Disney Vacation: Day Three!

On our third day at Disney, we planned to go to Animal Kingdom! We ate breakfast in the hotel and then headed out. As soon as we stepped outside, I turned right back around and went back to our room to put on another layer of clothing. It had gotten cold. I was kind of shocked at how cold it was... this is Florida, right?? :) It was actually a little miserable at first. My hands were freezing, and I was really wishing for some gloves! Thankfully, it ended up warming up enough that afternoon to be bearable.

While I was inside putting on more clothes, the kids had fun checking out the Car's characters around our resort.

Anyway, we got to the Animal Kingdom and really enjoyed our time there! I didn't know what to expect at all, but it turned out to just be an awesome zoo! The kids loved looking at all of the animals.

After walking around for a while, we went to a live bird show. It was really great! It was very entertaining and Aubrey was laughing hysterically. It was cute to see her get so into it :)

Next up, we went on the safari. And I feel like I need to pause here to explain my feelings on safaris. They terrify me. David has been on a real safari (like, in Africa with totally wild animals), and he loved it. I have told him that I'm so glad that he got to experience that and enjoyed it so much, but this girl isn't interested in ever going on a safari. Nope, not at all. Not for me. The thought of being in a little vehicle in close proximity to large, dangerous, unpredictable, wild animals just isn't appealing. Call me crazy. Anyway, I figured I could handle this little "pretend" safari in the Animal Kingdom. I mean, they're still large animals, but it has to be totally safe, right? It's Disney. So, all that to say, this was still out of my comfort zone, and I was a little nervous. I knew my family would love it, though, so we went for it.

At first it was great. We saw some really cool animals from a distance.

I got a little nervous when we drove by the crocodiles and our guide talked about how dangerous they are. It really put me on edge when he mentioned that they can run 10mph and the vehicle we were in could only go 9mph. Umm, thanks for that. (I realize that that is all part of their cute little spiel, but it worked on me.)

We saw some giraffes and elephants, and they were so beautiful. Especially the giraffes - they were so close to us!

These next guys got a little close for comfort. Like WAY too close for comfort. We seriously could have reached out and touched them, and a big group of them came literally charging at our vehicle. Even David said that our guide seemed genuinely uneasy. We lived to tell about it, but I was about ready to move on to something other than a safari by this point.

The highlight of the whole thing for me, though, was the bridge. (Sarcasm alert.) The guide mentioned that we were coming up on a very old bridge. He even said that it had been there longer than the park. There was a stop light before the bridge, and he said it was because they had to be careful to not to put too much weight on it, so the light was to make sure only one vehicle crossed at a time. (Side note: Apparently I'm a very gullible person.) So, it was finally our turn to cross. I noticed as we were approaching that this bridge looked VERY dilapidated. I even thought to myself, "I'm surprised that Disney doesn't just replace this thing." Well. We got about smack dab in the middle of the bridge, and all of the sudden, the thing lurched to the side. Y'all, I really thought we were about to plunge to our deaths. The guide yells, "Everybody lean to the right!!" and all I could think about was how I was going to get my babies to safety after the bridge collapsed and we plunged into the water below. David said that I screamed, "DEAR SWEET JESUS!!" I'm so glad that my last words were going to be a cry to my Savior. Hahaha! It seriously scared me to death. I know now that this was all part of the "fun" but oh. my. word. Not cool. I was maybe softening in my views of safaris a little bit, but not anymore!!

Once we made it safely back from the safari (praise the LORD!!), we stopped by the petting zoo.

Then we grabbed a quick lunch. At that point, I was about done with the Animal Kingdom ;) (Seriously, I did enjoy our time there, but we felt like we had pretty much seen it all by that point.) So, we got on a bus and went over to Epcot!

We spent the afternoon going to different shows at Epcot. We were all pretty tired that day. Jude especially :)

We didn't have dinner reservations that night, so we just walked around the different countries until we found something that sounded good. I was really wanting some Mexican, so we made our way over to Mexico :) We ate at a restaurant there, and it was good but a little bit nicer than what I was expecting. David and I ended up splitting a meal, and it was good! (We didn't end up doing the dining plan, for the record.) After dinner, we walked around a little more. We spotted Snow White in Germany!

We decided leave a bit earlier than we had been the other nights. We were just super tired, and we wanted to be sure to get plenty of rest for our last day at Disney!