Caring for Giants

We all decided to sleep in this morning.  Yesterday was a lot of fun, but definitely exhausting.  I was up in time to get breakfast in the lounge.  I brought back milk for Cam and Meg and got them up and ready for the day.  I let them pick our late morning activity and they chose Disney Springs.  It was the perfect day to go as it wasn't crowded at all.  Disney Springs has really expanded over the past few years.  There are so many more stores to explore and a lot more food stops.  We spent the majority of our time in the World of Disney, Pin Traders and Goofy's Candy Store.  We bought some souvenirs for ourselves and several for those not on the trip with us.  Cam checked out the Lego store, but didn't find anything in his price range.  We found a new store that featured only Star Wars items that we all enjoyed.

It poured for a little while as we were shopping, but not enough to change anyone's plans.  We went to the hotel after Disney Springs, so Cam and Meg could eat pizza on the Boardwalk.  From there Cam and I headed to Animal Kingdom.  We had a 3 p.m. tour called "Caring for Giants" and we wanted to make sure that we were at the check in point plenty early.  Thankfully the bus was on time and we even had time to walk through Gorilla Falls before our tour began.  I brought a digital camera and Cam enjoyed taking pictures of the animals.  We also did some bird watching.  The hippos weren't in their pool, but other than that it was a wonderful walk.

Several weeks ago Cam and I had decided that we wanted to try a Disney tour.  As he tends to enjoy science and learning I thought Caring for Giants would be the one to sign up for.  Cam and I were taken to the backstage area of Animal Kingdom to board a van to meet the elephants in their habitat.  Along the way we got to see the cell phone tower that they disguised as a tree.  We never would have know it was a tower if we hadn't been told.  As interesting as the backstage area was, the elephant portion of the tour was absolutely fantastic.  We learned a lot about the individual animals on the Savannah and even got to see the newest elephant family member, Stella.  We found out how to tell the elephants apart and were able to look at the bees and elephant project that has helped keep the elephants in Africa from destroying the farm crops.  Cam and I both took many pictures and thoroughly enjoyed our tour.  We even got to keep our name tags that were made form elephant dung.

After our tour we headed to Pandora to try the new river ride.  Meg met us there and we were glad that we had fast passes as the wait was well over an hour.  The ride was peaceful and Pandora was beautiful.  I believe that we may have enjoyed it even more if we had seen the movie.  While we were at Animal Kingdom we decided to ride Dinosaur and Expedition Everest and then catch the River of Lights show.  We were one of the first groups in line and were able to sit in the front row.  We loved it.

Magic Kingdom was open until 1 a.m. this evening so we decided after the River of Lights show that we would head there.  We caught the bus immediately and were there by 9 p.m.  The park was crowded, but towards the end of the evening it started to thin out.  I talked everyone into riding Dumbo.  It was the first time that I had ridden it in years.  We were able to catch every ride that we wanted to except for the Jungle Cruise and Monsters Laugh Floor.  We left those for later in the week.  We averted one disaster.  Meg's phone fell out of Cam's pocket on Space Mountain, but thankfully we had find my phone turned on and it was returned to them.  Although, we didn't quite make it until 1, but it was well after that time when we got back to our room.