Animal Kingdom Park

On Wednesday, May 2 we went to Animal Kingdom. This is the main ticket booth at the entrance to the park. The funny thing about this picture is that it was taken on our way out of the park. We finished up here about 4:30 pm even though the park was opened until 9:00 pm. We were just that fast through the park.

Here is the Tree of Life. It is the symbol for the Animal Kingdom Park. It can be seen from all over the park and has the show "It's Tough to be a Bug" on the inside of the tree.

Here is a closer shot of the tree. See all the animal carvings. It is more impressive in person, but we thought we would share a picture with you.

How sweet!

Hayley loves to ride on top of Dad's shoulders. Sean is wearing the Animal Kingdom Hat he bought when he and I were there in 2000 celebrating our 1st Anniversary.

Sean playing drums at the request of Mickey Mouse. The Mickey you see hanging from Sean's belt talks to you while you walk around the park. He will wiggle and laugh when he has some cool information to share with you or when he just wants to tell you a joke. He is called My Pal Mickey and we bought him so he could tell us different things at each park.

Trevor's first pout while on vacation. He was having trouble understanding that we can not do certain things on his time table. We had a long travel day on Tuesday and got up early to come the Animal Kingdom, so it was expected and quickly dealt with.

Our 1st ride of the day was the Kilimanjaro Safari Trip. This is where you ride into the Savannah in an open-air safari vehicle. It even has the bumpiness of a true Savannah trek. Pictures were hard to take as the vehicle kept bouncing and we were not allowed to stop along the way.

We did see some cute flamingos...

Kangaroos..

Crocodiles (and lots of them)...

a baby giraffe - check out his legs as he drinks the water.
They bend so he can get closer to the ground.

There were lots of elephants, but the baby elephant was the cutest one.

It you look above Trevor's hat you can see two lions: one facing the camera and the other one looking the other direction. Because we were not able to stop we could not see the second lion very well.

The Savannah guide said that these mounds are extremely hard and are termite mounds. Yikes!

This is the main climb for Expedition Everest, Disney's newest ride at the Animal Kingdom Park. Sean and I were able to go on this 2 times in a row, but the backwards spiral in the dark got the best of us and we did not go on it again.

The view of the park from the Expedition Everest climb. Notice how the Tree of Life towers over the other trees. This is a beautiful park to visit.

You can also see Epcot off in the distance. The roller coaster come to a stop at this point just before it begins it spiral decent backwards. We were lucky enough to be in the 3rd row from the front and snapped this picture.

Hayley showing you her new sunglasses and of course, her tongue.

Hey, where did this monkey come from? Oh, wait he looks like us.

Mickey Mouse shaped ice creams on a very hot day are not the greatest idea if you are trying not to make a mess all over your clothes. The kids enjoyed this ice cream though and after a few baby wipes, the mess was gone.

Mom, Hayley and Trevor going for a ride with the Dinosaurs in DinoLand U.S.A.

Trevor wanted to go on this ride with Mom and Hayley. Trevor got to control the tilt of our dinosaur and Mom got to make us go up and down.

Monkey Island. It was neat to watch them swing around from pole to pole.

Hayley was tall enough to go on the Kali River Rapids ride with Trevor, Sean, Grandpa and yes even Grandma Roletto. I chose to stay off the ride to guard the stroller, well and to take pictures.

This was one of Trevor's favorite rides at Animal Kingdom and even all of Disney World. Not sure if it was just because you get wet or if he truly liked the ride. Either way he decided to go on again, but this time without Grandma or Hayley.

The "soaked like a drowned rat" group as Trevor called them.
For some reason Hayley appear to the wettest.

Hayley and Mom on our way back to the Bus. We decided to leave the park as we had already done everything we wanted to do and it was only 4:30.