Day 3-Animal Kingdom/Eat to the Beat Concert in Epcot/Magic Kingdom Part 1
This day did not start out as a busy day, but we made further choices as we went along that made it busy. The plan was to go to Animal Kingdom, then to Epcot for the Eat to the Beat concert then watch Illuminations then back to the resort.

We started this day out early as well and got to Animal Kingdom about an hour before it opened. We missed seeing Wes Palm as I think they have retired him. We got to see the opening ceremony which I really love at Animal Kingdom. Then we rushed over all the way to Kilimanjaro Safaris. We practically walked on and there were so many animals out! I don’t think I have seen that many before, although I probably always say that since the ride is just so awesome to begin with. After the Safari we decided to walk through the trail in Africa. There were lots of animals and we even saw a huge frog and spiders in one of buildings you can stop in on the trail.

After our fun in Africa we traveled to Asia! DH loves Expedition Everest, and I have not worked up my nerve to ride it yet so he rode it in the single rider line. After he got off, we found this awesome shirt that is solid black and has a very cool silkscreen design that says Expedition Everest the Forbidden Mountain. DH loves black t-shirts and he loves smaller designs and he loves the ride, so this was a winner for him. After fun in the gift shop, we noticed it was almost 11am, time for our Yak and Yeti reservation.

We walked over and opened the door at 10:45… and they told us they were not open yet and did not seem to want us to even come in and wait, so we stood outside. As other people tried to enter the UNLOCKED door, they told them the same thing, so we all started standing outside. Because so many people started to come up, the seating people stood outside the door to check you in or give you a reservation. We thought this was a little annoying. If you are going to unlock your door, it makes sense that you should allow people inside. At 11am on the dot they let us all in… and seated everyone else in front of us even though we checked in first! Finally the guy at the podium asked us if we had checked in and we said yes. He checked his list, then printed our ticket. The next seater available seated us and another lady… at the same time! They took us all up and seated her at a prime table and then took the two of us to a good table, but of course since I saw the other one, I didn’t like our seat as much. We shrugged it off and waited for our waitress. She was nice, but reserved. I ordered the skirt steak and shrimp and DH ordered the honey chicken dish. Mine was so delicious! The steak was so tender and the shrimp was very tasty. The jasmine rice they serve it with was divine with a little low sodium soy sauce. This was a favorite meal of mine. DH said he could have gotten his dish at our local Chinese food chain and wished he had gotten what I had. I shared my steak and rice with him and he seemed happier. We both got the pineapple and cream cheese wan tons with vanilla ice cream for dessert. These were very yummy!! I recommend this restaurant, but the wait staff and seating staff might not measure up to your regular Disney expectations. They are of course owned by Landry’s so the management is probably different.

After our tasty Yak and Yeti lunch we went over to Dinoland. We had totally missed this land last year and the new Nemo show! On our way there, two people stopped us and gave us their dream fastpasses. They had only used the Dinosaur tab. This was as close as we came to winning a dream in the 3 times we have been in Disney parks the last two years! The couple told us they were nontransferable but wanted to give them to us anyways because they were leaving the park. We accepted them, but later gave them away to another couple when we were leaving Animal Kingdom as we had other plans that day as well.

We headed straight for Dinosaur and waited in a very short line before boarding the vehicle. I have ridden this ride several times however; I really don’t enjoy it until I am off the ride. For me at least, it is scary, and it feels realistic… I mean, it’s not at all, so I guess Disney did a great job! But for me, it’s just scary and I don’t enjoy being scared while on vacation, so I rode it because DH wanted me to ride it with him. He kept asking me why it was scary and I just said, because it is! The darkness and the dinosaurs jumping out at you…he agreed with me afterward that he can see how I would feel scared.

After Dinosaur we plopped ourselves down in the line for the Nemo show. We probably waited about an hour for this show and it was a full audience! Wow! This is all I can say about this show. The production value is amazing and I had heard the soundtrack so many times on subsonic radio that I already knew the songs by heart. The only thing is that if you are sleepy while waiting, then the music they play (which is an arrangement of the songs in the show) and the lighting, which is supposed to make you feel like you are under water, will make you want to take a nap. I should probably mention here that that afternoon I began feeling symptoms…. I was getting a cold… and I had it the rest of the week!! So, starting that afternoon I was a sneezing, stuffy, dizzy, sleepy mess, but I kept going because I wasn’t going to let a cold get me down while in my happy place! Luckily DH didn’t catch it until right before we went home, so we didn’t have to deal with two sick people.

After the Nemo show we headed to It’s Tough to Be a Bug. The darkness in this attraction always seems to surprise me, and I always avoid the stinger part, but I think it is my 2nd favorite 3D show in WDW.

We left the park after this, having seen Mickey’s Jammin Jungle Parade many times and having Big Bad VooDoo Daddy on our radar.