Day 9 – Animal Kingdom

You think you can trust your neighbors and they go and betray you. Sure, we’re poaching his internet, but did he have to go and break my computer? Ok, I can’t say that he did that, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. I was connected last night and tried to upload a video. It’s a pretty big one too and it must have slowed down his internet access. Just as it was about to be finished uploading (I’m convinced I was seconds away from having it up) the internet connection went down and I heard a short beep from my computer that I’ve never heard before. It was the sound of the microwave beep. Just a “beep”. That’s it. Short and sweet. Didn’t think much of it. Until I couldn’t connect to anyunsecured wireless connection after that. Can someone really do that to my computer? Did my computer get sick of me stealing the internet? Does it have more of a conscious than I do? Heather? Help me out here.

Anyway, we showed our neighbor. We’re getting internet, and it’s faster than his too, haha.  Andwe get to smell greasy fries and burgers while we surf. We’re paying for our internet at Mickey D’s and I’m about to down a Big Mac, fries and a COKE people, a COKE. That’s worth paying for surfing. (And they’re letting us use their electricity too. We’ve got our computers plugged in to their wall).

Actually, Disney World has its act together. They serve Coke products and I couldn’t have been happier to take that first sip in the park when I found that out. It was like manna in the desert.

 “The girls at the entrance.”

Today we visited the Animal Kingdom. I planned that on purpose. Yesterday, a big park. Today, a smaller park. Tomorrow a big park and Thursday a smaller one. I’m hoping we won’t burn out as quickly this way. The Magic Kingdom was packed yesterday. I couldn’t believe how busy it was. I didn’t know how busy it should be in the middle of February, but I didn’t think it would be that busy. One of our friends we had lunch with said that it’s probably the kids coming down from up north who are having their “winter break”. What’s a winter break? We suffered through the winter in Georgia with no breaks. And it is cold in Georgia in the winter. Du tells me I’m a sissy, but he’s as hot-natured as a woman suffering through a hotflash.

So, today I was happy to see smaller crowds at AK. We headed over to one area of the park that had the Lion King performance and a lot of character sightings/autograph signings. The Lion King performance was great. Acrobats, guys on stilts, absolutely awesome costumes and singing. AndReagan and I had small parts to play! The section we were sitting in was the elephant section. Before the show the main actor asked if anyone from our section would like to help get the crowd ready. We all kept our hands down expecting a kid to volunteer. No kid did. So he asked again. I shot my hand up and he chose me! (No one else was raising their hands, so he kind of had to choose me). It turns out I had to make an elephant sound and lead my section in making that sound before the show. It was fun and I’m a great self-deprecator so I was in my element.

Don’t I look just like an elephant?

Near the end of the show they pulled out a couple of kids to shake African rattles and dance around with the actors. They let Reagan be a part of it and she had a lot of fun dancing around. We were proud of her to volunteer, because until now she’s been shy about volunteering.

Reagan’s Lion King performance was not the last for her though. At the next performance, Pocahontas and Her Forest Friends, she got to start the show by quacking like a duck and banging a drum. Not sure what the quacking was for, but the banging of the drum sure was cool. She got a little certificate for her participation.

We got so many character’s signatures today: Minnie, Goofy, Donald, Baloo and the monkey from The Jungle Book, Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore, and Tigger. Reagan was loving this. She runs right up, hugs the character and hands them her autograph book. Yesterday she got signatures from Ariel, Aurora, Cinderella, Belle and Mickey Mouse. Her book is totally full. I guess we’ll have to buy another one (at $12) if she wants to get any more signatures. I’m impressed with how much time the characters take with each child. I expected something a little like the Santa scene in A Christmas Story. You know, where each kid is herded up the steps, picked up and twirled around, stuck on Santa’s lap and quickly thrown down the slide. This is a kinder, gentler celebrity meeting though. Each character, each human character that is, would talk to Reagan and ask her questions. The characters that don’t talk would still hug and high five and spend as much time as the child herder would let.

We didn’t ride a single ride today. There aren’t as many at AK as there are at MK. We didn’t even make it to the dinosaur section of the park, and the park is so much smaller than MK. But we saw at least four live shows (that I can remember right now) and did a lot of walking through animal habitats. We didtake a safari on a limosine-length jeep with a crazy driver, so that could be considered a ride. Lots of African animals. Even some babies. Very neat.

The main theme running throughout the park is innocent enough on the surface, but if you listen to some of the talk it borders on eco-crazy. Think evil-humans-killing-penguins in Happy Feet (that was an environmentalist wacko movie, y’all, if you don’t believe me you may have already been sucked into the dark side).

It rained on and off throughout the latter half of the day. We entered the Nemo performance with overcast, but dry skies. We exited into a downpour. We weren’t really bothered by the rain. There were people running for cover as if they would melt. We, however, stuck around and got the last four character signatures. The park closed at 6pm, so we were done for the day.

We’ll see if I’m able to post tomorrow. We’ll be getting out of the park late. How late is Panera open?