Written In hotel room (9/30/2006 at 4:30 PM or so)
(Took a short nap)
On Thursday September 28th, we headed to the Animal Kingdom. Because we had to be there extra early, they wanted us to be there by 8:15, we woke up extra early and scheduled the night before to have a cab come and get us. After eating breakfast, we headed out.
We checked with the information booth to make sure as to where we should be, and then went over there to wait. We were shortly joined by a guest relations person and our tour guide for our Behind the Scene's tour of the Animal Kingdom. They didn't allow us to take pictures, because they said they didn't want to "destroy the magic for other guests". I can understand that, to some extent I suppose, so I kept to their wishes.
We drove around the park, and our tour guide, who was a retired teacher from Michigan, told us interesting things about the Animal Kingdom. The other three Disney world parks (Epcot, Magic Kingdom, MGM) fit easily inside the animal kingdom. I want to say that it's 500 acres, but I'm not sure...but that's the number that comes up in my head. We got to see the Elephant and rhino barn. We got to even pet the male white rhino (very dry skin, one of our other tour members said it felt like her exema). They told us how they only use positive reenforcement to train the animals. So if they lift their legs then they get treats, if they don't, then no treats. If they allow them to draw blood samples, etc. If the animal doesn't want to cooperate, that's their prerogative. They just don't get the treats.
In the elephant barn, we got an birds eye view to the newest elephant at the park (born around last Christmas) and her mom. We got to see them both dance a little (they were excited to get out for the day to roam).
They also talked about the breeding program, where a board of scientists decides which animals it's good to breed. Unlike before where it was all random and you would have a lot of family inbreeding (which isn't a good thing).
We also got a close encounter with a lesser tamir (sp?), a relative to the hedgehog. And got to see it eat a treat (meal worm).
We saw the diet center for the animals, where they prepare the meals a day in advance. Each diet is setup for each particular animal. They only actually have a few live things in the building (insects), but for the most part, everything else is "pre-killed" at the source. So they had bags of frozen mice and rats and various stages of growth (from baby on). They also grow many things on the grounds to help supplement the diets of the animals and use some vitamin supplements where necessary. Apparently, freezing fish, for example, takes a lot of the nutrients out of them, so they have to enrich them.
Written In hotel room (10/01/2006 at 6:40 AM or so)
We also went to a special area of the vet clinic, where Shannon noticed a lot of differences between her Jordan Creek and their clinic. The anesthesia machine was much larger then Jordan Creek's. I suspect it's a bit harder to put a gorilla to sleep then it is to put a kitty to sleep. It was interesting to me, and kept Shannon enthralled.
We actually got to see the tail end of a tumor removal of a skunk. I actually saw them take out the tumor and fatty surrounding tissue.
We then we back into the public part of the park. We went to a special area and boarded a Safari truck without having to wait in line. They have their park setup in a very interesting fashion. For animals that could be problematic (big cats) they have islands for them setup in such a fashion that looks like they could leave, but because of the distance of the sort of moat and the depth of it, the animals couldn't get out. For other animals, they have 'em set up in areas using the cow keepers in the ground and fences (hidden by bushes and fake rock formations) to keep them in their part of the park, but as far as a line of fences between the truck and the animals, there isn't one. It does allow for nice pictures, except that the truck is bouncing all around (like a safari would). We had a giraffe really close to the tour. Instead of having the pre-canned tour information, our guide went off of the script and pointed out things that people wouldn't really notice (the rocks as barriers, where the animal barns are and etc.
After that we filled out a survey about the tour and headed off.
We went over to the Asia area of the park to ride the Expedition Everest ride. They had a lot of Himalayan things and religious icons on the way up. The wait time was short, so we went. This was probably my favorite ride of all the parks. The Yeti they have near the end of the ride was actually very well done and a bit frightening (even though you know it's coming). It takes you forward and back and is a bit quicker then most of the Disney rides.
We then headed back and did the safari ride again (we wanted to be on the right side of the car, because we weren't able to get some of the pictures we wanted. This time it was the more standard Disney story line (on the look out for poachers, helping catch them). I got some great pictures of a gazelle, an ostrich and a zebra. The ostrich was actually blocking the road at one point.
They also have walking paths, where you can walk through their setup to see things. We took a few of these, took a train to the back of the park to Rafiki's Planet watch, which is basically a conservation station where they teach you about creating animal and insect habitats in your backyard. They also had a view into the vet clinic (we were on the back side of the view before). They had a Vet Tech talking about the imaging that they use for the animals. I found it dreadfully boring, but Shannon was fascinated, so I headed down the way, and found a seat and started dosing in and out of sleep.
Shannon got a little frustrated, because people came up and started talking over the Vet Tech, so she came and woke me up and we headed back to the main area of the park. We did do the splash ride, which, for the most part, was pretty lame. One big splash and fall and that was about it. We did get very wet though, which made walking in wet shoes, kind of obnoxious.
We hung out for the Parade, which had a large influence from the lion king Broadway show. The Animal Kingdom closes a bit early (I think because the animals stop being playful, so we headed over to the MGM park again to hit a few things that we missed.
We did the back lot tour, saw the actual plane that Walt Disney used to fly in, the saucer from the Navigator. We redid the Tower of Terror and Aerosmith rides. Then headed to disney downtown.
We had coupons for Planet Hollywood (free gift an one free meal) but on further exception they wanted you to come early or limited what you could buy.
So what can I say about the restaurant? I'll admit that the items they had in there from many movies (Terminator to Toy Story to Pretty Woman) was interesting and I'd be willing to pay to go to a museum with these things in them (though not to much). The food...was...well, I'd expect a whole lot better for what they are charging for it. We had these chicken fingers that were covered in Captain Crunch instead of something like corn flakes. These were actually the highlight of the meal. And they weren't really done right, they ranged from being crispy to soggy on the same piece of chicken. The coverage of Captain Crunch on the chicken was incomplete, so in some places you could see right through it. The sauce they served with it, was actually quite good. Our server was very attentive as well and it wasn't his fault that he was serving crappy food. The main course...Shannon had a chicken alfredo pasta, which was...well very plane. The chicken ranged from being a bit on the over cooked side to a bit more on the over cooked side. I had a fried lasagna. It was recommended, however, it was very bland. The garlic cream sauce, didn't taste like garlic or cream. The marinara sauce they used was blander then sauces that come out of bottles that I've had. The combination of the two was not pleasant either. I couldn't finish it.
Afterwards we went to the Ghirardelli Ice cream shop. These were actually pretty good. Certainly a way to cleanse my pallet from the awfulness that was planet hollywood. We also ended up buying somewhere between 3 and 4 pounds of chocolate.
We then headed back to the hotel room and called it a night.
We took 379 Photos on our fourth day.