Chef Mickey and Animal Kingdom

Because we knew that we would be getting in late, we wanted to plan for an "easy" morning as our first day in Disney.  We decided on Animal Kingdom for our park because it is definitely the least magical of the parks.  Knowing we would have more zoo and less Disney that day, I planned Chef Mickey as our breakfast.  I had wonderful plans for us to ride the boat to the Contemporary Hotel (where the breakfast was), come home to rest for a bit and eat lunch in our room, and then head out to Animal Kingdom for the afternoon.  That was my plan, so obviously that is not what happened.

We woke up later than I expected everyone to wake up so we started the morning in a little bit of a rush. 

All that traveling wore brother bear out!

The night before Angie had mentioned that the boats might not run if it was too windy.  Before we walked to the dock, I asked the concierge and she confirmed that they were, indeed, not running.  I then asked her what to do and she said we should take a bus to Magic Kingdom.  She said we could tell the driver that we were going to Chef Mickey and he would drop us off at the hotel.  That is actually exactly what we did last year to get to Chef Mickey.  I was feeling a little stressed because a bus would take longer than the boat, but not too bad.  We wait for a bus and got one fairly soon after we got to the bus stop.  I relayed to the driver that we were going to the Contemporary and the concierge told me he could take us by there.  He told me that he could not and that we would need to take the monorail to the hotel after we got to Magic Kingdom.  Stress building a bit because we have reservations to make and we started the day behind to begin with...As we pull up to the Magic Kingdom, Kelly and I decide it would be faster to just walk from the stop to the Contemporary than it would be to walk all the way to the monorail.  Unfortunately they tell us we can't do that either.  We ended up riding the monorail and arriving with two minutes to spare.

It was cold that first day.  Kelly had made fun of me for packing jeans and jackets, but we were so glad to have them.

As soon as we checked in, they called us for our picture.  It was at this moment that I realized we had not grabbed our photo pass card from the bag.  We got the picture taken and were seated.  Chef Mickey's is a buffet.  All the character dining at Disney seats you, tells you to get your food after your drink order is taken, sends the parade of characters through, and then you leave.  Two adults, two small kids that still need help in a buffet line, and a baby makes it really challenging to get through a buffet line and eat in that amount of time.  I'm not sure either Kelly or I ate an entire meal while we were there. (This may not have been a bad thing - we are two for two in trips to Disney and losing weight.  Both years we have come back lighter than when we arrived and I much preferred the hurried eating method of weight loss to the food poisoning of last year!)

Girls eating while we wait for characters.

Killian checking out the characters.  He's not too sure about this crazy place.

"Who is this and why is she so close to me?"

"Seriously, people, do you not realize I hate this."

Last year Keeley didn't like the characters at all and is in very few photos.  She was disappointed after the fact that her photobook does not have pictures of her with the characters to match her autographs.  Prior to our trip she said she was going to definitely get in the pictures.  We started out a little uncertain.

Kelly talking to her about the characters and offering some reassurance.

She's warming up slowly.  Killian is still totally not a fan of this.

Keeley is all smiles and even holding Donald's hand.  I tried to hold Killian and he decided that is the perfect time to grab sister's hair.

Both girls happy, Killian still freaked out - but not screaming or pulling hair this time.

Entertaining Brother under the table while we wait for next character.

Keeley really excited about the characters!!

 

Monorail ride back to Magic Kingdom.

 What should have been a quick meal ended up taking forever. Our plan to get back home was to see if the boats were running.  As we approached the dock, they told us that the boats were, indeed, going again.  We walked out and a boat pulled up.  It was quite clear that the captain of the boat didn't want to get back on the water but he let us board.  We sat on the boat with another family for about 5 minutes before I finally decided that they were not going to take us out and we all disembarked.  We then walked back inside to ride the monorail back to Magic Kingdom and take a bus back to the hotel. Getting on the monorail we realized we didn't even get to see our picture that was taken when we first arrived at Chef Mickey.   When we got on the bus, the first stop it made was at the Contemporary - the hotel we were at moments before!  Apparently when they officially shut the boats down the buses are supposed to go to the Contemporary first.  So annoying! We got back to the hotel and brother needed to nap.  The girls insisted on swimming even though it was freezing. Kelly took them because Killian's nursing strike was officially over.  For the rest of the trip he nursed all the time.  Apparently over-stimulation = nurse.  Prior to the trip I thought he was getting close to day time weaning.  That is no longer the case.

Killian napped and the girls returned quickly because it was so cold.  We called Uncle Kendall and Angie and headed back to the buses to go to Animal Kingdom.  It was nice to be at this resort because the bus lines were considerably shorter than they had been at Pop Century last year.  It did make bus travel a little less stressful because we were not as worried about having to wait for another bus because one would fill up.  At Animal Kingdom, we headed straight to the Safari to get a fast pass.  While we waited for the safari we went on the Pangani trail. 

 

Favorite part was this huge silverback.  Kayden thought it was funny that he kept putting a t-shirt on his back.

 

 The safari was so great!  Last year I didn't get to go because I was pregnant.  This year I loved it.  Killian had fallen asleep on the trail and stayed asleep for most of the safari ride.

The favorite part of the ride was probably the giraffes. At one point, our guide became a little nervous because there was a giraffe directly in front of our jeep and directly behind the jeep.  It was amazing how close all the animals were but the giraffes were a little too close for comfort!!

After the safari, we headed over to try to catch the parade.  I think the parade at Animal Kingdom is one of the best.  We weren't able to get great places to see (even though we had hurried Keeley through some percussion street performers) but it was okay because there were plenty of people to hold the girls up.

Love it!

 We headed over to Dinoland and rode the triceratop spin and then packed up our little family to head back to the hotel.  Early dinner and bedtimes for everyone!