Disney World - The Animal Kingdom

The last time I was at Disney World, the Animal Kingdom didn't exist.  I was excited to see a new park, but I was worried it was going to just be a zoo, and not be that interesting.  I loved it!  It was one of my favorite days in Florida! We found a singles ward not too far from the park, so made a quick stop at the ward for sacrament meeting and then it was off to the park.

Ready to being our adventure

They had this great learning center that showed some of the behind the scenes care for the animals, my favorite though was the exhibit all about feces.  

The had a fun little petting zoo for the kids as well.

Then it was off to our safari through the African jungle.

This was a highlight of the trip. They have so many animals to see!

I really thought this giraffe was going to ram into our jeep, he just came walking right up to us, it was so cool!

We even got to see the lions out sleeping in the sun

I loved the gorilla exhibit as well, I think I took 20 pictures of this guy!

All of the carvings in the tree of life were so incredible!

After our African safari we headed to Asia, and the Yak & Yeti restaurant for lunch, so good!

I was pretty excited to go on the Expedition Everest ride, but first we had to check out more animals.

The bats were kind-of creepy, but cool!

I loved this ride, at the end of the day we went back over and rode it a couple of times because there were no lines - it was fabulous!

All of the shows at Disney World were amazing, and Finding Nemo was no exception - how they come up with the different puppets is just incredible!

 

At the end of the day we raced over to the other end of the park for the Lion King show. 

 

It was so much fun - the acrobatics were amazing!

At night all of the birds come back to nest in the trees, it was so beautiful!

One last shot of the Tree of Life at night.

Animal Kingdom closes earlier than any of the other parks because the animals go to bed, so we picked up some Ben and Jerrys and had another jacuzzi party in our room. Another great day over!

Disney World - Hollywood Studios

The next day Stef and Amy wanted to go the beach.  Diane, Melia, and I wanted to go to Hollywood Studios.  So, we split up, Stef and Amy dropped us off at the park and headed out for some time in the sun.

  

Getting ready for another fun day!

The Aerosmith Rockin' Roller Coaster was pretty great.

 The whole reason why I wanted to go to Hollywood Studios was so I could ride Tower of Terror - it is SO much better in Florida!  I love that ride!

Enjoying the stunt show.

Who needs Prince Charming when you have chocolate - definitely a theme for our trip!

The Little Mermaid show was so cool - most of the fish were puppets the were glow in the dark with black lights - it looked really awesome in person.

I was also really glad that we got to see Fantasmic - again - they do it right at Disney World, stadium seating instead of standing room only.  

Another great day at Disney World, we were so sad to leave!

Disney World Part II - EPCOT

Our second day we went to EPCOT center. 

 I had to get a shot of everyone trying to take a selfie when we first walked in!

Too bad our arms aren't long enough to get the ball and all of us in the picture!

We happened to be there during the food and wine festival - it was hard to choose what to eat for lunch and dinner there were so many great options!  For lunch, I finally decided to go with Moroccan!  It was delicious.

The drummers in Japan were amazing!

After making the rounds of the different countries we went on "Energy Adventures with Ellen" and I got stuck on my very first ride!  It was pretty cool for all the lights to go on and to see some of the behind the scenes stuff.  Then we all had to file out row by row and we got to go through the back exit.  

Coke has sponsored a fun area where you can go and try soda from about eight other countries.

Some were pretty gross, some were pretty good.  

Then it was back to the energy adventures to see if they had fixed it and we could finish what we started.  I was the only person without a smart phone so I was feeling a little left while we were waiting for them to open the ride again.  

We went back to the different countries for dinner.  I ended up getting some yummy German food.  

EPCOT is so beautiful at night with the ball all lit up.

The fireworks show was amazing.  I loved the images they projected on the ball.