Disney, Day 3

We slept in a little bit on day 3 since we had stayed out late the night before. Animal Kingdom was a little bit further from our hotel than the other parks, so it took us about an hour to get there. We arrived around 10 and immediately went to do the Dinosaur ride. This was Hudson's favorite ride of the whole trip. Harrison wasn't quite tall enough, so again, Joel and I used the switch rider and we both got to do it. It was really fun! We had been warned that this one was scary for kids, but it didn't bother Hudson a bit! Harrison had fun playing on all the dinosaurs outside.

 

 

We had an early reservation at Tusker House for lunch. We were so excited to finally see Mickey and his friends!

 

First up was Donald!

 

Can you just see the joy in Hudson's face when he saw Mickey? These are the things that just made the trip.

 Then there was Daisy!

 And Goofy!

Harrison was ahem, under the table taking care of some business :) when Goofy arrived and of all the characters, "Doofy" is one of Harrison's favorite. He refused to come out from under the table, so we just had to let Goofy go. Thankfully, we were able to snag him again before we left. The Disney staff is so nice...I asked if Harrison could just take a quick picture with him since he missed him the first go around, and it was absolutely no problem at all. They were glad to do it. All was right in the world again once Harrison got that big Doofy hug!

 After lunch we happened upon Pooh and Tigger's hang out spot and there was only a short wait so we jumped on it!

 Harrison got a little intimidated by Tigger. I'm not sure why! We ended up taking a family picture with him, but it was completely blurry. Oh well! We got a cute one of just Hudson with him!

 We did another dinosaur ride that was similar to Dumbo and Harrison loved that. Then, it was time for ice cream to cool us off. This was one of the hottest days.

 We also did A Bug's Life in 3D and it was so cute! Harrison was terrified though and spent his time in Joel's lap! I don't know what they put in those seats, but there is a point where you get "stung" in the back, and it really hurt! Ha! You also get sprayed with water and at the end they do something with the seats that makes it feel like there are bugs crawling out through the seats. It was really great, and Hudson would have sat there and watched the show again if he could have.

 We had a fast pass for the River Rapids ride that afternoon (the wait was 2 hours so the fast pass was a must!). It was at the perfect time. We were so hot, and ready for a cool down. Boy, did we get it! Harrison was just tall enough to do this ride (he did have to it in a special seat with a bar though). I sat next to him and he and I really got the brunt of the soaking! Harrison got upset about it for a second, but recovered and when we got off, he was begging to go do it again! So fun!

We saw all the tigers, which was really cool (obviously we are big tiger fans!), and then headed to the African safari, which was one of my favorite things we did. We were so close to the animals!

Hudson begged and begged to do the Everest roller coaster, but it just looked like it would be too much for him. It had a pretty big drop. He probably would have been fine based on the previous rides he had been on, but it was definitely larger than the others. He was not happy about having to skip that one, but it will definitely be on the list for the next time! Joel and I both really wanted to ride it too!

We stayed at Animal Kingdom for most of the day. Our trip planner had told us that this would only be a half day park, and she had planned for us to go to Epcot that afternoon (next time, Animal Kingdom will be all day for us), and she actually had booked reservations at the San Angel Inn Restaurant in Epcot that night. We just were having too much fun at Animal Kingdom to leave when we should have, but we were able to hop on over to Epcot for dinner. We were glad we went! The restaurant was in the pyramid in Mexico and was about one of the best Mexican dinners we have ever had. There was a volcano inside that the boys could not take their eyes off of, and the atmosphere was awesome (and the margaritas were fantastic!!!). We were definitely tired from a long day, but it was a great end to the day.

The boys loved the big "golf ball" and were being so silly that night. They were completely delirious!

We also did the Finding Nemo ride that night before leaving Epcot and the boys just loved that ride! I have no idea why, but they wanted to ride it again and again! Ha!

We didn't stay for the light show at Epcot that night because we wanted to get back to the hotel (again, trying to stay on top of sleep--ha!), and Joel decided that instead of taking the bus back to the hotel, that it would be fun (and supposedly quicker) to take the monorail to the Magic Kingdom and then hop on the boat. The monorail ended up having a power failure and we got stuck! It was pretty funny. So we ended up getting back really late anyway, but we got to ride on the boat again! Oh well! It was another fun day and we had yet to see a fit out of either boy...it was truly a miracle!