Polynesian Resort

May 31st: Animal Kingdom

Saturday was our third day at the park. After having stayed up pretty late the night before we slept in a bit. Besides going to the Animal Kingdom today we also had the Pirates and Princess party to attend that evening. I honestly don’t remember where we ate that morning, now that it’s been almost a month. Had we eaten at one of the character breakfasts I would have taken pictures so we must have eaten there at the Polynesian Resort where we stayed that week. We got kind of a late start to the day.

The girls didn’t particularly enjoy waiting for the bus…

Waiting for the bus...

We had a pretty good time at the Animal Kingdom but we cut it a bit short that day and didn’t get to do a whole lot of stuff. Pete and the wife did get to ride on Everest, maybe more than once if I recall and Pete loved it. The wife I think was feeling a bit ill by the time they got off…

While I didn’t get to go on the safari ride there is a walk in the Asia section you can go through and I managed to get a few pictures of the animals there.

Tiger at the Animal Kingdom

Tiger

These damned bats were hanging around. The fucking things were huge…

bats

I had a hard time getting a shot of this green tree frog in it’s aquarium.

Some kind of frog...

This guy was hanging out taking a nap in the heat…

Maybe a wild boar?

…and I did manage to get a picture of this Komodo Dragon lying around in the sun.

Komodo Dragon

There is this pretty cool fountain in the Asia section section that all of the kids were playing in cooling down a bit.

A bit of water fun

It doesn’t matter when or where, RePete is always ready to pose for a photo shoot…

Darn it's hot, but I'll pose any time!

We also rode the Kali River Rapids, which is my favorite ride there. I’m not much into roller coasters and I usually end up hanging with RePete anyway, but water rides I love. It was pretty hot and muggy, so we left the Animal Kingdom around 4pm or so and went back to the hotel to clean up and change after a short nap.

The Pirates and Princess party was at the Magic Kingdom and ran from 7pm until midnight. You actually had to purchase separate tickets for the event, so it wasn’t crowded in the least. I think we were all pretty tired before we ever even made it to that or we would have had a much better time.

This was taken in front of Cinderella’s Castle late into the evening…

Pirates & Princess Party

All week long by the time we finally rolled in to the hotel (this time it was after midnight again) the girls passed out…

Asleep after the Pirates and Princess party

Asleep after the Pirates and Princess party

Sunday we went to Hollywood Studios. I think we all enjoyed it much more than the last time that we went, but I will post some photos from Hollywood Studios next week.

Zemanta Pixie

Disney Day One (and two)…

The first couple of days of my vacation were pretty uneventful. Wednesday I spent the morning running around, taking the dog to the kennel, packing and repacking the car, doctor’s appointments and filling prescriptions prior to leaving town. It seems like a lot to be doing on the very day that I was leaving town but it was also my first day off of work so I had not had the chance to take care of any of it prior to that day.

I actually managed to get a nap in prior to the wife coming home from work as well, which was going to be needed. I planned to drive to Lake City Florida and spend the night, which is exactly what we ended up doing. Prior to that we stopped somewhere south of Macon for dinner. I had picked up cold cuts, boiled eggs and other goodies. Last Wednesday was our actual 20th anniversary so if we were going to be on the road I wanted our celebration to be nice. We drove on and made it to Lake City around 9pm or so and spent the night at…Best Western I believe it was. I would have to find the receipt to be sure. It certainly wasn’t anyplace I would remember. Just another generic hotel room with crappy too soft beds and a continental breakfast.

Magic Kingdom Entrance
We made it to Disney before 11 on Thursday morning…

Once we got there we immediately drove to the Polynesian Resort to check in. While it was too early to actually get the room and put our stuff in there I knew that we could get our keycards which contain ID, park tickets, room keys, and meal information. I also had mine linked to my bank account so that we could just charge any purchases to the room as well. Very convenient. Once we had checked in the bellhops locked our stuff up and we changed so that we could head off to one of the water parks, Typhoon Lagoon. It was OK, I think the girls enjoyed it a bit more than I did.

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We hung at the water park for a while and once we were able to check in to the room we took the bus back to the resort and I took a nap while the girls went swimming.

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I am almost sorry I napped, but I was pretty beat from the drive and then hanging at the water park. The wife got to watch the Space Shuttle lift off in the distance from the beach while I was asleep. I don’t guess you could see much more than the smoke but cool nonetheless.

After they woke me up we went to eat supper and then hung out on the beach to watch fireworks.

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They also do this light show on the lakes on either side of the magic kingdom that is pretty cool as well. Some things never change I suppose. I can remember the light show out on the lake when I went as a child 31 years ago. I guess Disney World was about five years old at that point. We stayed in the Camp Wilderness camp ground when I was a kid. My version of camping now revolves around a hotel room with air conditioning and someone else to prepare my food.

Zemanta Pixie

Vacation Plans

Already?

I just got back from one and am already making plans for the next 🙂

I have to because of my job. I already have the dates for the entire year laid out for my whole organization simply because it’s too difficult to set up at the last minute.

Anyhow, I have broken down and made reservations for Disney World again. Six nights, seven days at the Polynesian resort. They let you pay in installments, which is a good damn thing because I am going to be working my ass off over the next six weeks to do it, both at my real job as well as online.

I’m looking forward to it and the girls are all excited about it. This trip will be slightly longer than the last one in 2005, which will be cool. The Marine is going to see if he can get any leave while we are there and fly down to hang with us as well.

We are going the last week of May, first week of June and while it will be pretty hot, I spent a lot of summers in Florida and June is actually not too bad. August and September are the worst.

Last time we went we stayed int he contemporary resort, so this will be a nice change. Also pretty convenient to the Magic Kingdom and Epcot since the Monorail runs through the resort.

Now that RePete is five, she should enjoy it a bit more than last time. Not that she didn’t have a great time, but some of the stuff was a bit over her head.