Animal Kingdom

I'm just going to come right out and say it, I am a HUGE fan of Disney's Animal Kingdom. It could possibly be my favorite of all the Disney parks. We spent the only sunny day of our vacation at this park. It could not have been more perfect. We arrived prior to rope drop, and so we had a front-row seat for the "Let the Adventure Begin" show. In this "show", Mickey, Minnie, and Pluto drive up on a truck and do a little skit about how much fun everyone is about to have. The kids loved seeing the characters and waved at them for the duration of the skit. Once the truck pulled away, the rope was dropped, and we headed straight to the best ride in the park- Kilimanjaro Safaris. We were on one of the first safari vehicles to pull out, and we saw all sorts of animals- including rhinos, cheetahs, lions, hippos, elephants, and giraffes. Some got amazingly close to the safari truck. We had heard that it is best to do this ride in the morning while it is still cool because that's when the animals are most active. Whomever gave us that piece of advice was absolutely right. The animals were up and at'em. While at Animal Kingdom, we rode many rides (including the Expedition Everest coaster), saw two fantastic shows, and met many characters. Although the entire day was great, the highlight for me occurred during the "Festival of the Lion King" performance when Olivia was chosen to be in the show. She and a few other kids got to walk around shaking some type of maraca-like instrument while the entire cast of the show sang "The Lion Sleeps Tonight". We tried to get pictures of this, but the lighting was all wrong. We did get a very short video clip of her role in the show, and it is at the bottom of the post. We ended up spending the entire day at the park, and we were exhausted that night. But, it was so... worth it.