Pixelmania! Day 3
Well today couldn’t be as bad as yesterday, as far as the weather was concerned, could it? The forecast was that the rain was going to move out by 11:00 AM and it would be a nice day the rest of the day. Only time would tell if that was the case or not, so we all got ready for a day at the Animal Kingdom and headed out.
When we got to the Animal Kingdom, we headed for Kilimanjaro Safari’s as this was the first meet of the day. When we got there there were already a few people there waiting for us. We ended up with a total of 12 people and decided that we didn’t want to “overwhelm” the cast members or other guests so we counted off and split into two groups. After everyone shared lenses and got ready the first group was off while the second group hung around and chatted. The first group got back after their ride, and advised that they had been offered to stay on if they had wanted because the lines were not bad at all. The second group departed for the ride through, and after asking the cast member at the end of the line it was allowed for us to sit only two to a row. The cast members all seemed to think that it was funny to see a large group of people with all of these “expensive” cameras, so it was fun. It was nice because to only sit two to a row because you weren’t really shooting around anyone. It was cool, and there were a lot of animals out and about. More than I have normally seen. The rain had finally completely stopped, so we were eager to see the sun start to come out. We got some wonderful photo’s of the animals on this trek, and saved a baby elephant from poachers. 
We got off of the ride, even though we had been offered to ride through again, and headed for the Pangani Forest Trail. Again since the weather was on the cooler side, I think that we got to see some animals more active than usual. More photo’s were taken and we had a great time. Once this was done, we headed for lunch. We all got together and ate at the Flame Tree Barbecue. It was really tasty. I got a few shots from the seating area back across the water towards Expedition Everest. From here we headed towards the Maharajah Jungle Trek. Again, we stayed together and all had a great time through here. This was my first time through this trek, and I can’t imagine why. I’m sorry that I haven’t done this one before, but as my wife pointed out, it was probably because we normally are here in the summer months when it is hot and we skip a lot of the outdoors things because of that. I won’t miss this trek the next time. Took a lot more photo’s here, and got some great stuff out of the tigers. They were rather playful on this day. After we emerged from the trek, we went over to the Tree of Life for an animal hunt so to speak. We walked two of the trails that are around the tree taking photo’s and chatting with everyone as we went. I have to say that I can’t believe that there are that many animals in the tree. I believe that Disney says there are 225 or so. I believe it now. After we were coming out of the second trail, we ran into the Jammin’ Jungle Parade that has a holiday overlay to it. It was a nice touch, I thought. We now didn’t have enough time to make the 3rd trail as we had a 4:00 pm ADR for Yak & Yeti. I was looking forward to eating here, as I had yet to do so. I will say this, it was wonderful. We had a group of 7 that ate together, and we had a wonderful time. I had a sweet and sour pork with rice that was wonderful. They had a special of a Kobe beef hamburger, which I almost got, but chose not too. It was nice to sit and chat with Arny from the Walt Disney Boards, Tim from The Magic in Pixels and a few other attendees. From here, our day was only a third over, because we had planned on doing two more parks. We had planned to hit Illuminations since we missed the night before due to rain, and go back to the Magic Kingdom since it was open till 1:00 AM. We headed back to the room, to prepare for the night, and off we went. We met in France and then headed out to look for a spot to watch Illuminations from. We ended up in Italy with a front row spot. Everyone got set up, set the camera settings and waited for the show to begin. It was wonderful as always and the holiday tag on the end of it is absolutely AMAZING. I had never seen it before, and all that I can say is WOW!! Once the show was over, back to the resort we went so that we could get the car and head over to the Magic Kingdom. We got to the MK and headed on in. I was REALLY beginning to drag. We got into the park as the end of Spectromagic was coming out of the firehouse area. After this, we headed towards Tomorrowland. Some of the group wanted to ride Space Mountain, and others wanted to ride the “new” version of the TTA. I was pretty disappointed with the TTA audio track, as it is more of a commercial for the rides in Tomorrowland, vs. an attraction audio. I actually found myself ignoring the audio and just enjoying the ride around. Once we were done with this, I was completely exhausted so I headed out of the park and back to the resort to get some sleep. There was a small group that stayed behind and didn’t get back to the room till about 2:30 AM. I had apparently passed out once my head hit the pillow, but I was trying to find ESPN to catch up on some college game scores, but never quite made it. The photo below of me sleeping is the way that I was found when the group got back to the room. I had only made it to the weather channel. Well there is only one more park day left, and that is to come soon. Here are some of the photo’s that I took on day 3.
