Walt Disney World – Day 1 – Animal Kingdom/Hollywood Studios
We arrived in Orlando on May 4th at 11pm and got to our Pop Century Resort shortly after midnight. We went to bed right away since we were getting up at 7am to head to the Animal Kingdom for 9am.
Our wakeup call came way too early, and sadly it wasn’t Mickey that was on the phone. But either way we started off our day very early. Went and had breakfast in the food court on the resort and lined up for the bus to the Animal Kingdom!
The bus ride took a bit longer then anticipated because our bus driver was in training and took a wrong turn and we ended up at the Magic Kingdom. It was a great way to start off the trip!
Finally arrived at the park at around 9:30am. Our first thought was to get the major attractions out of the way. So we headed over to Asia and tackled Expedition Everest with a 5 minute wait. It was my favorite ride throughout the entire trip. After the first ride we decided to grab a fast pass so we could enjoy the other attractions and not chance having to wait in line.
Next we hit up the Kali River. As we were walking up to the river a cast member greeted us with “You picked a perfect time to visit, the water is nice and wet!”. That’s just the beginning of the great things we’ve seen and heard from Cast Members. Again the wait time for the ride was only 5 minutes. The ride was much shorter then I anticipated but was still fun none the less. Luckily I was one of the few people that didn’t get soaked on the ride. We ran into this very interesting creature walking about in the forest. She moved ever so elegantly. You can see for yourself … she’s called DeVine.
After we decided to walk around the park and check out the Tree of Life and all the carvings around it. The detail of the carvings was stunning. I couldn’t believe the amount of detail that went into each and every carving. Since A Bug’s Life show was inside the Tree of Life that was our next stop. The show was incredibly cute and enjoyable despite the little girl that was beside me screaming the entire time because she was scared. The spiders and cockroaches were a bit scary so I completely understand why she was scared. No one likes cockroaches running under their bum.
Once the show was done we walked to Dinoland and checked out the Dinosaur ride. Again another 5 minute wait. It was an amusing ride and the animatronics were good. We wanted to check out Finding Nemo The Musical but the show wasn’t for another hour and a half. Instead checked out The Lion King. It was a live musical with a lot of dancing, fire, and acrobats. Lion King is one of my favorite Disney animations so I really enjoyed the show a lot.
For lunch we did counter service at the Yak & Yeti in Asia. The food wasn’t overly terrific and I had a long disgusting hair in my rice bowl. For dessert I had my very first Mickey Ice Cream Bar and it was fantastic! I had to eat it quickly since it was melting pretty quickly. After lunch we went to the Safari which was relaxing and enjoyable.
Our last stop at in the Animal Kingdom was meeting Mickey! We stood in line with the 5 year olds and finally got our photo taken with him. I’ve always wanted to meet Mickey and now I can say I have!
It was around 4pm when we left the Animal Kingdom and headed back to our resort for a nap. We didn’t get much sleep the night before and were up since 6am. Had an hour nap and showered up to head out for supper in Downtown Disney. I really wanted Mickey ears so I decided to get myself a special pair in Downtown Disney. Got my name on the back.
Mickey Ears Class of 2010
After supper we headed to Hollywood Studios to check out Fantasmic since it only plays twice a week and this would be our only chance to see it. Got there and the first show was already full to capacity so we waited around for the last show of the evening. While we waited we went to the Hollywood Tower of Terror. It wasn’t as BAD as I thought it was but I freaked myself out pretty good. Having nothing to really hold onto when you are dropping makes it worse. I love and hate the feeling of falling at the same time. It’s a love/hate relationship. There was a woman on the ride that was screaming “SAVE ME JESUS” each time we would drop. She also made it very clear that she didn’t like small dark rooms “OH HELL NO, HELL NO!”. At least there was someone else on the ride that was just as freaked out as me.
The line for the Tower of Terror wasn’t very long so we had an hour and a half before the next showing of Fantasmic. Thought we should probably stand in line very early to ensure we got into the show. This was one of the longest waits we had throughout the entire trip but it was absolutely worth it. The show was in an amphitheater and it was a mix of fireworks, pyrotechnics, and water. Instead of explaining it I’ll let you watch it! It’s broken up into three videos which is altogether 27 minutes long.
The show was amazing and I highly recommend it. It was well worth the wait. Make sure that’s on your list of MUST DOs when you visit.
After the fantastic show we caught a bus back to the hotel and before going into our room there were two ducks sitting right outside our door. They were quacking very loudly. I thought that was extremely cute. Never did get a chance to get a photo since they fly away pretty quickly when they saw us.
My first day in Walt Disney World was so much fun, I couldn’t believe that I had 6 more days of this! The next day was an early one again since we were going to the Magic Kingdom for Early Magic Hours at 8am. Also before I forget, here’s my 1st Visit button and all it’s glory! Check back in the next few days for my 2nd day in Walt Disney World!
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[…] that have been following my Trip Reports this is my 3rd Disney Resort this year. I’ve been to Walt Disney World in May 2010 and Tokyo Disneyland in June 2010. The infamous Castle that needs no […]