’t like it.  You guys don’t want to go on the scary water ride do you?  Oh, you do?  What if I told you that their might be flesh-eating piranhas in the water? Oh, you’re still willing?  Fine.  I’ll go!”

I honestly, don’t see the attraction of water rides.  Sure, they’re fun, until you get wet.  And then you’re stuck walking around for the rest of the day in moist clothes.  In Florida nothing seems to dry quickly.  Jacob was more than a little miserable about being wet.  He cried and whined for a good hour about being forced onto a ride that made his shorts and shoes wet.  “Buddy, I didn’t force you, remember I said it was scary and there was a chance of death!”

Alas, we continued our day wet and miserably hot.  So miserable, I broke down and bought $4.00 ice creams, practically the cost of buying a whole container at the grocery store.  I was even willing to pay for the overpriced Nemo lunch until I found out that there was no air conditioning in the restaurant.

The heat and humidity did fit perfectly with the theme of the Jurassic period. 

Poor Dave had to go on the most ridiculous ride with the older kids while the younger ones and I visited many dinosaurs along the most humid trail ever.  But when he told me the building was nice and cool, I gladly volunteered to take the kids for a second time.  This picture makes me crack up every single time I see it.   Please notice the back row.

And we can’t forget our quest for all of the characters.

Somewhere around character 12, Nathaniel finally lost the battle with sleep.

Me: “Don’t you want to see Donald Duck?”

[sleeping]

Me:  “He’s wearing a safari suit?”

[sleeping]

Dave: “Do you want some soda?”

Me:  “David, you can’t give our 3-year-old soda!”

Dave: “Remember our motto? Leave no drop undrunk!  Natey, you want a candy bar?”

Nate:  candy?

With caffeine and sugar we were able to get pictures with all of the characters in their adorable safari costumes.

and thankfully with a steady supply of sugar from all of the Halloween candy we were able to make it through trick-or treating.  One of the downsides of trick-or-treating out of state is you don’t know where you should be trick-or-treating at.  We drove around until we found some residential houses.  Apparently though, in Orlando you’re not allowed to park on the street. So we parked in the driveway of a foreclosed home.  We’re rebels like that.  After we zigzagged throughout the neighborhood and moved our car from abandoned home to home, and listened to the teen and a constant nonstop barrage of complaints about the candy and lack of other teens, and we filled our bags with sufficient amounts of candy according to the monster and army guy, we headed back to our hotel.