Disney World, Day 3 - Animal Kingdom

The third full day of our trip to Orlando was spent at Animal Kingdom.  Neeme had been searching for months to get reservations for all 10 of us to have a character breakfast or lunch in one of the parks, and the only one that was available was at Tusker House Restaurant in Animal Kingdom.

We got up good and early, and arrived at the park a few minutes after they opened.

Alex and I ran ahead to the ride and grabbed FASTPASSes for all of us to ride the Kilimanjaros Safari Exhibition with just enough time before we needed to check in for our character lunch reservations.

While we waited for our FASTPASS time to start, the rest of our crew had headed to the TriceraTop Spin ride in the DinoLand USA part of the park.  The boys loved it, and it was a bit hard to pull a few of them away.  We journeyed across the park to the Africa section, where we hopped ahead in line via FASTPASS to embark on a safari adventure.  It was very cool to see the animals, and the tour guide did a great job creating the illusion of actually being on an African safari. 

After the safari, we checked in and began the wait for our table at the Tusker House restaurant.  We attempted a family photo, but one person's eyes were closed and another was a bit freaked out by the Donald Duck who was posing with us, so alas we had to wait a bit longer before we could get everyone together on film (or memory card, these days).

The meal had a wonderful large buffet with familiar and unique options.  Our reservations coincided with the transition from breakfast to lunch, so our first passes through the lines provided some breakfast choices, but later only lunch.  The food was very good, but the visits by Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Daisy were the highlights of the experience, for sure!

We didn't stick around too much after lunch.  Boys were tired and we wanted to pace ourselves to make it through the rest of the week!  That afternoon we spent hanging out at the time share.  Neeme and Pawpaw were moved to the same floor as the rest of us and the boys loved being able to run down the hall to see them anytime they wanted.  The boys' parents loved being able to send the boys down the hall first thing in the morning, and going back to sleep for a little while too :)