[5SOXFNZ]

Again, we let the kids wake on their own schedule. We woke, had breakfast in the room and headed out to Animal Kingdom. We got there about 10am (GRRRR!!). Jacob had left his Red Sox hat on the monerail the day before and he had his heart set on a "safari hat" so we stopped at the store just past the Oasis on the left and found him just what he was looking for. He got so many positive comments on that hat for the rest of the week! He also kept commenting on how cool it kept his head! Then we headed straight to the Safari for our Fast Passes. From there we did the Pagani Walking trail.
I was taking pictures of the kids at this spot and a passerby offered to take one of all of us...it turned out to be one of my favorites of the trip!



By the time we got off that we were able to do the safari. It was good but a lot of the animals were hiding in the shade due to the heat. We hung around Africa for a little bit as it was almost time for our lunch reservation. We were able to see Baloo and King Louie and the kids played for a while on the drums. Then we headed to lunch!

Tusker House was good, nice selection on the buffet, exotic enough for Kevin but "normal" enough food for me! Ian ate about 12 corn dogs! (They were the mini cocktail frank size ones!!). I got an adult beverage called the Harambe Cooler...very yummy! I think it was one of my favorites of the trip! They brought out a cool cupcake because our reservation noted Jacob’s birthday and Meghan and Ian’s first visits! (Funny story, I was away from the table when the server came with the cupcake and made a big deal about the celebration, I had made all the ADR’s and picked all the meals to celebrate at so Kevin was clueless as to what celebration this was. The poor waiter put the cupcake in front of Kevin, who pushed it over to Jacob, who pushed it over to Meghan. Talk about a bunch of misfits!! When I came back I saw the cupcake and Kevin said “Whose celebration is today?” I said, “No ones I didn’t note anything on this meal!” Turns out that if you have a notation on your main package reservation it pulls into all your ADR’s in addition to special ones you’ve noted!!)

We headed to Asia to get Kevin a FP to Everest, but then on our way back to the walking trail we realized the single rider line was super short so he jumped in it. Ian had fallen asleep in the carriage so the kids and I waited in the shop (since it was cooler). The plan was to save the FP for me to go back and use later. Kevin was out in no time and we headed to the walking trail to see Tigers and bats and Komodo Dragons. The kid's found a lot of Hidden Mickey's on this trail!

One of Meghan's favorite pictures...she was using her "acting" skills!
We asked the kids but none of them had a desire to go on Kali River so we headed out of Asia.

From there it was onto Dino land, on our way there it started to rain, pretty hard…of course, we had been dragging the rain jackets around every day, but for some reason, today, decided that we would leave them behind!!, Luckily I left the garbage bag to cover the stroller in the stroller basket so we were able to cover the stuff in the stroller with that and Ian walked! The rain cleared out Dino Land pretty good so Kevin took the older two on Dinosaur while Ian and I did Triceratops Spin and ran into Pluto and Goofy!

When they arrived back form Dinosaur, Kevin took the three kids on Triceratops Spin while I rode Primeval Whirl (another I had missed due to pregnancy, and Jacob didn’t want to ride and Meg was too short!) . Then we headed to the bone yard/Dig site park. The kids ran around and had a blast on the slides. While we were in the Dig Site they announced that they were closing due to the storm (the thunder and lightning had started at this point). As we gathered our brood and headed out of there it started to downpour. We hid under a tree to reassess. We decided to head back to the resort and have an early night.It was now pouring rain, buckets and buckets coming down!

As we were running for the park exit we saw “It’s Tough to be a Bug” had no wait. Knowing it was indoors, we ran right on. I was a little nervous about Ian but he loved it! He was giggling and reaching out for the bugs!! When we left he even turned around and said “Bye, bye bugs!” the rain had stopped by the time we got out so we headed out of the park. There was only us and one other family on the bus to CBR. I think we had just missed the rush!

We all changed out of our wet clothes and headed to Old Port Royale for dinner. This was the first time we had actually eaten here and I wish we had found it sooner. There was a huge selection of food (not just the “basic” park regulars) and the staff was so accommodating and helpful! I had the Alfredo fettuccini with chicken breast, the kids all had pizza and Kevin had the meatball sub all from the Royal Pizza and Pasta Shop. While we were in lone to order Jacob spotted a hidden Mickey on the shelf behind the counter. He told the girl who was helping us that he found their Hidden Mickey and she answered “we have a Hidden Mickey?“ he pointed it out then she called over a couple of other cast Members who all reported they didn’t even know it was there!! He was very excited about that! (We already e-mailed Steven Barrett as it wasn’t listed on his site either!!)


We got back to the room about 8:30ish and got the kids settled down for an early night. I headed to the laundry to do a couple of loads of wash. It was super busy in there, I think it was the “mid-week rush”! I enjoyed a little quiet time sitting on a bench by the lagoon while I waited for the machines to go through their cycles. One note, a number of us in the laundry room found that even for a “normal size load” the dryers took 1.5 cycles to dry everything. After I folded and organized everything I headed off to bed!

Tomorrow we plan to be at Epcot for the World Showcase opening. We’ll be doing the countries and eating with the princesses in Norway!