Day 3 (5/28/15)

Our last day, and today we were going to Animal Kingdom -- Andrew's favorite.  This kingdom has lots of animals all over -- monkeys, lots and lots of exotic birds, an African section and an Asian section, both with walking trails, and best of all, a safari ride.  It took us a while to get our strategy figured out, but we hit some of the high spots first -- of course, the roller coaster ride for the grownups, Expedition Everest (Bridgette and Kaylee hit this one again at the end of the day), shows It's Tough to Be a Bug (Andrew would not wear his 3-D glasses, and Kaylee got a shock at the end when the seats all sort of shocked you), the petting zoo which is a trainride over to Rafiki's Planet Watch, where Andrew brushed/petted goats, pigs, and a cow. 

This awesome tree with animals carved into it was very interesting.

 And we got to get our picture taken with Mickey and Minnie.

The train ride over to the petting zoo was quick, but Andrew was in no hurry to leave this area.

 We ran into Chip & Dale here too.

(I think Kaylee likes this too, even if she is 14 now)

 

We ran into Daisy Duck on the way to lunch.

Andrew fell asleep on the way to lunch, so we decided to grab a "quick bite" at the Pizzasafari.  Right!  This was a zoo of another kind!  But Andrew got a nap in before we headed over to the Safari so it all worked out.

 

Joe got a lot of really good pictures of the animals so I'll just post a few.  The animals roam freely through their habitats here and the safari train stops to point things out and for pictures.  Joe could see himself driving this train, so I'm thinking he has a new career in mind.  I'm sure he would look forward to going to work everyday if he was driving through all these animals, but they might have to come out with a new dictionary for his passengers.

 We finished our ride and walked the African trail.  We also saw the apes, which Andrew really likes (as in monkeys).

 

Kaylee and Bridgette headed back over to the Expedition Everest roller coaster ride, and Joe and I took Andrew through the Asian jungle trek.  There were lots of beautiful birds on this trek.

 And we stopped and watched the Kali River Rapids boaters come through.

 We had to stop and play a little drums.

 And now for the show!

The show ended at 6:30 and we headed to our cars.  We stopped at Bob Evans in Lakeland for dinner, and got home a little after 9:00.  Andrew wasn't too interested in eating.

  Andrew was very happy to see his daddy.  And his dogs.  And his toys. And Joe and I were glad to be back at the motorhome and hopefully to recuperate from our 3-day Disney marathon!

Disney Day 2 (5-27-15)

Wednesday's agenda was Epcot Center.  On our visit in 1982 (August, I think), Epcot Center was still being built, scheduled to open in October.  We have always wanted to come back and see it, so today was the day.  We had breakfast at the Food Court in our hotel circle, then drove over to Epcot.  This "Kingdom" is really spread out, and we did a whole lot of walking today.  We took in several shows here, and a few rides:  The grown ups went on Test Track first thing, while I entertained Andrew.  We saw Ellen's Energy Adventure, the Circle of Life, Turtle Talk, and Journey into Imagination.

 

We spent a lot of time in the Future World West which has "The Seas with Nemo & Friends" and Turtle Talk.  We didn't get to do "Soarin" which is like California's "Soaring Over California" and I really liked that one at Disneyland but the wait times were always too long.  This area had a wonderful aquarium as well.

From here, we got something to eat, then headed over to the different countries.  Mexico is one of the best ones, it was first, and we spent way too much time in it.

Maybe Andrew needs a pinata!!

 Andrew was trying out a pillow here.  Looks like it fits.

 Kaylee checks out all the soccer balls.

Andrew likes the peacocks and can say that word really well.  We finally left Mexico and ventured through China.

We walked quickly through or past a few other countries, but it was getting time for the fireworks here and we didn't want to miss them, so we found a place to sit on the ground and settled in.  Joe finally got his funnel cake so we shared that while we waited for the excitement.  These fireworks were really different than last nights, had a globe that they did a lot of different scenes with.  Very amazing!

Kaylee borrowed Andrew's stroller for a seat for these fireworks.

By the time the fireworks were over, everything else closed so we just had the long trek back to the cars!  And it was a long way!  But we finally found our way back to the room and called it another full day.

 It was a long way back up off the ground.

I figured the problem here.  Our tour guide (Bridgette) is back to training for marathons and is running every chance she gets.  She's up to 5 miles now.  Believe me, you do not want to tour Disney World with a marathon-runner as your tour guide.  Poor Joe, still recovering with his broken foot, and me -- I'm just old.  So we GOT TIRED!

Disney Day 1 (5-26-15)

The "10-days-of Kaylee" continue.  On Tuesday, we drove over to Disney World for a 3-day whirlwind vacation there.  John had to work, so he wasn't able to join us.  Disney was high on Kaylee's to-do list for Florida, so Bridgette decided to make the trip for her.  We stayed at the Caribbean Beach Resort, a Disney hotel, arriving around 3:30 on Tuesday (Bridgette had to go in to UT for a meeting on Tuesday morning, so we left as soon as we could get ready upon her return home).  After the check-in process and waiting for the bus, we hit Magic Kingdom about 6:00 p.m.

No shortage of people here!

We were able to take in a parade right away, our first sighting of Mickey and Minnie, and most of the characters on the floats.

We took in a few shows and rides:  Pirates of the Caribbean, It's a Small World (one of my personal favorites -- to me, this one personifies everything that Disney does exceptionally well), Jungle Cruise, and Thunder Mountain for the grownups (Andrew and I sat that one out).

  We tried to line up for the electric parade but the streets were too crowded.  However, we did catch the end of it as we came out of one of the Lands (frontierland, I think).  And we watched the fireworks -- let me tell you, Disney knows how to do fireworks -- they were awesome.  Bridgette, Kaylee and Andrew headed back to the buses after the fireworks, but Joe and I decided to take in one more show -- the Bears Jamboree.  We had seen this on our other trip to Disney World 33 years ago and Joe remembered that we had really enjoyed it, so we caught it.  And then, on our way back to the bus, they do some magical light show with the castle so we watched part of that.

When we got to the bus stop, Bridgette and her crew were there -- still waiting, and it was 11:00 p.m. now.  They were at the front of the line, but there was a traffic accident on the highway and our buses were being delayed.  Someone graciously let us through to catch up with them, so we had just a short wait and we were on the bus.  We got back to our rooms and went straight to bed -- 11:45 and Joe and I were exhausted.