01/31/10 Day 4: Bats and Big Cats

Sunday showed up without the drizzle the day before had shown us. But, dang! Was it ever cold. It is a well know scientific fact that the best way to warm a body up (besides tequila) is chocolate chip pancakes. So being the scientific-minded folks that we are, that is was Steevin and I had. Mmmm... pancakey goodness with pops of chocolate. MmmMmmMmm.

Once we were sufficiently warmed we stepped back out into the cold to catch our bus to the Animal Kingdom. Also arriving at the same time as us was some sort of all girl's tour group with about a million kids that we would see throughout the day. We decided to utilize every single Photopass person we could find since we don't get many pictures together. It was like having our own personal paparazzi following us around.

We met up with Flick

 

And then Flick shows us the "Tree of Life"

 Yay, Animal Kingdom!

 We were being trees...

Steevin decided our first stop of the day should be the Kilimanjaro Safari. It was a great idea on his part because there was only a five minute wait. And once we boarded our open aired and numbingly cold safari transport we were whisked off to we all the animals. They were so active. It was great! We saw animals running and playing with each other. We even saw a rhinoceros weightlifting a log with his horn. It was like Rhino Muscle Beach.

Rhino pumping iron...er...log.

 

Mister Tall

 "Its the ciiiiiiircle of life...."

They were frolicking!!! Cute!

We stopped the poachers and then wandered our way through the Pangani Forest Trail. Remember when I said it was cold? Well it still was. And it was windy. Cold and windy. But it wasn't raining. So I just put on my awesome new sunglasses I got the day before and pulled up the hood with the ears on my sweatshirt and all of a sudden... BAM! I became "Goggle Cat"! A brand new superhero. She also came with her own theme song... that I will admit sounds a lot like the theme song for Spiderman.

 

Oh no! A Steevin in distress!!

Goggle Cat will save you!! 

And with another day saved, Goggle Cat reverts back to her alter-ego... Beth.

Anyhoo, Steev and Goggle Cat... I mean, Steevin and myself decided to get some hot tea in Africa but the line was suuuuuper long.  We figured we'd skip it and head to Asia because we were going that way anyway. And Asia is known for its tea. But the tea line is Asia wasn't any better. Who cares! Its cold! We stood in line and I got some super hot chai tea and Steevin got some other sort of tea. We decided to try to find a sheltered spot away from the wind to sip our tea.

Steevin relaxes

And Beth decided to bike to Asia.

The sheltered spot we found just happened to be right in front of Expedition: Everest. It was a great spot for people watching. We warmed ourselves from the inside out as we watched the GGG Tour (Giant Gaggle of Girls) try to coordinate their ride on Everest. We could never quite tell where they were from, only that that were from a Spanish speaking place because Steevin could understand what they were saying. They were getting into line in smaller (and I use that term loosely) groups. One American family was there with their two teenage daughters waiting for the GGG Tour to get in line. The older daughter rolled her eyes, sighed loudly and gave the GGG Tour a nasty look for taking up "her" precious spot in line. Her younger sister just gave her and equally nasty look and said "Don't do that! You're such an embarrassment!" There IS hope for the youth of America.

Full of warm tea we wandered through the barely 20 minute line and hopped onto our train. Oh how I wish the yeti still moved. Will that ever be fixed? Either way the ride was freaking fantastic! In fact, Steevin loved it so much that he requested we get a Fastpass for it. So we did. And then we realized his awesome pink sunglasses were missing. Oops... left them on the ride. We went back and they had them at the Photo Pick-up in the shop already. YAY Disney! Sunglasses securely atop Steev's head, we decided it was time for the "tourist trap" that is Dino-land. It was still freezing but little buts of sun were starting to peek through the clouds.

I don't know why, but I love me some Primeval Whirl. I forewarned Steevin that it was cheesy and not the best themed attraction but that it was fun. We rode with two ladies from Canada and we blamed them for the cold weather. And then we swirled our way through the crazy mouse coaster through time and space and whatnot for dino-type-stuff or something... I'm not really sure if there is a story to the ride. After our ride we went to the shop to warm up again... and to look for gloves but it appears that Animal Kingdom only provides gloves for children. LOL! Since there were no adult gloves to be found we decided to ride Indy... I mean Dinosaur. We traversed through the Toaster Oven of Time and past some dino's. Steevin kept tabs on where we SHOULD be in comparison to Indy. Our picture at the end was priceless. I knew where the picture was so I posed and looked "realistically" scared... Steevin just looked grossed out at the dino. "Ew... Dinosaur!"

WHOOOOSH!

 

"w00t! w00t! I survived extinction!"

 No Steev! Don't get eaten!!!

 Whew! He also survived extinction. And he did it lookin' good!

 "Ew.... dinosaur!"

As we exited Dinosaur we realized we were just in time to see the Nemo show. Being a party of two is great. We were able to find seating close up at lots of shows because we didn't need to try and fit in a family of 12. The show was cute, but we were starving so we went to the Yack and Yeti quick service. The CM there was great. Steevin accidentally tried to give him our Photopass card to pay for lunch and the CM remarked that he'd only be able to provide us a picture of our food if we paid that way. We had our food very fast, and it was hot and good. We huddled away from the wind at the backside of the restaurant and tried to hold down our napkins. Yum! That certainly hit the spot.

Sir Lumpsalot is excited for food. Check out the napkins blowing away!

We headed back to Everest to use our Fastpass and had another great ride. Then we headed off to the Maharajah Jungle Trek to see the huge bats and sweet big cats. Is it weird that I find the giant bats with wingspans as long as I am tall kind of cute?? Yes, their leather wings are a bit creepy but they have really cute bodies and faces. Yeah. Okay, its weird. Next up were the tigers. They look so regal. I really want to just curl up with one. It was like watching a giant version of Mable (world's cutest cat ever, remember?) out there frolicking and playing. I posed as Goggle Cat next to a wall painting of tigers much to the amusement of an older gentleman who kept talking to us for the rest of the trek because he could tell we were awesome. And I missed this but Steevin told me later that two girls commented to each other that I look like Lady Gaga. LOL

 

Nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh BATMAN!

 RAWR!

 Lady Gaga Goggle Cat?

We decided to do the Safari one more time before it was time to leave. There was practically no line and they just sent us through the fastpass line so we wouldn't have to walk as far. It was a good ride but the animals were taking it easy compared to earlier in the morning. We stopped in every shop on the way out and then hopped a buss to... Animal Kingdom Lodge. We had dinner reservations at Boma a little later. We stopped at the bar and had some delightful drinks. I had one called Pineapple Flambe which was pineapple something with a kick of habanero. YUM! And Steevin got a Pina Colava. Then we got a hummus appetizer and I got a Habanero Chilie-Lime Margarita and Steevin liked my Pineapple Flambe so much that he got his own. Both the hummus and the drinks were great. We got our picture taken by a photopass guy who had lots of nice lighting equipment and then it was time to eat.

 

My man drinks Pina Coladas

 Sophistication? Sure... I can pretend!

 Hanging out at the Animal Kingdom Lodge

 <3 

Boma is so delicious with its African inspired food. And the desserts! Eeee! We ordered coffee with our desserts. Steevin really liked this coffee flavored dessert of some kind and WOW! The peanut butter mousse on a peanut brittle crust thing was the most heavenly thing I have ever placed on my mouth. If I didn't like ANYTHING else at that meal (which isn't true... I did)... that dessert alone may have convinced me to go back. Psh... everyone always talks about the damned Zebra Domes. Zebra Domes who? It was ALL about that peanut butter mousse. No kidding. Put down the Zebra and go for the Mousse.

After dinner we had to take the bus back to Downtown Disney where we planned to then hop on the bus to the Pop from there. Except it turned out that it was the SAME bus so we decided (read: I made Steevin) to browse the shops a bit before heading back to our hotel for the night.

 

Sleepy Steevs