Our Cup of Coffey: { Animal Kingdom }

This park was small enough for it to be done it just half a day, which was really nice. It's like Epcot, only with animals! You walk around the park to different continents and see all the animals. And yes, I'm definitely the animal lover in the family. The very first thing we did was the animal safari, and props to Disney because they did an amazing job. The animals they have there aren't in cages at all, and they have a lot of room to roam around in. The safari took over 20 minutes to get through since there's so much ground to cover. We saw giraffes, crocodiles, elephants, rhinos, lions, leopards, Zebras, hippos, apes, flamingos, and several different kinds of deer-like animals that are all native to Africa.

[caption id="attachment_491" align="aligncenter" width="400"]

Can you spot the hippo?[/caption]

After the documentary "Blackfish" was released, a lot of awareness was raised for animals in captivity. I'm no die hard Sea World hater, I see the educational benefits of being able to study animals in a controlled environment like zoos and aquariums, but good 'ol Disney truly did an amazing job making their habitats authentic, and most importantly, large. (as you can tell from the pictures) The road we drove on cut right though the habitats. Animals were crossing and lounging not even 10 feet away from us, I loved it!

A special tribute to my favorite safari animal: the giraffe!

Out of all the rides at all the parks, the river rafting rides were definitely some of our favorites. When it's 100* outside if feels goooood to get soaked!

The last time my family was at Disney World I was only 4 years old, and I was a handful of a child! At one point my parents turned around to find me hanging out inside a fountain, instead of getting mad (Hallelujah) they snapped a pic instead! I'll get a better copy later on, but for now, this picture of a picture will have to do.

Now, over 15 years later, we came across that same fountain. And what did I do??

I GOT IN IT AGAIN.

I sure remember that fountain being a bit bigger when I was 4!

The absolute best part of Animal Kingdom was the Lion King show! It was amazing, I could watch it every day until I die and never get sick of it. Here are some videos of the greatest performance ever. ever ever. (please disregard my random commentary and off-key singing) #sorrynotsorry

Crazy monkey guys. aka Nick's future job.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIJZz76XFrU&feature=youtu.be[/embed]

Can you feel the love tonight? This was my favorite part of the show!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-7aNAJnNmw&feature=youtu.be

It's the cirlce of life:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS2C6-lf_rA&feature=youtu.be

And just in case you didn't want to watch the videos above, the only proof you need of the Loin King's spectacular-ness is THIS video. 43 seconds of Vanessa dancing along. Gold.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkD1tfjBTnM&feature=youtu.be[/embed]

And now for the rest of the pic dump: