Thursday

Thursday was a low-key morning. We slept in a little and had a leisurely breakfast at the concierge foyer. Here's a picture from the seating area on the 7th floor. The main beams are pre-cast concrete made to look like a log structure. They built around the concrete skeleton with natural wood materials. Some are cosmetic and some are load bearing, but the visual impact of everything together is quite spectacular. This main building we stayed in was modeled after the historic Old Faithful Lodge in Yellowstone National Park.


The remainder of the morning, we spent over at Hollywood Studios again. Our primary objective was to get to see the Lights, Motors, Action! Stunt show. Before that we stopped by the Drew Carey "Sounds Dangerous" show. Most of it is in the dark and you wear earphones as they tell a story through sound. I'm pretty sure Owen was bored by it, but I thought it was fun. After that, Owen was slowing down so Allison walked him around in the stroller and I rode Star Wars ride, which is an older platform motion ride, but still a good time. Here's Owen napping before the stunt show.

The Stunt Show is a great time if your kids are into cars and noise and explosions. Owen got a huge kick out of it, and I thought it was very entertaining. Make sure you don't miss it if you visit.. After, we rode the Backlot tour and Owen was intrigued by the movie set cars and planes and especially a small yellow submarine.. I can't recall what movie it was used in, but oh well.

Here we are with Mike Wazowski! Owen has been really into Monster's Inc. in the past few weeks, so this was a big hit.

Some basic rules to live by.

And of course.. Mr. James P. Sullivan.

We met up with Princess Jasmine (aka Marissa) and Danielle over at Animal Kingdom and spent some time walking around before our grand gathering dinner. Here's Owen and the princess!

Here's Marissa, Owen and I playing on the drums they have setup right inside the Africa section of the park.

We met the rest of the family for the Grand-gathering kickoff at the Birds of Flight Stage. Here we met our guide, and learned how to say hello in Swahili...... "Jambo!" After that we started the evening with an extended Kilimanjaro Safari ride. After the ride, we followed our guide into the Tusker House restaurant where the group was served buffet style while they played traditional tribal rhythms. After dinner, they brought some exotic animals by for the the kids to see up close. Here's Owen with a small ball python. It wasn't moving much, so he kept asking it it was alive... He wouldn't touch it, but was very interested.

The tarantula got quite a bit more interaction. He asked the handler a lot of questions, one of which was "can we take it out of it's cage?"

As part of the gathering dinner, some characters came by. Here's the family together with Timon & Rafiki.

Owen with a rice shaker!

After everything was done, it was a little after 9. Animal Kingdom closes much earlier than the other parks around 7pm, so park employees escorted the entire dinner group out of the very quiet park. After having been there during the day with so many people it was almost eerie walking out with no-one else around. On a random and interesting note... it was a very big week at Animal Kingdom because it was the 10th anniversary of the park's opening. We didn't see her in person, but Jane Goodall was there for an event, so there was an unusually high number of school groups and park supporters there during the week.