Tag Archives | sanaa

February 6

Mr. Ray’s Pop Quiz photo from yesterday:

Those that have been following my Trip Reports know that I’m very long winded, but today I will try to keep the text shorter, with the space being taken up with several photos, and one video at the end.  We spent the whole day touring the Animal Kingdom from a little before opening (9:00 AM) to a little before closing (6:00 PM).

The crowds were supposed to have picked up, but it didn’t seem that the Animal Kingdom was affected.  The crowds were light all day, with the only real congestion being in the Maharajah Jungle Trek and Pangani Forest trails.  After walking through the Oasis, and struggling to get a decent photo of the Babirusa we made our way to Africa for a ride on Kilimanjaro Safaris.

Oasis Photos:

Kilimanjaro Safaris photos:

As per usual, many of the photos for the Safaris were blurry, but I did get a few shots that I liked.  Specifically the photo of the Black Rhino.  We’ll be discussing the difference between Black and White Rhinos on the 2/14 Podcast.  Another point of note, we saw Zebras on the hill over the Red Clay Pits (Elephant viewing area).  We haven’t seen Zebras on the Safari in several years, and when we did, they were typically on the Savannah.  We followed up the Safari with a walk on Pangani Forest exploration trail, and I got some of my favorite photos of the day of the Meerkats and Gerenuks

Pangani Forest photos:

We decided to take the Wildlife Express train over to Conservation Station/Rafiki’s Planet Watch.  We toured the exhibits, and saw an operation on a wild florida turtle.  This wasn’t a resident of the Animal Kingdom, but an animal that was found on property that was likely hit by a car.  What was amusing was that as part of the surgery, they were using duct tape to hold part of the shell in place.  Rafiki’s Planet Watch is often unexplored, but it’s a good spot to meet characters, we saw Jiminy Cricket, Rafiki, and Pocahontas all with minimal lines.  Additionally, they have several animal encounters during the day where you can view animals that are only viewable at Conservation Station.  This was my hope to see Fennec Foxes for the first time in my 12+ years visiting the Animal Kingdom, but instead we saw a porcupine and a lesser anteater.  We didn’t go into the petting zoo, but did watch others chase around the sheep and goats.  In the bathroom they had posted fun facts on the walls, amongst which were the following:

• An elephant pees up to 20 gallons a day
• Rhinos and Tapirs can pee up to 15 feet

Rafiki’s Planet Watch photos:

After Rafiki’s Planet Watch we went on Expedition Everest using the Single Rider line.  The station steam was working, the bird on a stick was not working…
Hey, people of Serka Zong, it’s cheap looking plastic bird on a stick!
Who needs impressive effects and audio animatronics when there’s bird on a stick?
Imagineering’s favorite effect for over 4 years!

We followed this we watched the Gibbons and went to see Tigers on the Maharajah Jungle Trek.

Gibbons photos:

Maharajah Jungle Trek photos:

After seeing the Tigers, we made our way to Flights of Wonder – in my opinion one of the most underrated shows on property.  Previously we have seen the same cast member portraying Guano Joe, this time we had someone else, and he was just as good.  To anyone that hasn’t seen this show at all or in a while, I recommend giving it a chance.

Flights of Wonder photos:

We made our way to Dinosaur after the show ended, and it seems there was either a major lighting issue or animatronics were removed as I could not see the Styracosaurus or the 1st Carnotaurus.  The good news is that the charging Carnotaurus was working.  We looked at a few of the Tree of Life exhibits before seeing the 3:15 Finding Nemo show.  We followed up the Nemo show with another trip on Expedition Everest, and then the Discovery Island trails on our way over to Festival of the Lion King.

Tree of Life photos:

Discovery Island Trails photos:

Festival of the Lion King photos:

We left the park at around 5:30, and made our way over to Kidani Village to tour the grounds and have dinner at Sanaa.  The best viewing area was ironically of the Sunrise Savannah, which is the same Savannah we can view from our room in Jambo House.  We couldn’t get a good view of the Pembe Savannah, the DVC exclusive Savannah that I believe is home to Okapis.  Dinner at Sanaa was good, although I think I may have liked the set up of the restaurant better than the food.  The booths were inside thatch huts, and representations of Acacia trees helped to create the ceiling.  Also, the faucet was pretty cool in the bathroom, so I took a picture.  The food was good, but not a far enough deviation from what I’m used to.  I had the short ribs/red curry chicken combo.  The ribs tasted very similar to the beef stew that Marie makes.

Sanaa Faucet:

Kidani Village photos:

All in all, this was a great day – I love a day that centers around the Animal Kingdom and to cap it off by visiting Kidani Village and then returning to our room at the Animal Kingdom Lodge could not be better.  The last thing I’ll leave you with today is a video of some of the sights of the day.

Wait times throughout the day:
9:56 Kilimanjaro Safaris: Standby 5 minutes, Fastpass 10:33-11:33
10:45 Kilimanjaro Safaris: Standby 5 minutes, Fastpass 11:21-12:21
12:05 Kali River Rapids: Standby 5 minutes, Fastpass Unavailable
12:09 Expedition Everest: Standby 45 minutes, Fastpass 1:25-2:25, Single Ride 5 minutes
2:02 Primeval Whirl: Standby 10 minutes, Fastpass Unavailable
2:05 Dinosaur: Standby 10 minutes, Fastpass 2:40-3:40
2:32 Primeval Whirl: Standby 20 minutes
4:00 Expedition Everest: Standby 40 minutes

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