And it was mostly all of those things. And while Epcot had countries you could visit around that lake (about which I'll say more later, because I forgot to say it when I wrote the last post), this park had entire continents: Africa and Asia.
Those turned out to be a fictional east African port town called Harambe and a mock up of rural Nepal. We'll get there...
This was the RAIN day. It rained a little the day before, at Epcot, but pretty much in one quick and heavy downpour and a light and sustained drizzle a little later.
At this park it rained pretty well for most of the time.
The boys enjoyed the relative dryness of the bus there, Cass eating his usual croissant for breakfast:
We got the ponchos out pretty much as we entered, because that was when the rain started falling. Here's Cass with the Tree of Life in the background: (Norm and I refrained from wearing ponchos, the only members of our party to do so.)
The Tree of Life is an enormous fake baobab tree. When you get close, and underneath, and self-guiding yourself on the walking tour before the main park opens, you can see how much work went into the stamped and stained concrete. It looks so much like bark and wood, driftwood in some places, ponderosa pine bark in other places, and nearly the entire trunk and lower branches are carved animals, hidden upon first glancing:
Once the gates to Africa were opened, we headed over to explore Harambe as we waited for the safari ride. Some of the pictures got out of whack from the day, but I'll do my best (this is what I get for putting the pictures up last week and not writing anything until now...).
Harambe messed me up. The attention to detail in this tiny recreation of what normal Americans think an African town looks like blew me away. Is this all just a safe facsimile for American tourists so they never actually have to go to Africa?
It could have been any developing nation, really, depending on the script and language:
I felt like I took too many pictures:
It was the place for our dinner later on that day.
The first ride we took was the jungle safari. This was not effing around. It was a full on canvas covered open sided truck, driving around in the downpour, with repeated warnings that "THE CHILDREN MUST BE SEATED. IF ANYONE FALLS OUT, WE WILL NOT BE STOPPING FOR YOU. WE CANNOT STOP FOR YOU."
Yeah...working on it...
We got to see the ghosts of the forest:
Bongos, I think they're called otherwise.
We saw some napping lions, some sleepy wild dogs, and the baby elephant:
The giraffes were fully out, while both the hippos and the crocs were chilling in their watering holes. This was different than an amusement park ride, per se, as it was essentially open Savannah and some mildly dense forrest sections, mimicking normal African habitats, and we were driving through in a huge jeep.
We rode it again after dinner, just to see the evening animals stirring...
I think we went to Pandora next, but the pictures get all wonky here.
All the boys loved Dinoland, as we had tickets to cut the line at the dino ride. It was a very popular ride, and in the vein of Indiana Jones at Disneyland: not a roller coaster, but a jerky-moving-about controlled jeep ride. Here we are with one of the skeletons:
At lunch Cass found (and soon menaced) a heron or egret, looking to scavenge some hot dog bun or French fry:
Later, at dinner back in Africa, they brought out the big guns, the costumed characters we'd all wanted to see during the trip. Earlier, maybe at breakfast on Monday, there were three characters I'd never heard of and Goofy. At this dinner it was Mickey, Donald, Daisy and Goofy. Look how excited my son is to see Donald. Who knew he'd be this over-the-moon?
Here's a picture from the central piece from the Pandora area. It looked cool, for sure...
We had the fast pass for a ride that had normal folks waiting 105 minutes, the sign said. Over an hour and a half...
The ride was...like Pirates of the Caribbean, but in Pandora, and mostly, meh... Norm and I looked at each other afterwards and said, "Hour and a half?"
At some point we took the kids to an extended playground, with multiple levels of slides and rope bridges and the like, and, following one specific path, you could cross over a major walkway in the park and arrive at a gravelly "dig site:"
I found Cass and Norman over there after losing eyes on them. The site was only accessible from the tiny elevated path over the park's thoroughfare.
After dinner Norm and I sprinted out to the roller coaster in the Himalayas, the tiny Nepali village remake as Asia, as everyone else went on the gorilla walk. Cass slept.
My one picture from this part sucks, but the flags signify the entrance of the area up ahead:
Norm and I had a fast pass for the ride, and went through literally minutes after the time was good. It took about six minutes to get to, and ride, the yeti ride. Which was great!
It starts off kinda fast, not so bad, but comes up to a halt as it looks like the track has been destroyed by a yeti, iron all mangled and bent.
Then you start to roll backward over a different set of tracks all the way to another stopping point, and then back down the mountain on a third set of tracks, in which you pull the most g's of the ride. It's a very solid roller coaster.
But we were done so fast, and had plenty of time before the evening safari ride, that we entertained the idea of riding it again.
The sign said 50 minutes, but what it really said was "from this point" 50 minutes, and there was nobody in sight. We looked at each other for a half second, blinked once, and sashayed right through the opening and got into line again.
It snaked around for a while before we saw anybody. When it was all done, we maybe waited thirteen minutes the second time to ride. That was awesome.
On the safari the second time we saw some longhorn cattle that have the biggest horns of any bovine (and this picture does no justice...these were as big around as my thigh):
We caught a glimpse of the male lion:
And the other rhinos were out. In the morning it was the black rhinos, but in the evening it was the red rhinos, who were closer to the path:
This park was last, and I feel like it was where we did the most stuff, but I don't remember what happened after the second safari and Cass's meltdown as my mother was returning her scooter.
At some point during the day we saw the Lion King show, which was a mix of Cirque du Soleil and a singalong. We sat in Simba's section, and roared when it was our turn to make noise.
My mom had the boys all get their hands painted and pressed onto a paper, which were then turned into animals:
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| I wasn't sure I had this picture... |
The day remains a rainy blur of so much activity and dreamy memories.
Quite a full day for the last day...
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