The Munchkin at Animal Kingdom

The Animal Kingdom was the park that we get to didn’t spend enough time in this last trip, so we don’t have a top ten, more like a few tips to guide your steps. Even though we ended up only spending half a day here, the munchkin still had a lot to see and enjoy. Our main objectives for our time at Animal Kingdom were for Mamma and Papa to ride Everest and to see Nemo the Musical. We only achieved half of this goal. Even if you are there in the low crowds season, we were there the week before Christmas week, you have to budget your must sees if you are under a time constraint but better yet I would just plan this as your day at AK and not have a plan. It was impossible to do Everest, even though the lines were short, without really budgeting the time to wait for Nemo. They recommend that you queue up an hour before hand and while I’m not sure you need an hour, you definitely needed more than the 30 minutes we planned for. For those of you wondering about our time constraint...the dining plan. I will devote a whole post to this but at this juncture, I will point out the obvious, that it really required that we plan every minute of the day.

The grandparents were with us and we all took advantage of switching off on Everest. Munchkin liked some of the cool stuff that is in the area but I had the second shift of watching her and she was done (there isn’t a play area for this ride and I do hope that they eventually put one in the area (like the one at Splash Mountain) as there isn’t much else to do in the area. We walked up and looked at the building where the Nemo Musical is and looked at the water. She really liked the ducks again (we traveled 1800 miles to see ducks!). Chester and Hester’s Dinorama was also a favorite place. The gaudy and loud atmosphere was really enjoyable for her. She really liked watching the Triceratops Spin but did not want to go on the ride.

Stopping for a snack was very important. Toddlers by nature are grazers and snacking in the world can put you in the poor house. We did carry crackers and some cereal and other small snacks. Eating healthfully was not hard just managing the temptations took some negotiating at times. The Munchkin really liked having a pretzel washed down with some milk. She shared with the rest of us and enjoyed giving the left overs to the ducks (are we detecting a pattern here?). We then spent a lot of time at the Maharajah Jungle trek. I highly recommend this attraction. We weren’t able to get on the Safari or see Nemo so this was our next best option and it turned out to be a really great alternative. The munchkin did not enjoy the bats but otherwise she really had a lot of fun. The tigers were a huge hit. We spent a lot of time looking at the “Kitties”. The path itself is really interesting and she liked checking out the patterns in the concrete. The bird room was also particularly fun for her. While we saw only a few birds, she liked the chains that you walked through to get to the room and the castmember in there spent some time pointing out a purple bird to her (I can’t remember the name) that was big enough for her to see. This is a great point to say that small kids can’t always see the things that you are pointing at or describing where the thing is. I think that this might be a drawback to the safari ride as the truck is moving relatively quickly. She really enjoyed the animals here and was able to relatively close to them.

We ended our all too short time at this park at the Yak and Yeti, counter service. The food was great and the outdoor eating area was very nice. My only complaint was that there were no changing tables in the restrooms adjacent to this eating area. I hope that Disney adds these soon as it is extremely difficult to change a diaper in this rest room.

The Munchkin really liked this park but not in the way that most grownups, or certainly I, have. Touring was discovery after discovery with her. She was thrilled by the footprints in the concrete, flowers and the prayer flags in Asia. This is the way that the park was originally designed to be seen. If you are taking your small ones here I would choose this as a slower day. Skip the minute by minute touring plan. You will see more, not necessarily attraction but the really cool stuff. Just spend the day hanging out here. See whatever strikes you, definitely take the time to see Everest, it is spectacular and fun. Then just let your kids guide you, I guarantee you won’t regret it. The munchkin showed us things that we never would have see otherwise.

What are your favorites for Animal Kingdom?