The Cheez-It Citrus Bowl

We left early this morning for our park reservation at Animal Kingdom.  Meg, Nick and Cameron wanted to enjoy the park before the guys left for the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl.  Doug and I dropped them off at the entrance and headed to the Disney Car Care Center.  Doug had rented a car for the next few days as he had to work inventory and the rest of us had plans in Orlando.  Picking up the Camry was a lot easier than I expected.  Getting back into the park was not.  Thankfully, we were able to ride Kilimanjaro Safari where the hippos were out sunning themselves and still meet Meg, Nick and Cameron at Dinosaur by 9:30 a.m.  They had enjoyed Expedition Everest and Flight of Passage beforehand.

Dinosaur was a lot of fun.  As soon as it was over, we headed to Harambe Market.  We had mobile ordered food there for lunch and it was ready just as we were seated.  Doug, Meg and I tried the chicken bowls while Cameron and Nick ate the ribs.  All were delicious and by ordering ahead, the guys were out of the park with plenty of time to make it to the Bowl game before LSU and Purdue kicked off.

While the guys were busy, Meg and I enjoyed Animal Kingdom.  We went to the Flights of Wonder bird show.  Meg had never been before and loved it just as much as I did.  Next, we walked through Gorilla Falls and the Asian jungle trek.  Both paths had a lot of animals out and about.  We even saw multiple gorillas and tigers plus a lively Okapi.  Afterward we watched the Macaws fly over the Tree of Life before perching in front of it.  Our last entertainment of the day was watching It's A Bug's Life.  

Meg and I did some shopping in Animal Kingdom, but decided that we wanted to checkout Disney's Character Warehouse at the Orlando Outlet Mall.  We had heard a lot of good things about it.  We found the mall without any issue, but after driving around in the craziest parking lot situation that we had ever been in, we decided to leave.  There were people parking on the grass medians and triple parking cars to get into the outlet mall.  It was too stressful for us.  We left right away and went to our hotel instead.

We had never stayed at Port Orleans Riverside before and were super excited to try it.  Our room wasn't quite ready, but our receptionist was extremely helpful and soon we were settled in a preferred room near the lodge that had an extra pull out bed for Cameron.  While we were checking in the guys called and said that they had left the football game during the middle of the third quarter.  They had really enjoyed it, especially the dancing Cheez-It mascot, but the score was so lopsided that they decided to call it early.  Purdue just couldn't compete with LSU and ended up losing 63-7.  Cameron did come home with a nice Citrus Bowl shirt.  Nick decided that he didn't want one as he didn't need to commemorate the game.

After resting at our hotel, Doug, Cameron and I headed over to Disney Springs.  Meg and Nick rode the boat from our resort over to meet us.  Doug left for Ocala at 6 p.m. while the rest of us ate dinner at Splitsville.  The guys tried the sushi.  Cameron said that it was delicious.  Meg got a hamburger while I ordered the macho nachos for everyone to try.  We stopped at Everglazed on our way to our boat ride back to the hotel.  Cameron and I had an early morning wake up call and decided to end our evening at 9 p.m.  Meg and Nick stayed a little bit longer, enjoying the nightlife at Disney Springs.