Disney Day 5 - Animal Kingdom

I LOVED Ruthie's Animal Kingdom outfit! This was a hand me down from Blue and I was so excited about it!

After a relaxing day on day 4 we were up and at 'em on day 5 for a full day at Animal Kingdom with my mom! We didn't have breakfast reservations but we got there a bit early so that we could go straight to Avatar Flight of Passage. We (and the rest of the people at the park) headed straight to FOP as soon as the park opened. It was INSANE. Plus we had 2 double strollers to keep together. Paul and the little ones weren't riding but we were doing rider swap so we all had to go to the stand at the entrance to the line together to get our rider swap pass. We were lucky and didn't have to wait a ridiculous amount of time to ride!

The views from the line were so fabulous!

Unfortunately when we got close to the front of the line Emmie told me that she HAD to go to the bathroom. I tried to distract her but she really had to go. I decided to hop over the rail to the fast pass line and go to the front of the line and see if there was a bathroom up there we could use so we didn't have to stand in line all over again. Because if we had to go all the way back out the way we came and back into the park we were NOT going to make it back in time to ride with my mom and Ellie. So, learned something new. They didn't have a bathroom BUT they will give you a fast pass to come back and ride after you go to the bathroom! Yay! The cast members were super nice and showed us right where a bathroom was and we actually ended up riding before my mom and Ellie. Emmie absolutely did NOT like FOP. She was way too terrified to even appreciate the not scary part of the ride. Flight of Passage is similar to Soarin' but definitely has more of a roller coaster feel. My mom and Ellie and I were all glad we rode it but had no desire to ride it again. The special effects were amazing but it definitely has lots of "drops".

Mommy-daughter pic after riding FOP.

While we were ridding FOP, Paul, Ruthie and JP rode the Avatar Na'vi River Journey, checked out some birds, and then went and got these really neat books. You go to different stations throughout the park and answer questions and listen to their spiel and get a sticker! We later went back and got books for Emmie and Ellie as well. The kids LOVED getting their stickers throughout the day!

Getting stickers for their books.

At Animal Kingdom we had fastpasses for Na'vi River Journey, Kilimanjaro Sarafi, and Festival of the Lion King. At Animal Kingdom there are really only a few things you need fast passes for and they split their fast passes into "tiers" so you can only get one fast pass for a tier 1 ride so we used ours on Na'vi river Journey.

All of Avatar land was so beautiful.

After we finished FOP we went and used our Na'vi fast pass. It was really good and the kids were amazied at all the scenery. AND it was a nice, gentle ride for Emmie and Ellie after FOP.

We had lunch at Tusker House. The food was good and was a nice change from the "normal" buffet food. We dined with Donald, Goofy, Daisy, and Mickey!



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Goofy wanted to make sure Gran didn't get left out of the pictures!

We did the safari in the afternoon. It wasn't an "ideal" time for the safari (morning or evening are best) but we got to see lots of the animals and we all really enjoyed it!

Hippo in the water!

Termite mound...eek!

JP loved all the animals!

The kids loved Festival of the Lion King. I wish we could have done the Nemo show as well but it never worked out time wise.

Each section is assigned an animal. We were the lions. JP really got into making the lion noise.

It was pretty hot in the afternoon so we decided it would be a perfect time to do the Kali River Rapids ride. My mom offered to stay with JP and Ruthie but when we got up to the entrance of the line and measured Ruthie she was tall enough to go! She was SO excited! The girls loved the ride and Paul and Ruthie and Ellie got pretty wet!

While we rode JP got a great nap in the stroller!

Before we left the park Paul went back and rode Flight of Passage using the Fast Pass from Rider Swap and my mom and I took the kids to meet Pocahontas.



After a fun day in the park we did JP's favorite ride...the bus!


We went back to Caribbean Beach after we left Animal Kingdom and my dad met us there. We ordered pizza and headed to the pool! We played in the pool for a while and then ate our pizza down at the beach area. They had a band out there and the kids had a great time dancing and they found some friends to play with too! After we ate we went back to the pool for a little bit and then headed back to the room for showers and bed!

Anybody who knows Paul knows that he is very safety oriented. We got a big kick out of Paul helping the lifeguard. Might I mention NONE of our kids were in the water at the time!