Day Four, Part Three: Oofs
Our Friday was already going very well - we had visited Pandora and seen quite a few animal friends. Next up was our (admittedly worthless) Safari FP+. I say worthless, because we walked right on, along with everyone that didn't have a FP+. We expected E to love this ride because the scenery is constantly changing, but she was actually pretty bored by it. I guess she used to the whole zoo set-up where you walk up to an look-out, find the animal and move on? To her it seemed like the train at the MK - just another form of transportation, so she didn't quite get it. We had thought about immediately going on this again because Jeff and I love it (we've even done the Wild Africa Trek in the past), or at least coming back and doing the sunset version, but we quickly decided it would be a one-and-done for this trip. We saw all of the normal wildlife, so I'll just share a couple of pictures. First, a cute baby pelican!
He's so fluffy ... And of course the normal pose for the lions. They lead a difficult life.
After the safari, we caught another view of the gorillas. They were more active this day than I've seen them before, so we spent a few more minutes watching them walk around and find things to munch on.
Jeff had never been to Rafiki's Planet Watch, and I hadn't been for years and years and years. But we knew that it had the Affection Section, and thought that was something E would enjoy, so we hopped on yet another mode of transportation
This was a great decision. There's not much back in this part of the park, and it does eat up some time to get there and back with the train ride and various necessary walking paths. But, it was even MORE deserted than the rest of the park, which meant E got to wander and roam and be in charge of where we went and what we did for a while. In general, we did more of the E-led touring this day than any other day, and it was obvious that she blossomed when she was allowed to be in charge. Ha. So, even though I'm a rigid touring plan follower, I now realize there's something to be said for being flexible and following the whims of a 1.5-year-old. E quickly made a Rafiki friend.
When we got to the main building, it was practically empty. E saw Doc McStuffins in her little set-up to one side, and got really excited and wanted to go over there. I was admittedly confused because that girl has never seen or heard of Doc McStuffins before in her life (Disney Junior was not part of her pre-Disney training
). But since we were letting her be in charge, I let her wander that way. Doc McStuffins started waving at her, and E ever-so-politely totally ignored her and bee-lined for the little houses at the side of the meet set-up, saying "Oof! Oof!". Background: E got a little indoor playhouse for Christmas last year, and my brother-in-law sometimes puts her on the roof of the playhouse, and she thinks it's the most hilarious thing ever. So now she is obsessed with roofs, and wants to climb on them.
Doc was very confused, so I quickly explained that E likes roofs, and then Doc caught on and told E all about how her animal friends sleep in those little houses, while E continued to ignore her and tried climbing on the tiny roofs.
After our unique Doc encounter, we headed to the Affection Section, where E was the only person under the age of 25 in the enclosure. She could pet/brush whoever she wanted! She mostly gravitated toward Sheldon (awesome name) - an incredibly tall and friendly goat.
The CMs here were again very friendly. One of them came over to us and said something like, "Isn't this so exciting? I bet she's never been able to touch a pig before!" I had to inform him that we were from Missouri and actually have family friends with a pig farm, so she had touched pigs before, and had just fed some goats from her hand 2 days before we left for Disney ... ha. Poor guy didn't have much to say after that, but E had fun hanging out with the animals. Unfortunately, there's not much shade over this area, so we quickly started over-heating and opted to head back to the mainland
Once we rode back, it was about 11:30. We usually eat lunch around this time in the parks because it typically just barely beats the lunch rush. Since it was right by the train station and we hadn't tried it before, we headed to Harambe Market. This was such a good move. The area is very shady, somewhat removed from the chaos of the park (if you happen to attend on a chaotic day), and with lots of fans to keep the air moving. Plus, the food is different than what you get a typical pizza-chicken-burgers park restaurants, but still approachable. Now that our budget worries were out the window, we were able to get whatever we wanted, and even got a kids meal for E! (Side note: I had pre-calculated based on which restaurants we would likely be going to how much food money we would need for our original trip, and we bought Disney gift cards from Target with our 5% discount to cover that amount, so now we had a LOT more left on our gift card than we would actually need since we switched from Boma dinner to Boma breakfast, and would be losing a whole day of planned meal expenses).
This food was delicious. Jeff and I split the Beef and Lamb Gyro Flatbread ($10.99) and the Beef and Pork Sausage ($9.99). The sausage is *basically* a corn dog, but Jeff doesn't like corn dogs, and he loved this. Each entree comes with the same sides, so we asked for the entree only on the sausage, but got two sets of sides anyway. The sides are ... different (Green Papaya Slaw and and Black-Eyed Pea Salad), but they are cool and refreshing, so go out on a limb and try them. E had the Chicken Skewer. We were really excited because we had been struggling to get her the normal amount of vegetables that she eats in a day. Most times kids meals at Disney offer applesauce as their "healthy" side, which is fine, but Harambe had broccoli and carrots as options, so we got her those.
Can you tell I'm a foodie now? Almost half of this post at this point is dedicated to our lunch. Ha! But it was a major life event because E got to discover the joys of food on a stick.
Pro Tip: Try Harambe Market while in Animal Kingdom. It's relaxing, a change of pace from other Disney restaurants, but still approachable and with good kids meal options.
While E was finishing up her chicken-on-a-stick, I sent Jeff across the path to Zuri's Sweet Shop to get us some desserts to share. He knows that E and I love anything chocolate, so I trusted him to pick out good stuff for us. He comes back with a bag and says, "Get your camera out before I take dessert out of the bag." Oooooooookaaaaaaayyyyyy... so I get my camera out and snap a picture of this:
Ha! He was hoping it would be bigger than her face, and it mostly was. Maybe now instead of referring to her as E, I can refer to her as Cookie Face
Honestly, this was a pretty good dessert choice. The cookie itself was a little on the dry side, but the chocolate coating compensated for that. It was a LOT of food, and we struggled to finish all of it. Such a struggle
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After lunch it started drizzling, which actually felt pretty good ... but I got one of those "it's going to unleash" feelings, and we headed under the covering for the Tusker House check-in. Just was we got under, a legitimate downpour started. It only lasted about 5 minutes, but we were glad we were protected and didn't have to get our ponchos out. When the sun peeped back out, we headed along to our next stop. That was the only time it rained that day - hooray!
I think I've explained before that we prepared E for this Disney trip by getting her the Disney Encyclopedia of Animated Characters. She takes after her Mama, and studied that thing hard and could name almost every one of the 150 characters in there (even Basil from the Great Mouse Detective!). Then we brought it with us on this trip to use as her autograph book when she actually met the characters. That way she had a familiar picture of them to go along with the less-familiar in-person version of them. This worked out VERY well. You also know that E's favorite character, by far, is Kristoff. And on the page opposite Kristoff in this book is John Smith (it's alphabetical). E calls him "Smiff" and hadn't even ever seen his movie - we've since addressed that issue
But also on that page is a picture of Pocahontas, who E calls "Hanas". Because of that very random association, she had been asking to see "Hanas" all week. After the downpour, we were finally able to fulfill her request!
After all of that excitement, it was time for E's stroller nap for the day ... but did I mention she was in charge today? She really took that to heart ... to be continued in my next chapter!