As I mentioned yesterday we took my son to Animal Kingdom to celebrate his second birthday. His birthday is actually next week so you may hear about a couple of more celebrations between now and then.
We are lucky to live close enough to Disney that we can go there and back in one day. We went to Magic Kingdom last year so we decided on Animal Kingdom this year.
We left our house at about 6 am. We made good time and got there right as the parking lot opened.
This is us as we walked up to the entrance.
After seeing the opening ceremony the first place we headed was to the Kilimanjaro Safaris. You load up in a safari truck and take a bumpy ride through their wildlife preserve. We got to see lions, giraffes, rhinos, monkeys and tons more animals in their "natural" habitat. My son LOVED it.
His favorite animal was the giraffe (which he calles the Raffe).
After the safari I checked out what the street vendors had for breakfast. I found this "healthy" food cart. Check out all the fruit and notice whats in the middle there-- CHIPS. Yep, nothing better than a healthy breakfast of Cheetos. How funny.
We then got to meet Mickey and the bears from Brother Bear. I thought my son might be afraid of the bears, but he just ran up and gave them a high five.
They have some amazing musicals at the Animal Kingdom. If you go be sure to check out The Festival of the Lion King and Nemo The Musical.
We spent some time in Dino-Land where kids can go on an archaeological dig. They had a whole playscape based around a dig site complete with reproductions of fossils. We definately got our exercise trying to keep up with the little one as he ran and climbed his way through The Boneyard.
"Check out those bones Mommy"
Riding a dinosaur.
We caught a train out to Rafikis Planet Watch where we learned about conservation and went to a petting zoo.
He got a kick out of the goats.
By lunchtime we had worked up quite an appetite. We went to the Rainforest Cafe for his special birthday lunch. It's a fun, rainforest themed restaurant complete with huge aquariums and animated animals.
If you're hoping I'm going to give you a review on how to eat healthy while at the Rainforest Cafe then you're out of luck. We were celebrating and my one healthy concession was drinking water. :) Every once in a while its ok to splurge.
An appetizer of spinich artichoke dip.
I ordered the Seafood Platter. (Note to self: stay away from meals with the word "platter" in the name.)It was HUGE. It was wonderful baked Mahi Mahi with a mango chutney on top, shrimp and scallops, cajun rice with black beans, a lobster tail with drawn butter and some sort of citrus slaw. WAY too much food. I ate about half of it, knowing that a special birthday dessert was coming up.
"Happy Birthday to You"
We ordered the Chocolate Volcano which was basically three huge slices of brownies surrounding ice cream. Of course my son was thrilled. Yum.
After our feast we needed to walk around so we checked out some of the sights.
We also saw a 3D movie about bugs. Nice glasses, huh?
After watching the Jungle Parade, riding a ride and doing a little shopping we decided to head home, happy but worn out.
Now... .its time to run off that brownie. Hope everyone has had a great weekend!