Disney’s Animal Kingdom -
As stated before, this is such a beautiful park and I spent a lot of the time just looking around and taking in the majestic atmosphere of Animal Kingdom. One of the major highlights was Expedition Everest, which is a short but powerful ride and I’ve included a couple of videos for those interested.
Another great thing about this trip was the opportunity to see things that I had missed the last time, so I got to go through many of the trails, including the one that leads you to the base of the Tree Of Life. I experienced that both in the day and at dusk, which was amazing. The Conservation Station was missed last time but it was a nice train ride and the displays were real neat. Most of all I really liked the trails and the "step above the norm" zoo exhibits where the details are just wondrous. I probably spent about a 1½ hours sitting on various benches throughout the trails just looking around and absorbing the whole place.
I re-experienced The Festival of the Lion King several times and its just a great show. The way the whole theater comes alive is pretty original and I really love the music. I bypassed the Finding Nemo musical - I’m sure I could have caught the show but was never in the area at the right time. I really didn’t care for it last time. I did see the Mickey’s Jungle Jamin’ Parade, which I thought was ok. The mobiles of various animals were kinda cool and the music had a nice beat but it sure went on forever. It was a snail pace parade and in the heat and sun, it was struggle but it was enjoyable.
The food, as mentioned in a previous post was Yak and Yeti, which both Louis and I ate at a second time. This time we got a real nice 2nd story overlook that was pretty cool. This time I tried the Honey Chicken which was the same as the Orange Chicken, just with a different sauce. It was decent, but the whole diningroom was really decked out with artifacts and statues - if only they spent as much time on the menu as they did on the atmosphere.
When the park closed on my last day in that park - it was like a heard of people trying to leave so I took a bench in the Oasis Exhibit area at the front of the park and spent about ½ hour watching people leaving but most of all really taking in that area - trees, plants and the birds that were around. It was just really relaxing.
Mickey’s Princess and Pirate Party -
This was a "hard ticket" event similar to the Halloween and Christmas events at the Magic Kingdom. The event started at 7pm on a Friday night, so the morning was spent at Animal Kingdom -as reported above. I had gone to Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party last visit and was really impressed. This time around it was a similar event in that there was going to be an original parade and new Fireworks show for this event too. The them, of course was Princess and Pirates, so a lot of the characters were dressed up and both Princess and Pirates were out and there was a treasure hunt where we got bags with faux diamonds and necklaces. Plus there were DJ’s and all sorts neat lighting and set ups for photo’s and the such.
I made my way around not wanting to miss out on anything and got some cool character pics. I was soaked in the Pirate Mickey pic all thanks to Splash Mountain.
I didn’t have food reservations so I stopped at Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Caf
é, which has an animatronics lounge singer in the eating area. I just had a burger which was a100 times better than the slop they call "burger" at Disneyland. After I was eager to see the parade and get a good spot for the fireworks. The parade was ok - it was just a bunch of previously used floats and some of the "royalty" were on horseback. The song was pretty annoying and just repeated over and over again - AND if I thought the Animal Kingdom Parade was slow, this one was just a slow. It really dragged.
The fireworks, thought, were amazing as ever. The video link is below if you dare watch it.

Part 1

Part 2
It really was a nice event - though I will rate the Halloween version much better. Oh, and I spotted a character I’ve never seen before - Flounder from Little Mermaid was in Sebastian’s Dance Party knocking kids over. Sadly I wish there was a handler there so I could get a picture with it but...it was funny enough to see kids being knocked around by the large character.
More to come...