Disney Cruise Line
Day 2 - August 30th, 2001
There was no time for breakfast this day. We were headed for the Animal Kingdom. It's recommended that if you want to see the animals during the safari at the Animal Kingdom that you show up either early in the morning or late in the afternoon, when it's coolest, as the animals, unlike humans, aren't dumb enough to venture out into the midday sun. We reached the Animal Kingdom shortly after opening and made our way to the Kilimanjaro Safaris. The crowds were thick on our way through the park to this attraction, but the wait still ended up being nearly non-existant.
Our choice to forego breakfast paid off as we got to see practically every animal the park has to offer, including the ever elusive lions. We then took the walking tour of the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail, followed by the Kali River Rapids and finally It's Tough to be a Bug!. We did the Kali River Rapids twice as, after exiting the ride, we noticed other passengers had gotten off substantially more soaked that we. As the line was short (there was, in fact, no line), we immediately re-entered the ride and this time exited soaked to the bone. For future reference, if it's your plan to get soaked at the Kali River Rapids, I highly recommend you do this after It's Tough to be a Bug!, as the air conditioning in this attraction could make your soaked body quite uncomfortable.
In all, the Animal Kingdom took less than 3 hours to tour (having decided to skip the fairly generic DINOSAUR ride - formerly Countdown to Extinction). Annie and I wanted to return to the hotel so we could get changed and head out to Blizzard Beach. I'd like to now address one major problem at Walt Disney World, and that's transportation. I made the decision to stay at the Contemporary Resort at Walt Disney World, because it has monorail access, which can get you to the Magic Kingdom and Epcot relatively quickly. But if you need to get anywhere else, you either need to rent a car or take the Walt Disney World Transportation buses. Annie and I were on a tight schedule for Blizzard Beach because we had to be back in time for a planned trip out to Epcot. After waiting much too long for a bus to take us to Blizzard Beach, we finally gave up and returned to our room. We were incredibly disappointed. The weather was perfect for a trip to the water park, and our Park Hopper passes certainly entitled us to access to one, but because of poor transportation, we were denied.
We did discover one bright point that afternoon, though. As we took the monorail to Epcot, we passed over the Test Track attraction and were surprised to discover it was open. Every previous time we had visited Walt Disney World, Test Track had been closed (either because of construction delays or because of a breakdown in the attraction). Getting off the monorail, we wasted no time getting to the attraction and getting on board. I can now say, without question, that Test Track is by far the most entertaining attraction at Epcot. It's not an exceedingly stomach turning attraction. You don't suffer any sudden drops or get suspended upside down at any time, but the high speed turns and sudden breaking make it well worth the wait. We spent the rest of the evening at Epcot, enjoying the substantially more tame pavillions of the World Showcase.
Afterwards, to Downtown Disney where we shopped at the World of Disney until it closed and then headed to Pleasure Island were we did two of my most favorite night time activites at Walt Disney World... we visited the Adventures Club and then took in the last show of the night at The Comedy Warehouse. Improv comedy such as that at The Comedy Warehouse is always hit or miss, but the Adventures Club (at least in my book) is always a hit. I could have spent every night at Walt Disney World there, if not for scheduling conflicts.
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