Day 13 A tale of two Kingdoms (for some) Today was our second and last visit to Animal Kingdom. It's no longer the "half day park" that many have christened it and it has plenty on offer - with great potential ahead as the building work progresses. Like our last visit we had a mid morning breakfast planned at Tusker House but today we didn't have any FP booked - they were booked for our afternoon visit to MK.
Carol, Rebecca and I went into AK for as early as we could manage - we arrived about 20 minutes after opening. We headed straight for Everest. Carol was a little quiet today and elected to wait outside the gift shop for our return. Stand by was at a minimal wait time and the first time that we encountered people standing still was inside the loading station. We'd ridden and returned to the gift shop area within 10-15 minutes. We then walked from Asia into Africa and headed to Kilimanjaro Safari. The posted wait time was 20 minutes yet we were boarding our truck in less than that. Our driver / guide Heather was brilliant and very knowledgable.
Having completed the safari it was time to wander the short distance over to Tusker House where we were meeting Nicola and Chris. They arrived spot on time and we checked in. About 5 minutes later we were eating another tasty breakfast. A little disconcerting was that as we were finishing off our meals, staff were starting to cover and remove some of the foods, yet there were still plenty of other guests dining.
From Tusker House we headed around the corner to The Lion King show in plenty of time for the midday performance. The show is old yet it is far from tired, it was pleasing to see that on the two occasions that we watched it the theatre was full.
After that we went our separate ways. Carol was feeling unwell and elected to return to AKL alone, leaving the four of us to enjoy AK, first on the list was Kilimanjaro Safaris (a second safari that day for two of us). There was still only a 20 minute stand by line posted and we were soon on our way. As the safari was concluding our driver, looking up to the skies remarked that we were in for a storm very soon. After the safari we headed from Africa back to Asia and Everest. As we walked between the two continents the skies were grumbling and huge thunder claps could be heard. As we approached Everest the cast members had cleared both lines and closed the ride in anticipation of the approaching rain. They didn't have to wait long. It started slowly enough, light enough for us to start back towards DInoland, Discovery Island and the park exit - judging by the skies, this rain was here for the duration. The nearer the park exit we got, the heavier the rain came down. We stopped to put on waterproof jackets and then hurried for the busses back to AKL. By this time the rain was coming down in buckets.
When I got back to the room Carol was resting on the bed, she had symptoms similar to those that I'd experienced a little earlier in the trip. She was dosing up on the cold and flu tablets which had assisted my recovery. Having changed from our wet clothes, we waited for a break in the weather. In the meantime I was able to get on my phone and adjust the MK FP timings so that hopefully we wouldn't miss out on too much later.
Late afternoon, the rain had stopped and we all headed off to MK. Carol was feeling a little better and didn't want to miss out on the fun. Once at MK we headed for our FP choices. Space was to have been first but I moved this back until after Wishes, so first up was Seven Dwarves which we were really enjoying, and then a walk across to Frontierland and Big Thunder. We then headed towards Crystal Palace and our dinner.
After dinner we found a good spot on Main Street to watch MSEP. During the parade Carol became unwell, she was hot and "having a melt down" so she had to go into the entrance of one of the nearby shops to take advantage of the air conditioning. Happy that she was ok for a few minutes I continued taking photos of the parade.
I then escorted Carol back to the buses and off to AKL and bed. Once at the bus stop she was happy to make her own way back to the resort. So, I turned around and re-entered MK and battled my way through the crowds on Main Street and got to around Casey's where I stood to watch Celebrate The Magic and Wishes. I knew that I had little chance of finding Nicola, Chris and Rebecca before I took Carol back to the bus, so we arranged to make our own way back to AKL at the end of the night. I told them that I wouldn't be riding Space as I would be going back to the resort to check on Carol. It turns out that we were actually stood about 20 yards apart on Main Street but in the dark and the masses of people we just didn't see each other.
Carol was in bed asleep when I got back to our room, and I'm happy to report that by the next morning she was feeling a lot better (thanks for wondering !!!)
Coming next - Our last full day :-(
