Disney Vacation--Day 1: Animal Kingdom

We started off our Disney vacation at Animal Kingdom. We begain in Dinoland....riding some carnival type rides and then taking in Dinosaur--a more adventureous ride. (Our "mission" was to travel back in time and retrieve a new species of Dinosaur. Something goes wrong on our trip and the Dino ends up chasing us. It's quite a lot to take in...needless to say, it wasn't a favorite with the kids.) :o) Then we took in a water ride--one of those 12 passenger round intertubes that goes over rapids. We got wet enough to cool us off for a bit. We walked through an animal habitat....saw some unique creature, including some large bats. After that we rode Everest--a roller coaster set "in" Mt. Everest. It was really fun!! We broke for a lunch break and then took a train over to see some creepy-crawlies. We saw large pythons, spiders, and the kids got to pet a baby alligator. We took at safari ride and saw elephants, giraffes--w/in 10 feet of our jeep, ostriches, and sleeping lions. Very neat. We ended our time in Animal Kingdom with the 3-D show, "It's Tough Being a Bug". It was so neat. I'd heard about it before our trip and have to admit, I was leary. It's a somewhat "interactive" 3-D show. They use some animated bugs from the Disney/Pixar movie, A Bug's Life, and they come out and showcase the different types of bugs and what they do. There was spider who could sling his "venom"--as he demonstrated this in 3-D--we see the venom flying across the audience, but they also squirted water at us from the back of the seats, so we feel like it's hitting us too! They also "poked" us--the back of the seat had a mechanism that did this--but you were paying attention to the show and then this happens---catches you off guard! :o) Very fun!!! We had a great time! We left the park and went swimming for a bit at our hotel before heading to Downtown Disney (basically, an outdoor mall w/ eateries) to have dinner. What a fun-filled, hot, first day!!
Posing at the entranceThe Tree of Life--Animal Kingdom's "icon".A view of the ride, Mt. EverestWatching Everest riders. The ride has a "theme" surrounding the mysterious legend of the Yeti--basically something like Bigfoot. Cody saw a snippet of the ride on a video of Disney parks and remembered ther is a Yeti "on" this ride, so he declined to join the rest of us on it. I waited with him while everyone else rode and then Nathan and I rode it together. It was so fun! And you barely even saw the Yeti!A watering spot in "Asia" that the kids frequented. This had a water "sphere" that they could play in and there was a spicket on the wall near this that Cody got drenched in! It was so hot, it felt good!Safari ride--this is the front of our jeep....I didn't get a good shot of the jeep.Elephants roaming on the safariWe were about 10 feet from this giraffe. Disney provides such great details in their themes. This is concrete poured to look like a muddy road on the safari.Time for a cool snack on a HOT day! Mickey shaped ice cream sandwich. Trevor had a Mickey shaped ice cream bar, he already has his half eaten by the time I got my camera out. :o)Ready to watch "It's Tough Being a Bug". 3-D show with special glasses.We ended the afternoon with a dip in the pool....however, the water was not as cool as we would have liked!