Day 4, Sept 13, 2006

Today is Disney's Animal Kingdom. We got to the park just after 9.

All the other Disney theme parks, I don’t need a map as you can easily tell where you are by just looking around to recognize landmarks. Not here as all you see are trees. Even last year, I had a problem finding the exit. So at every intersection I stop to make sure we are heading in the right direction for the Kilimanjaro Safari ride.

I think this is only the second time I am riding this. This is the first time I rode this when the creaky bridge meant to scare you was in operation. Of course the ride ends with you scaring off the poachers. As it has been reported, the person who comes out to thank us for helping trap the poachers, is no longer there. No big deal for me. I never felt it was that good, how the safari ends. I have watched all the programs when they talk about how there are barriers out of your line of sight to keep the animals away from each other. One thing I noticed, which I discussed after I got back, the safari bus did go through some barriers, and crossed over some chains on the ground. Not sure how this separates the animals. Do the animals fear stepping on the chains? Or when the safari busses are not near the barriers, the chains spring up to create a real barrier.

We then made our way back to the Tree of Life to see It's tough to be a bug. The park doesn’t seem that large anymore as it is getting easier to walk around it. No line here.

Then we went on Dinosaur, at least my mother and I did. I felt this ride might be a little too rough for my father, and he wasn’t enthusiastic about going on it anyway. Last year when I did this ride, I felt very bad after. I always felt that was because I hardly slept on the way to Disney World via train, and I did this attraction the first day. My theory is my body was stressed out due to lack of sleep and the wild action of the ride was just too much for me that day. That was the second time I rode it, and the first time I was ok, so I wanted to 'get back on that horse and ride it again' This time, no ill effects after.

It was still before noon, but I was hungry, so we had a slightly early lunch at Flame Tree BBQ. Enjoyed it, just like last time.

After lunch, about the only thing we wanted to do maybe that we didn’t so far was Kali River Rapids. We all weren’t too enthusiastic about getting soaked, so we said goodbye to DAK for this trip and headed back to our hotel for a afternoon break.

The only negative part of staying at Pop Century, when leaving the parks, it is always the last bus station. Well, guess what? At DAK, it isn’t, if you wanted to park hop from DAK to another park, you have to go past the bus station for Pop Century. Yippee J.

This afternoon we are heading back to Epcot for the evening. Tonight is EMH night at Epcot, so I actually slept a couple of hours in the afternoon so I can stay up the whole night.

For the first time this trip, there is a bus sitting at the bus pickup for Epcot. Great we thought, till we noticed the line wasn’t moving, and people weren’t boarding the bus. We found out the bus was broken. It was leaking out green liquid under by where the bus driver sits. I am not a bus mechanic, but I would think this is anti-freeze, but since I hear the engine still running, I always thought you couldn’t operate a engine with no anti-freeze and the engine would over heat and the engine seize. But maybe the bus driver couldn’t care less, didn’t want to sit in the bus without the AC on, so who knows?

The bus for Epcot is the second bus station when looking from the Pop Century entrance, the first being just a drop off point. Well, a bus drops people off there, and I inquire if that is the bus that will go to Epcot, since the bus at the Epcot station is broken down. He says yes. I quietly motion my parents to come to this bus. While the bus driver helps my father on board with his ECV, other people notice we are boarding this bus, and people start to run over to get on the bus.

We rode Mission Space, green team, the less intense version. For those who are claustrophobic, I would think twice about riding this, as it is very tight in there. To help simulate take off and pressing back into your chair, I think they swing the capsule so you are laying on your back. To simulate floating in space, they swing you so you are facing face down, so you feel you are almost floating out of your chair. During the briefing, they tell you part of the mission, you will be in 'hyper sleep'. To simulate you are asleep, they turn off all the lights for a couple of seconds, before they come back on. Don’t want to totally ruin the ride, but felt I should mention the above for people who may be too nervous to ride this. There are lots of toggle switches and buttons to press. But you only have to press two on cue from mission control. If you are missing one person, you can or don’t have to press the button in the station next to you.

We went on Test Track next. For those who have a ECV, you enter the car on the passenger side of the car, but exit from the driver side. At the front end of the boarding queue, there is a elevator for the CM's to move your ECV from one side to the other. At the end of the ride, you can add the ride photo to your photopass. I thought all the rides that take photos, you can do this, but I understand, this may be the only one that presently you can do this. Last year, they had a little attraction here called Dream Chasers. I understood from the CM in the building, that this recently closed.

I wanted my parents to try the sodas from around the world, but I couldn’t locate it on the map. I was pretty sure it was called Club Cool or something, presented by Coke. We walked over to a nice cm manning a souvenir booth by herself in the middle path. She wasn’t sure, and used her phone to call someone. She showed me on the map where it should be, which turned out to be over our right shoulder, and we could see it from where we were J duh. Everyone talks about Beverly, so I tried that. First sip was no big deal, but the second one, I tasted how bitter it was.

We went to Mexico next and went on the boat ride. Instead of videotaping it, I took still photos instead. Still hardly ever a line for this ride.

Next was Norway's Maelstrom. This was the only line we had to wait on the whole trip. About 10 minutes. I think the ride was broken, because the lines hardly moved, and this is a fast continuously loading ride. As usual, we skipped the film portion.

It was close to our ADR for Le Cellier. We still see people trying to get reservations the last minute. They kept telling them they were fully booked up till Oct, and this is the second week in Sept. I had the cheddar cheese soup, NY strip steak (again) and Crème Brule for dessert.

After dinner, we watched O Canada.

Then Impressions de France.

Watched a little bit of Illuminations again, but I wanted to ride Mission space while my parents went back to the hotel by themselves.

After MS, wanted to go on Soarin again. The posted wait time said 15 minutes, but the line queue looked allot longer, more like 30 to 45, so I and a bunch of other people just exited the long wait.

I went to the Electric Umbrella to get a Mickey bar for a snack. But they don’t sell any there. Found a ice cream cart right outside, got my Mickey bar, went back inside and relaxed with my ice cream.

I went on Spaceship Earth as my last thing to do tonight. I have always tried to videotape this, but this time, just sat back and watched it. Do you know the printing press scene? It is with all those big wheels moving around, with someone reading a book by it. Well, when I rode it, the printing presses weren’t turning and it looked like to me, the guy reading a book, was trying to figure out how to repair it.

At the end of the ride, I told the CM, and she marked it down on a clip board. From what I understand, it is or was Disney policy, if the attraction isn’t fully operational, they close it. Unless it is something really minor and it may take them more then a day to fix it. I wondered if what I told the CM, forced them to close SE the following day.

End of day, headed back to hotel.