Day 3: Tuesday, June 13
It’s Animal Kingdom day – earliest alarm of the week! I think I had my alarm set for 5am on this day. That’s awful early for vacation. We drug ourselves out of bed, got ready, and were at the bus stop at 6:35 am. Today it was just me, my girls, and my parents. DH announced a while ago that he had no desire to go to AK. It was too hot and stinky for him. Alrighty then.
The (freezing cold!) bus arrived at 6:50 and we got to the park at 7:05. Hindsight was that we should have left the campsite at 6:25 so we could have caught the 6:30 bus. Live and learn!
Today’s walk through security started a new trend where I was pulled for a bag check. I could never figure out what was setting it off, but I was pulled at the next two parks as well. We were lined up at the entrance at 7:10, started moving towards the taps at 7:17 and finally made it into the park at 7:28. We seemed to pick the slowest line possible and then DD16 had trouble getting a green Mickey.
Anyway, once were inside, we beelined to FOP. We saw the “end of the line” sign at 7:33, then walked steadily through the line until we finally stopped at 7:54. We were in the first room at 8:21 and off the ride at 8:36. Side note – I was SO EXCITED to see a bathroom in the standby line! I had chugged a Coke Zero (caffeine!) on the bus and by the time we made it into the park, I really needed to pee, but my children wouldn’t let me stop for the bathroom. Thank you FOP line designers for including not just a water bottle filler, but a bathroom in your line. 
I was hoping we were going to be able to do FOP and Navi before my parents arrived so we could meet them at the Safari, but that didn’t work out. They met us at Navi instead and we did that next with about a 30 minute wait.
Oh, today’s bound for DD16 was Tigger. She bought the ears off Etsy and got countless compliments on them all day long. 
My touring plan kind of fell apart at this point because we were supposed to do the Safari next, but it was like a 70 minute wait, so we pivoted and like a totally inexperienced Disney-goer, stood around and said “what next?” How embarrassing! It wasn’t even 10 am and it felt like a million degrees outside, I was wearing new-ish shoes and was starting to get a blister, and we had no plan. UGH!
Ultimately, we ended up at the 10am show for FOLK. We’ve been warthogs the past 3 times we went to this show, so we were excited to be lions this time.
From there, we decided it was time to get wet so we headed to Kali River Rapids where my mom and I were the ones who got soaked. It felt pretty darn good in the heat. We waited about 45 minutes in the standby line. Tip for those of us who don’t go to the parks as frequently as others – they no longer have the storage space in the middle of the raft to keep your things dry. We all piled our stuff in the middle, then covered it with my dad’s poncho and that worked pretty well to keep things dry.
After that, we were ready for lunch so we ate at the Yak and Yeti QS. I had the honey sesame chicken and it was quite tasty. Probably my favorite QS meal of the week. While we were eating, we spotted a table of 5-6 people and every one of them had their heads down on the tables looking like they were fast asleep. They stayed that way the entire time we were eating so I hope they had good naps! It was freakin hot!! 
Once we were rejuvenated by lunch, we headed towards the tree and saw the ITTBAB. I had honestly forgotten how intense that show is. It’s dark, loud, and buggy. My crowd was nonplussed, but I could see how smaller children could be terrified. I do enjoy the special effects in your seat, though. Very creative. A few tree pics along the way.
After the bugs, it was time for a Safari. Probably not the best time in the heat of the day, but we enjoyed seeing the animals we could. We got very close to some giraffes and saw the baby zebra that was only a couple weeks old.
From there, we headed to the 2:30 Feathered Friends in Flight show. The birds were feeling a little sassy and the trainers were really funny. I couldn’t tell if some of this was scripted, or if the birds really were going off script. Either way, it was enjoyable.
Kevin sighting!
After that, we went to the 3:30 Nemo show, then my parents decided they were ready to go. They headed back to their resort while the girls and I planned to conquer Everest and Dinosaur.
First up was EE where we waited in the standby line for only about 20 minutes. I love this ride, but it is definitely jarring!
Next we headed to Dinosaur and waited about 20 minutes for this ride as well. I could take or leave this one, but DD16 wanted to ride. DD15 was a little wigged out with this ride and held my hand the entire time. It’s nice when these bigger babies still need their mommy.
Once we were done with all the rides, we meandered back towards the entrance, stopped in a couple shops and debated if we should get dinner in the park, or scrounge for something back at the camper. We ended up just going back to the campsite, but stopped to take a few Photopass pics on the way out.
We left the park at 5:30 and were back to our campsite by 6pm. On the bus ride back, DH sent us pictures of all the food trucks available at the Settlement. Since there are a couple restaurants closed at FW right now, they have several food trucks available each day. On this day there was the FW truck (same type foods you can get at the Pioneer Hall restaurants), pizza, Mexican, hot dogs, and a crepe truck. We decided to try the food truck round up for dinner and it was pretty good. As expensive as a typical Disney QS meal, but better than scrounging up food in the camper. I had loaded fries and a s’mores crepe.
After we ate, we hit the pool for a bit. It was much less crowded than it had been the Saturday we arrived and the hot tub felt especially delightful on my tired and sore body. It was an early bedtime for all and no alarms the next day because it was our rest day! But that also meant vacation is half over so that’s definitely sad.
Total step count = 16,181 (6.94 miles)
When we were there 4 years ago, I saw several well decorated golf carts, which gave me the idea for this year. We rented our golf cart from 
