I love Animal Kingdom, and I couldn’t wait to share it with Arthur, and to have my older kids there for the first time in over ten years.  It is just such a unique and beautiful place.

We started out the day at a favorite, Expedition Everest.  Arthur was in rollercoaster heaven, and the line was so short, we ran back through and rode it again.  So fun!

After that, we headed over to Kilimanjaro Safari, which is always an amazing experience.  Disney has worked their magic with actual animals who wander free, and so as we drove along in our truck, giraffes wandered right next to us.  Kevin could have reached out his hand and touched two of them.

There were tons of other amazing animals as well.  The only no-show were the lions, but I guess they must have been sleeping somewhere.

Besides the safari, there were lots of other animals to see, whether it was on the Maharaja Jungle Trek or the Gorilla Falls Exploration Trail, they were so awesome, and we loved getting to see all the animals.

After visiting the animals, we headed over to Pandora, the newer part of Animal Kingdom, and the part we hadn’t been to yet.  Even though we weren’t huge fans of the movie Avatar, Pandora was pretty amazing.  And the Flight of Passage Ride was the coolest ride I have ever been on – truly amazing!!

We also made sure to get a good look at the Tree of Life and all the cool carvings of animals on it.  Arthur thought it was amazing.

Animal Kingdom had yummy treats and food, just like the other parks.  Kevin and I were super excited to get more Dole Whips, and Derek was crazy excited to get this Lion King inspired ice cream sandwich, even though it was so hot that it started melting right away.  Luckily, he ate fast.

Speaking of The Lion King, we went to see the show, Festival of the Lion King, which is always a favorite.  Super amazing!

Then we headed over to see “Finding Nemo: The Musical,” which was awesome.  We even had fabulous seats right up front.

One of our favorite things throughout the day, was the Wilderness Guide stations throughout the parks.  The kids would find the stations and earn different badges for their book, and along the way, they got to learn a ton about animals and places, talking to people from lots of different countries in Africa and Asia.  It was Arthur’s favorite thing, and we got almost every badge.

As we were heading to the last station of the day, we got there only to discover that it had just closed.  Arthur was heartbroken, and all of the fun of the day was forgotten, as he realized he would never reach his goal of getting all the badges.  Well, we decided to visit guest services on our way out and explain the situation.  In true Disney style, they were amazing and tracked down the badge for Arthur, and suddenly all was right with the world.  It was the perfect end to an amazing day.