Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Orlando vacation day 7 - Animal Kingdom

It is the last day of our 7 day adventurous vacation.  It's been great fun so far, so let's see what Animal Kingdom has in store for us.  We had to get up early to catch the 8:30 am shuttle.  We got to Transportation and Ticket Center (TTC) and took the Animal Kingdom Disney bus from there.  We got to the park and the first thing that takes your breath away is the Tree of Life.  It is magnificent.

There were 3 rides on our mind that we wanted to cover first which were Kali River Rapids, Dinosaur, and Kilimanjaro Safaris.  We were told by another tourist to cover the safari before 10 if we wanted to see the animals awake and outside, so we made that our first stop.  But before we go there, we made a quick stop at Kali River Rapids to get the fastpass.  The wait time for kali river rapids was only 15 minutes but we didn't want to spend time on this ride because that would have made us late for safari ride.  Anyways, after getting the fastpass we headed straight to Kilimanjaro Safaris which unfortunately had 60 minutes wait :(.  Finally exactly after an hour wait, we get on the safari truck and saw lots of animals, some asleep and some awake.  It was all of 20 minute ride for an hour wait, but that's ok.  It's just one time!

We then headed to Dino-land to see how the situation was with the Dinosaur ride.  There was about 40 minutes wait, so we just took the fastpass for the ride and went to Kali River Rapids.  This ride is short but fun and not to forget that it'll get WET!  The main cause of getting wet is that there is a drop with at least 30 degrees slope and it drops your boat right in the water making it hit with the oncoming wave and drenching each one of the passengers.  Right when we get out of the ride, there was Pangani trail which is about 10-15 minute walk.  We saw big frogs, gorillas, Hippos, and couple other animals.  It was already time for our Dinosaur fastpass.  The ride was pretty good but it was extremely dark, fast, and loud ride.  Also, it was completely unpredictable when the dinosaur came out from a corner out of the bloom.

There was only 25 minutes left for the Finding Nemo Musical show, so we hurried to the theater but the entire theater was packed.  Luckily we got seats some where in the back but viewable area.  This was the longest show about 40 minutes but very nice musical.  Don't miss this show!  The Festival of Lion King show was next so we started heading there since it was in the complete opposite side.  This was another one of nice musical shows where it was half an hour unlimited fun.  I also recommend seeing this show.  Next, we went to see It's tough to be a bug which is situated inside the Tree of Life.  DON'T MISS THIS SHOW!  This was my favorite 3D show in the entire park.  It's just 8 minutes long but completely worth the wait and time!  The best part is when you are on your way to the show walking inside the tree, you get to see beautiful carvings of animals.
After this super fun 3D show, we headed to Expedition Everest which is a super fast roller coaster ride (without any upside down loops thankfully).  There was minimum 60 minutes wait and they had run out of fast passes too so we had no choice but to wait in line.  This is one super fast ride which initially goes backwards at 55 mph for 20 seconds and then takes you right into 80 feet drop...Aaaaaaaaaa!  It was the fastest ride I experienced in all these days.  It was truly a thrilling experience.

Last on the agenda for the day and for our trip was Flights of Wonder show.  It's entertaining showcasing different birds from all around the world including eagle, parrots, owl, etc.  We were done by about 5:20 pm so headed back to the parking lot and took the Disney bus to go to TTC and then took the 6 pm shuttle to go back to our hotel.  This was the only day when we were back to the hotel really early but that's how we had planned it so we can get some time to pack our bags.  Overall, this park was a lot of fun too, but unfortunately our trip comes to an end after 7 long days of non-stop adventure, non-stop fun, and unlimited memories :).  We packed our bags, and did last minute run-through of our room to make sure we had everything.  We had to wake up early next morning so went to bed early with some good night sleep of recalling all the blast we had during this trip.

Hope you all enjoyed the long, never-ending posts of each day/each park and I will be writing couple more posts to give you guys an idea of the hotel and how we bid goodbye to Orlando.  Until then...see ya :)

No comments: