Our Amazing Vacation: Walt Disney World, Orlando, Florida - Day Four

Thursday morning, we hurried and packed our bags as we were staying the last night of our stay in the Jambo House at the Animal Kingdom Lodge.  It was so nice to have a van come and pick us and our luggage up at our Treehouse and deliver us to the Lodge.  It is amazing how large Walt Disney World is, that just going from resort to another it would take 15 to 20 minutes!

We were stunned at the beauty of the Animal Kingdom Lodge- we checked out the lobby while Bubby Mary got us all checked in.  Beautiful!

But our room was the most stunning thing of all.  We had a huge Penthouse that was 2500 square feet!  It had three bedrooms, a dining room that seated ten to twelve people, a full kitchen, 4 bathrooms, full laundry, a living room that slept three and a room with a pool table!  The master bathroom was as big as our bedroom at home, complete with a huge walk-in closet, a ginormous bath and flat screen TV that you could watch while taking a bath!  We explored that place for at least an hour!

The kids found the TV pretty fast and were glued to it while we explored the rest of the penthouse. 

Each bedroom had a balcony that looked out onto the savannah where we could see wild animals!  It was so cool.  I laid on the bed, saying, "I'm in bed, and I can see zebras from where I'm laying!  This is so cool!"  We also saw giraffes and antelope and all kinds of cool birds!

After exploring the hotel a bit, we put Gabe down for a nap, and Brad generously stayed home with him while the rest of us headed over to the Animal Kingdom for our lunch reservations.  I was stunned by how beautiful and green the park was.  It felt like I was in a tropical forest.  I loved it!

We ate lunch at the Tusker House, which from the outside looked like a run down restaurant you might find in Africa, but on the inside was nice and had a lovely exotic buffet.  We even got to meet more of the characters, again!

Amalie was dying to meet Minnie, so we headed over to Camp Mickey-Minnie and got in line to meet Minnie, while Papa took Noah to get Mickey's autograph in another line.  The worker was a real card, and it seemed like his goal was to get the characters to talk or laugh or mess up or something.  He razzed them the whole time!

Justin & Erica, through their connections got us VIP seats for the Lion King show.  Brad and Gabe met up with us and we all watched the show together. It was really an awesome musical, filled with flame throwers, acrobats, dancers, dancers on stilts and more.  The dancers even tried to choose my kids to be their helpers, but my kids refused! 

After that, we used our awesome "front of the line" passes Justin had gotten to go on a Safari Ride.  It was awesome!  We got to go on a bumpy ride and see the animals up close and personal.  One of the bumps flew us all up on the air.

My favorite part of the safari ride was when we saw a white rhinoceros charging the bus.  All of us in the back of the bus were wide mouthed with fear and then the rhino just went behind the bus.  It was crazy!  A very memorable moment that we won't forget!

The tree of life was super cool.  Since Erica and Justin had gotten a special VIP tour earlier while we were checking in the hotel, they told us that Disney had flown in people from Africa to do the carvings on the tree.  They had to get special permits, because the artists made the carvings with their feet!!  Incredible!  Only at Disney!

The park closed at 5 pm so that was it for us.  It was a gorgeous park, but it was time to go back to the penthouse.  I was utterly and thoroughly exhausted and laid down for a few short minutes before we had to leave on the trek to our dinner reservations.

We took a bus to the Magic Kingdom and then took a boat to the Wilderness Lodge for our dinner and show at the Hoop-de-doo Review.  The boat ride was awesome as we could see the fireworks going off at the Magic Kingdom!

The show was super fun, but I was so exhausted I couldn't really enjoy it.  We tried to leave early but realized the quickest transportation was the busses that would come after the show.  We waited on the busses, Brad and myself almost comatose, while the kids ran and jumped and thoroughly played- and it was after ten pm.  It was crazy!

Here's our crazy Gabe!!  What a fun and utterly exhausting day!