Today Allison, Eva and I went to Animal Kingdom.

It was after our first night at the hotel. Sleeping in the same room with an excitable little munchkin is a bit tough but once we realized that she was quite like her dad and needed things totally dark things worked out. When we woke up we made our way down to where the shuttle for the hotel would pick us up. We piled onto a pretty crowded bus but we eventually made it to the park, a little after it opened.

The big thing that we wanted to see first was of course the safari. The line was really short and we got on quickly. I had forgotten how bouncy this ride was and shooting pictures was sort of a wash. I got a few but not many that I really liked. I also learned that unless I was shooting photos of Eva doing something I was probably holding Eva and shooting photos of other things wasn’t in the cards. I also learned that when you are going to be taking vacation photos with the family it is best to just leave the camera on auto. There were some places where I needed to play with the settings but for the most part leaving everything on auto was the best choice.

After the safari, which was another good one because of all the giraffes, we took a little break to get our bearings. It was a hot day and Eva was a lot bigger than last trip. She wants to do so much for her self too. We got a snack hung out for a bit and then took the train up to Rafiki’s Planet Watch area. There we met Jiminy Cricket, saw a bearded dragon (Eva was too little to touch it but she wanted to) and then we went to the petting zoo. I think the petting zoo part would probably be much better on a day when it wasn’t so hot. All the animals stayed in that “don’t touch” me roped off area.

We took the train back and then headed to get some lunch. We went to the BBQ place that they had and the meals there were excellent. Allison got chicken and I got the ribs. We even found this little out of the way place to get the photo from today. I was able to use my XShot quite a bit on the trip.

With our tummies filled we went over to the Festival of the Lion king, not before Daddy made the bad decision of trying to take Eva to It’s Tough To Be A Bug. The 1st bug scared the heck out of her and we were out of there. So we were off to the Festival of the Lion King. Eva was still a bit scared from the It’s Tough To Be A Bug Fiasco. However, I got us a Mikey Ice Cream Bar and the three of us shared it together. Once inside the show we sat in the warthog section. Eva was not too thrilled about the loud noises and was fussing a bit. That didn’t last long because two songs into the show she passed out. She remained out cold for the whole show.

We zipped across the park and went to Little Nemo the Musical. Eva woke up for this and she loved the show. After that the three of us went on one of the dinosaur rides and I was once again able to use my XShot to get some fun family shots. We hung around a bit longer and decided that it was time to go to Downtown Disney because we were meeting our friends Trevor, Andrew, Ashley, Annie Elizabeth, Carrie, & Ashley of IZEA along with Jennifer, The Dirty Shirt, and her husband Robert at Rainforest Cafe for dinner.

When you are able to get on the central buses to go to places within the parks you are golden, they run all the time and you don’t have to wait too long. This was the case with us. We hopped onto a bus to the Animal Kingdom Lodge, switched to a Downtown Disney Bus and we were quickly in the downtown area. We were early so we grabbed a table by the water and relaxed for a bit. On the way in Eva saw a carousel and that became the word of the weekend. No matter what else we did she wanted to do the carousel. We’d get to that later.

Once everyone arrived we sat down for a good meal and some fun conversation. Ashley made our waitress earn her money that night, I missed everything that he was saying but she was giving it right back to him. Trevor and Andrew entertained Eva. If you have never gone to the Rainforest Cafe with small children here is a tip, bring them through the gift shop and down into the restaurant during one of the thunderstorms to see how they will react. The thunderstorms that happen every 30 minutes can be overwhelming to a child. Eva had already had a trauma during It’s Tough to Be A Bug so we were a bit nervous. Luckily all those times that I’ve pretended to be a monkey or gorilla for her paid off. Both Trevor and I pretended to be monkeys to distract Eva and it worked, she was able to “weather the storm” with no problems.

After dinner we took a group shot in front of the Rainforest Cafe sign using the XShot again.

While we were there a family was taking their pictures and I was able to pitch them on the importance of having an Xshot on vacation. I even took their photos with it and printed them a photo using my Polaroid PoGo and Zink paper. I stuck the image to my business card and handed it to them. The daughter blogs and might even come visit this blog so who knows. Eva continued to motion towards the carousel so we said our goodbyes to everyone and Eva and Allison took a spin before we headed back to our room to go to bed.