8:00 comes early when you’ve got reservations with a bear named Pooh and a Tigger. We did manage to get dressed and be down at the 1900 Park Fair restaurant for breakfast. 1900 Park Fair is in the Grand Floridian, so we didn’t have to go far. We were seated immediately and visited the enormous buffet. While we were munching on Mickey Mouse waffles, bacon, eggs, etc. etc. etc., Winnie the Pooh and Tigger (too) came ’round for photos and autographs.

Also in attendance were Alice and the Mad Hatter (from “Alice In Wonderland”). Alice couldn’t have been more than 12 or 13 years old, or at least she played the part of an English pre-teen very well. The Mad Hatter was quite a card, big hat, big shoes and big nose.

We had a leisurely breakfast, and on our way out saw the Fairy Godmother and had another round of autographs and photos.

After leaving the restaurant, we went back by our room to pack the backpack and give everyone an opportunity for a “pit stop,” and then we made our way down to the bus stop. Today’s destination was Disney’s Animal Kingdom. We didn’t have to wait long for the next bus to arrive, but it was rather full, so most of us ended up standing on the trip.

Animal Kingdom is the newest major park on Disney’s Florida property, and while it’s larger than the other parks (with the possible exception of Epcot), it has fewer attractions overall. The size is due to the preserve area for the wildlife. It’s tempting at first blush to think of AK as a glorified zoo, but it’s more than that. True to form, it’s planned and themed in Disney style, from the centerpiece of the park, The Tree of Life, to the six lands represented around the axis.

After navigating the entrance bag checks and ticket turnstiles, we wandered through the entrance area, looking at all the animals along the way. Birds and various other small animals were on either side of the path as we walked down the Animal Kingdom equivalent of Main Street, towards the Tree of Life. The tree is pretty amazing. It looks completely real, except for the size, but is artificially constructed. As you get closer, you see that there are many, many animals “carved” into the trunk of the tree. Over 200 as I understand.

While we didn’t manage to make it to the park at opening, we weren’t too far behind the initial crowd, and lines were very short. Our first attraction was the “It’s Tough To Be A Bug” 3-D movie under the base of the giant tree.

I recall from our trip back in 2002 waiting in line for this attraction almost 30 minutes, only to have Michael and Matthew decide to bail at the last minute. This time around there was absolutely no line, and everyone had already experienced a couple of the 3-D style shows at other parks, and were on board with this one as well.

We obtained our 3-D glasses (bug opera glasses, I think they called them) and entered the theatre through an anthill cavern under the tree. The show was pretty funny, with all the same gags from other shows we’d seen. A huge stink bug came out at one point and “gassed” the audience, which was quite aromatic. Toward the end the show got a little intense, and Madison curled up next to me. For the finale, Hopper (the grasshopper from “A Bug’s Life”) called an army of beetles to spray the “invaders” (us) with acid (water). At the end the “smaller bugs” were allowed to leave first, and you could feel them running out under the seats.

After the show, we exited on the other side of the giant Tree, onto a path with more animals to see. Lemurs and Monkeys and Flamingos, oh my! As we followed the path around to the North, we saw Mt. Everest rising above the treeline. The newest attraction at Disney’s Animal Kingdom is Expedition Everest, and although it’s not officially scheduled to open until the first weekend in April, I had heard that the ride was in soft-open mode, meaning we could probably get on it.

Well, sure enough, we found the line. All 90+ minutes of it. Well, at least we now knew where most of the guest population in the park was today.

It was at this point that I hatched my cunning plan, otherwise known as “skip it now, come back when the park opens on another day and beat the crowd.” We’ll see how well that works out in a couple of days.

After taking a few pictures and stopping for a quick snack, we backtracked and found ourselves near the Kali River Rapids. This attraction is your standard “big round boat that gets you soaked” ride that I’m sure is perfect during the heat of the Summer, with long wait times to match. But on a fairly overcast 60-degree day in early February, the wait was zippo.

We decided to take our chances and piled into a nice specimen of a boat and took off down the river. This is a fun ride. The rapids are actually rapid, you get wet but not too wet, and everyone has a good time. The other people in the boat had the foresight to wear rain ponchos, but we weren’t that on the ball. So we got wet. In my case, some more than others.

Only after exiting the ride and walking across the bridge that carries you over the river and back into the park did I notice that the people standing on that bridge had buttons they could press to spray water on the unsuspecting boat passengers below. So now I know how I got so wet. Ah well…

After a quick pitstop, we walked further around the path and found the Maharajah Jungle Trek. This is a leisurely walk through the jungles of India where you can see Tigers, bats, gazelle and many exotic birds. We took our time walking through this area, snapping pictures of the animals and trying to identify what we were seeing.

Next down the path was the Flights of Fancy bird show, which I had heard was a must see. The show wasn’t scheduled to start for another 20 minutes, but outside the theatre killing the time was a cast member with a huge owl. He had a little headset mic and speakers and was explaining to the considerable crowd that had gathered there all the interesting details of this species of owl. The owl just sat there on his glove-covered hand, looking at everyone calmly like nobody’s business.

After the owl demonstration, we filed into the open air theatre and saw the Bird Show. Wow. This is not your average birds in cages show. All the animals were free to fly around, over the audience’s head, and many did various “tricks.” There was a parrot that sang 6 complete songs, a Crane (named Fraiser, of course) that flew from the back of the seating to the stage literally inches over the crowd, and a vulture that took a dollar bill out of an audience member’s hand, and brought it back just a few minutes later. The kids really enjoyed the show as well, amazed at what all the birds could do. The interesting thing I thought was the fact that there were no nets over the theatre or any device to keep the birds from just flying away. The cast member who presented the show said that through positive reinforcement, the birds are enticed to stay. Since they live a pretty cushy life compared to their wild(er) cousins, I can see why they’d stick around.

Hunger was upon us after the bird show, as it was about 2:00 in the afternoon. We found our way around the path into the Africa section of the park, and found an eatery I had heard about called Tuskar’s House. While technically a counter service location under our meal plan, it easily the best counter service meal we had experienced so far. We had rotisserie chicken, salmon, and chicken sandwiches, again more than we could eat. Because the weather was so mild, we decided to sit outside to eat, and were glad we did. A troupe of African acrobats performed in the courtyard and were amazing. Following the acrobats was a group of percussionists playing tribal sounding rhythms. Matthew really got into that.

Next on our agenda was to ride the Kilimanjaro Safari. The wait was posted at 35 minutes, so we opted to get a fast pass and come back later. We thought we’d head down to the Dinosaur area and mess around there for an hour or so, watch the parade at 3:00, then come back and take the Safari jeep ride. As we were walking back around to the front of the park, looking at other animal exhibits along the way, the sky decided to open up a little and the rain started to come down. We ducked under the awning of a snack stand and tried to see if the rain would let up. After about 10 minutes, we heard over the loudspeakers that the parade was being cancelled.

The rain was getting harder, so we decided that we’d go ahead and head back to the hotel. We exited the park and got in line for the bus, which was covered, and tried to dry off as we waited. Apparently, many people had the same idea as we did and the buses were running a little slow and full. We managed to get on the next one that came along, but it was full.

Normally, being full, the bus would skip the next stop (Blizzard Beach water park) and drop off people at the resort stops the bus was scheduled for. However, apparently, due to the rain, some people had been waiting at Blizzard Beach for over an hour, so our bus was the lucky one dispatched to pick them up. Unfortunately, the dad of that group made an off-hand comment to the effect of “I’m going to be registering a complaint” as he boarded, and the driver decided that meant he should go get a manager right then and there. So there we sat for almost 20 minutes before he decided to go ahead and make his next stops. It took about 45 minutes, but we finally made it back to the hotel.

The plan at this point was to hang out at the hotel for a couple of hours, resting and doing some laundry, and then head to the Magic Kingdom for a little evening fun. Cynthia did 2 loads of laundry while the kids watched cartoons on TV and I updated my pictures and recharged batteries.

Around six we hopped onboard the monorail and went to the Magic Kingdom. The rain had mostly let up, and it had just gotten dark, so all the buildings were lit up. We had decided to get Madison a stroller so that she might last a little longer, especially with the prospect of rain. We made a beeline for Tomorrowland and immediately got a fast pass for the Buzz Lightyear ride. We parked the stroller at the Buzz ride and walked across the street and up the escalator to the Tomorrowland Transportation Authority, which is basically a tram ride around all of Tomorrowland. It’s a fun way to visit all aspects of this area of the park and decide what to do next. I remember this train being called the WEDway People Mover back 20 years ago, and was fairly innovative at the time. It’s magnetic propulsion system is very efficient and it utilizes the same rotating platform loading/unloading scheme that Spaceship Earth at Epcot did.

After the TTA, we visited the Carousel of Progress, an attraction I remember fondly from my first trip to the MK in 1981. The original attraction debuted at the New York World’s Fair in 1964, and chronicles the advances in technology from the turn of the century (1900, that is) to “present day” in a very unique setting, where the audience revolves around a center axis of six stages where audioanimatronic figures talk about the never ending march of progress. Once again, the ingenuity of Walt Disney shows how you can have 5 separate shows going on simultaneously, moving people onto and off of the attraction with great efficiency. It’s a little humorous, though, to see the representation of the most “modern” scene, which probably hasn’t been updated since the late 1980’s. Some things didn’t quite come to pass as predicted.

Our fastpass times for Buzz Lightyear were up, so we went across the street and to the front of the line. This “dark” ride is like others where you board one of an endless train of cars and move through various scenes, some under blacklight, but this one has an interactive component where the passengers are armed with laser blasters and can shoot back.

After exiting the ride we saw that it had started raining again, so we ducked into a gift shop and I bought a round of rain ponchos. Newly protected from the sprinklng, we grabbed a couple chicken strip baskets at Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe, and then strolled over to our old standby, fantasyland. This time the destination was “It’s A Small World”, which Madison loved, followed by Peter Pan, also a hit. As we exited Peter Pan the fireworks show had started, so we watched it a bit from the back of the park. We wound our way back toward the entrance, stopping to pick up a candy selection for everybody.

We turned in Madison’s stroller and caught the monorail back to the hotel to call it a night.

Day 4 began slow. I went down to the sundries store in the main building of our hotel and picked up some milk and donuts and brought them back to the room for breakfast. Cynthia had an appointment for a trip to the Spa portion of our resort, so the kids and I were just going to hang around the room and sleep in.

Cynthia went to the Grand Floridian Spa, and had a facial and massage, which she reports was wonderful.

We took our time getting ready, and Cynthia returned mid-morning, so we didn’t make it to the bus stop until around 10:30 to head over to MGM Studios. We had lunch reservations for the Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater, an interesting restaurant concept whereby you sit in replica cars in a large room outfitted to resemble a 50’s-style drive-in theater, complete with the speaker hanging on the pole by the car and cheesy trailers for B movies playing on the big screen. I had the ribs, Cynthia and Michael had hamburgers, the other two had chicken. And the trailers were very very cheesy. I’m not entirely sure the kids got the whole concept of watching a movie in your car. A little before their time, I suppose.

After lunch, we decided to head on over to the Lights Motors Action! stunt show and get in line, although it turned out not to be much of a line (the stadium seats about 5,000 and while almost completely full, the crowd moved very well). This show was a blast, no pun intended. Cars, motorcycles, people on fire, what more could you want? Michael and Matthew really got into it.

After the show (and the requisite trips to the restroom), we wandered into the “Honey I Shrunk The Kids” playground, where we found ourselves in and among the likes of a 5 foot tinkertoy, a huge roll of film with a blade of grass slide coming out of it, and about a million other kids and parents running around with cameras.

The kids had a great time running around, sliding down the slides, crawling all over things. And, like the other parents watching, trying not to lose their kids, I snapped some great pictures there.

Next, the daily trip through a souvenir shop where the boys picked out a pair of Pirates of the Caribbean pistols, which I found interesting seeing as we hadn’t been to that attraction yet. We followed that up with soft drinks and gummy bears.

We worked our way toward the center of the park, near the big Sorcerer Mickey hat, to catch the midday parade. It started, and suddenly the entire population of the park materialized in front of us. So much so that it became quickly apparent that we were not going to see the parade. So we turned around and found ourselves directly in front of the Great Movie Ride.

TGMR takes place in a building made up to look just like Mann’s Chinese Theatre, which I thought of as interesting this time around since I was in LA just this past May and actually was in front of the real thing. I’ve always liked this ride; it reminds me of the Jungle Cruise at Magic Kingdom, only without the boat. You ride 20 or so to a car with a cast member up front telling you corny jokes and pointing out interesting movie trivia as you “sail” past classic scenes from great movies. Half way through a live action scene straight out of a western is acted out, with the tour guide a participant in the show. Cheesy, yes, but fun, especially for movie buffs like me.

Afterwards, we went to the Animation building and took a tour of Disney animation, which included a short film and a walking tour of artifacts from recent animated films. This culminated in a lot of Chicken Little paraphernalia, photo ops and the like.

After that, Madison wanted to take a rest, so she and Cynthia found a nice bench and sent me off looking for roasted almonds. Once I returned with the snack, the boys and I went to catch the Indiana Jones Stunt Show. We were about 20 minutes early, so we went ahead and went into the seating area, and took up a spot 3 rows back and right next to the sound booth. I like to watch the tech crew “behind the scenes” almost as much as the show, especially if I’ve seen the show a few times before. Afterwards I talked with the tech crew and asked them some questions about the gear they used. I even shook hands with the stunt guy that played Indiana Jones. I made it a point to tell him how much we enjoyed the show, and he seemed to really appreciate that. I doubt many people take the time to tell them that in person.

After the show the boys and I met back up with Madison and Cynthia and we all decided to go ahead and go get seats for the Fantasmic fireworks show. Unlike the fireworks shows at Magic Kingdom and Epcot where people gather randomly to watch, Fantasmic takes place on and around an island in a lake, with stadium seating “in the round.” We followed the crowd and found seats on the left-hand side about 10 rows back; not bad at all.

Fantasmic was great! It was more a stage presentation than a fireworks show, per se. The neat thing about the show was how they sprayed water in a large “fan” and then projected scenes from Disney movies on it. Characters acted out the basic Good versus Evil story, in the form of Mickey as the Sorcerer’s Apprentice against all of the classic Disney villains. Fireballs, boats, lasers, fireworks, music, the whole nine yards. They even set the lake on fire at one point. The neat thing is how they were able to put it out on cue.

We followed the crowd again, this time towards the busses and found the one with Grand Floridian on the marquee. Back at the hotel we grabbed some pizza and chicken strips at Gasparilla’s and took dinner back to the room. A few cartoons later and we called it a night.