A DAY AT DISNEY WORLD ANIMAL KINGDOM 4/19/2011

We started our day in the land of Africa.  I just loved how they set up the different sections of the park to look like different countries.  It was fun.  It made you feel like you were in that land to a degree.

This was  one of the rivers in the Animal Kingdom.  It was filled with almost solid green algae which a lot of the rivers in the southern eastern states are covered with.

One of the funnest rides we went on was the "Kilimanjaro Safari".  It was a lot of fun out into a real jungle and savanna type landscape.  There were some very exciting times along the safari and lots and lots of wonderful animals to see.  As you can see we got carried away taking pictures of them.  This is just a sampling of our pictures.  I can't remember the name of this first animal.  He sure is unique though.

A black rhino

These are hard to see, but they are hippos in the water.

These crocodiles were huge.

These huge horned cattle are found in Africa.

This giraffe is hiding, or so he thinks.

So petite and pretty.

We loved seeing the baby elephant.

A flock of flamingos.

It kind of hard to see, but this is your famous "King of the Jungle".  He is doing what they told us he does the most during the day.  They say that it is the females that do the hunting.  King of the Jungle, Hum?
.    An ostrich.  The picture below are some of her eggs.

So beautiful and elegant.

Pretty tough.

After our safari ride we watched these men perform some African music.  They gave an interesting and fun show.  Loved the rhythm.

These chimpanzees were along one of the main roads through the park.  It was fun to watch them play, swing and run along the ropes put there for them.

The next several pictures are from the "Maharajah Jungle Trek."  There were several different trails you could take to see and learn about the animals.  I didn't go on as many of these as I would have liked to go on.   This picture below is a fruit bat.  They are really big.

 

One of the tigers that we saw along the trek.  They are so beautiful and magnificent.

This trail was set up to look like ancient ruins of India.

We took a train ride around part of the park.  Very relaxing.

These next several pictures are from the Lion King show.  It was spectacular and our favorite show.  Sorry, some of the pictures are blurry.

These next 3 pictures are from the "Flights of Wonder" bird show.  It was wonderful.  We thoroughly enjoyed it.

"These next two pictures were from the "Finding Nemo" play.  It was very colorful.

We had an interesting guest visit us during our dinner.  Our dinner was very delicious.  We had barbecued ribs.  They and the baked beans were great!

I saw this flamingo on a trail as we were leaving the park.  It looks like he is ready for bed with the night coming upon us.

This is a really special sculpted tree in the park called the Tree of Life.  It has all kinds of animals sculpted into it.

We also went on the Kali River Rapids.  That was a fun ride!  It was just too short! We didn't have any pictures of this considering we had to put our stuff in water proof containers in the rafts.  We got pretty wet.

Well we were pretty worn out at the end of the day as you can tell by this photo of Wayne!  Fun though!

DISNEY'S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS 4/18/2011

This is my first attempt at the blog.
                      Ann
Here we are at our first day of Disney World!  We started out going to Disney Hollywood Studios.  I got a good picture of Wayne.

 The first thing we did was go to a short musical of Beauty and the Beast.  It was very well done, colorful and very enjoyable.

 Just a picture of me during the day.

 We also saw the musical "The Little Mermaid".  It also incorporated animation in it's show.  We enjoyed this one as well and even got a bit wet at the huge wave scenes.  That was much appreciated since it was a fairly warm, muggy day.  It got to 92 degrees.

 Next we went on the Back Stage Tour.  I thought of Jed as I was viewing this tour.  The man in the red is the director.

 The next 2 pictures are from the room where they store a lot of old props from Disney movies.  There were a lot of things in this room.

 They also have a section outside where they stored the bigger props.  We were excited to see Herbie!

 We thought this water tower had a Disney look to it. 

 Along this tour we passed by where they make a lot of the Disney costumes.  There were lots of workers, bolts of fabric and spools of thread. 
This was a different set on the same tour.  Here we saw explosions, fire and as you can see a flood.  Exciting!  During the explosion our train rocked and rolled.

 This was another of the bigger props they stored.  I think they got it from Roswell, New Mexico!

 In another section of the park there were fake streets and facades.  It was fun to see them.

 One thing I didn't expect was to see the American Idol Show in Disney World.  The show is for real.  Anyone can try out early in the day and then they select 3 people for each show.  The winners of each show go to the finale at the end of the night and the winner of the finale gets a golden ticket.  This golden ticket wins them the chance to go to the head of a line in auditions throughout the country and wins them special recognition over the normal person that is trying out for the American Idol Show.

 Here were the three judges of the show we went to.  They each had their different personalities and judging styles.  None of them were like Simon though.

 This was the girl that won the show that we attended.  She had quite a set of lungs on her for being only 15 years old.  No we didn't vote for her.  I almost did though.  It was a tough choice between her and a young man.

 We had fun seeing a live show of Indiana Jones with lots of bad guys, action scenes, fire, crashes and Indiana winning in the end!

 I decided that I had to come back to the finale for the American Idol Show.  Here are the 7 contestants of the night.  I don't have a picture of the judges for the night show.  Two of the judges were different from earlier and I would say that one rivaled Simon.  He wasn't too nice with his negative comments.

 Our girl won the night!  Like I said, she had an amazing voice.  I'll be curious to see if she makes it onto the next American Idol.

 Micky's hat is easy to see from a lot of the park.

 At the end of the night we went to the Fantasmic Show.  It was very spectacular.  Most of our pictures didn't come out very well from it though.  We did get these from the end of it.

 We took this picture because Wayne's Grandpa Cowley worked on the Pacific Electric Railway.

 All in all it was a good day and I had a lot of fun, not sure about Wayne.  Disneyland isn't his favorite thing to do.  It was nice of him to accommodate me though.  We both were worn out at the end of the day.