Just got back from my 3 day trip to the world for my 40th birthday from 5/21-5/23. It was just me and my 19 year old niece (DS9 couldn’t miss anymore school days, so he stayed home with DH). Originally, it was a planned as a cheap trip with one day. Somehow it evolved to 2 park days and one resort day.
Anyhow, we had an early flight out at 6:10am from Providence. Sooooo early. We arrived just before 10am, headed to DME and was on our way to the Beach Club after about 20 minutes. When we arrived, our room wasn’t ready so we checked a few things with Bell Services and headed to Animal Kingdom for our first day.
We arrived around 11:45am very hungry. We headed to Rainforest Cafe to use my Landry’s birthday Credit (my niece is not an adventurous eater and vetoed nearly every other option).
After that, we went into the park for a picture with the Tree of Life.
Then we had time to kill before our Wild Africa Trek so we headed down the Gorilla Falls trail. At 2:15pm, we went to the check in near Kilimanjaro Safaris (our Trek was scheduled for 2:30). We were originally the only 2 who signed up but while we made a bathroom stop, another family of 3 signed up. But still very small group.
Our tour guides were Daniel and Jill and they were great. Tons of great, interesting animal facts and lots of fun. They fitted us with our gear (including securing our phones so we could take them with us for pictures, although you honestly don’t them - they take a ton of great pictures for you all along the way). You receive a water bottle you keep and can fill up prior to leaving. This day was overcast but no rain - actually pretty perfect.
Then we headed down towards the same trail we had taken earlier. We made a few quick stops at the monkeys, to see the giant bullfrog and finally the aviary.
Next we headed backstage up a trail near the hippo pool. We were hitched up to safety line to stand above the hippo pool with the cast manager who specialized in hippos. They called one over by banging on a bucket that contained lettuce. One quickly appeared before us and she tossed him food as she gave us some hippo facts. I love the hippos since we don’t see them at our zoos back home!
Next it was time to head to the suspension Bridges. They were walking over the second hippo pool where we saw three more hippos including baby Augustus!
I was a little nervous about the bridges, just because walking isn’t my specialty with these ginormous braces on my legs, but I took my time and made it across. Some of the gaps in the boards were larger than I expected, but not horrible.
On the other end of the bridge, there was a CM with a snake awaiting us. A little more education, we got a chance to touch it (except for my niece who wasn’t going anywhere near it! - hence the pictures with her in the background!).
Then it was onto our tour vehicle with driver Matt and we headed off onto the same area as the regular safari. The tour vehicle makes several lengthy stops where we could stand up, move around and get some great pictures.
First stop was the painted dogs who were all milling about waiting to head backstage. Daniel told us that the dogs knew what time it was and were waiting for someone to open the gate. He also said it’s very funny at daylight savings time when they try to adjust those schedules and wait around for over an hour.
We then had a few giraffes hanging around. One of the other guests had a friend at the Kansas City Zoo who apparently got one of the Animal Kingdom giraffes in the exchange breeding program, so they was a very educational discussion about the program. And giraffes are always cool.
