Animals of Animal Kingdom

On our first day at Disney World, we started out with a nice air conditioned breakfast then set out into the heat of Florida to see the animals. First stop was the safari. While not quite like our honeymoon in South Africa, it was reminicent of it and a lot more efficient way to see wildlife. Instead of getting up at 5am to ride around for hours hoping to see some of the big 5 - it was a 5 minute ride where we got to see just about everything, other that the elusive lion. Apparently lions hate us. They were non existent on the many safari rides we took in Africa just about 8 years ago and they were apparently hiding under their rocks at their Animal Kingdom enclosure. Oh well, can't always get everything you want, can you? Not even in the land where magic happens. Here are some of the guys we did see:

Crocodiles! One of Cade's favorites.

Giraffes - even closer than at our hotel.

Cute Elephants

After our driving safari, we walked on several of the walkways that get you up close to some different animals.

Hippo Up

Hippo Under

Man it's hot!

Momma and Baby

Even the non caged wildlife was interesting.

We also took a short train ride over to Rafiki's Island and did a fun search and find activities with the boys, which they earned an "Explorer Badge" for, cooled off in one of the buildings over there where we also pet a snake and met Rafiki. Did I mention we also cooled off in there? It was hot.

Snake!

Cade and Rafiki

Cute Monkies

Dylan did not wish to meet Rafiki.

Tree of Life

Komodo Dragon

Roar!

Fuzzy Antlers

In the Bird Enclosure

Beautiful Macaws

Exited the "stage" by flying right over us!

Then we met Doug and Russell from "Up"

Mimaw HUg

They were really cute and fun.

After that, we decided we were about done at Animal Kingdom. We had ridden the few rides we wanted to do and seen all the animals we could see.  The Bugs Life show I had been looking forward to seeing was under construction so that was a bit of a bummer. So since Dylan had talked non stop for the last few months about riding the Haunted Mansion, we figured we would make his Disney wish come true as soon as possible. We hopped on a bus (air conditioned) to Magic Kingdom to close out our day.