Disney Day 4: Animal Kingdom

After taking some pictures of our own Animal Kingdom at the hotel, our first activity at Animal Kingdom was to have our pictures taken with Pooh, Eyeor, Tigger, and Piglet

Wuggie Norple says: "I wish you got to hug Piglet too. He was doing dance moves I could see while I was waiting in line with Pooh."

But now it is mid-morning, and the park is congested. We get separated and lost. Just heading over to "Africa" to get a Safari Fast Pass makes us tired and grumpy.

Now it is HOT and we are already sun burned. NO breeze.

This park has the Disney mix of rides, shows, restaurants and shops, with a bit of zoo and nature trail mixed in. The central landmark is a huge tree that is beautifully carved with animals, but is not in fact a real tree. I want to photograph it, but I feel conflicted about the fact that there is a fake tree at the center of this faux nature preserve.

The whole place is a mix of real and unreal, native and imported. I am not sure what to take pictures of. If you have taken a look at the Carrots and Ginger blog in the last year, you know that most of the pictures that appear are taken within a block of my home. I love to photograph the little flowers that come up in my neighborhood as I learn the local ecosystem. I tend to photograph local things, native things, personal things. Here I find an amazing water bird at my hotel, and the next day see the same bird in Animal Kingdom next to a hippo or a lion who are a long way from home.

We see a bird show with trained exotic birds, but the highlight is not the birds or the witty banter, but the fact that we finally find our own hidden Mickey! Right in the bricks of the stage set!. This redeems our day and makes Wuggie feel like a great hidden Mickey detective.

Disney in general is incredibly well orchestrated. The service is excellent, the "cast" is friendly, the bathrooms and streets are immaculately clean, and it delivers something that Great America can't even touch. But the whole things is very surreal.

A pizza place spotted by Papercup Mixmaster makes it all good. It is out of the sun and filled with hand painted murals and sculpture. In fact, scattered throughout the real nature and the faux nature is hidden cool pieces of public art which appear to be hand made.

We had learned by now that when Wuggie Norple is at the end of his rope, what we need is to find someplace where he can play in water. We find a fountain that makes a smooth sphere of water. Wuggie calls it a force field fountain and in retrospect says it was one of favorite moments in Disney World. We play at breaking the force field with our hands. Next we head to the most giant playground in Disney World, one disguised as an archeological dig. There Wuggie is certified as Junior Paleontologist, while his parents sit on a rock near the giant fans.

After the carnival rides and games, we make the effort to make it across the park for the Nemo Show, which turns out to be Exploding Poptart's faorite part of the day. It made really wonderful use of costumes and puppets, was cast with skilled dancers and singers (and this from a musical comedy cynic!) We just hadn't expected to find well crafted theatre so close to a tilt-o-whirl. This 40-minute version of the Finding Nemo story was surprisingly moving, almost tear-jerking.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel. Because it was an early evening, we had the bus let us off at the "Old Port Royale" (read restaurant, hotel store, bar, dock). Here we discover the arcade, and Wuggie Norple discovers Mario Kart. He wins first place in race after race, and is crushed when we run out of credits and have to leave. We had chosen this hotel in part because it has a running track all around the lagoons, but there were so many miles of walking each day, Exploding Poptart never once went running. But it was a relief to roll out the yoga mat in the hotel room and stretch the tired muscles while the local baseball game played on the television. The whole family enjoys the Epcot fireworks on our beach, and having learned our lesson, we once again go to bed early.