Animal Kingdom
Disney Part 2 🙂 My favorite park was Animal Kingdom. It was lovely and lush…and full of animals. I particularly enjoyed the safari ride and a couple of trails you can walk through.
The picture to the left is the Tree of Life. Or I should say, one little part of it. How many animals can you pick out?
Okay, I’m not going to go into all the boring talk today, but mostly just share some photos. With boring captions.
Not an animal. Well, sort of.
The first thing you see is the birds. I spent way too much time photographing birds. I had to make myself stop.
but aren't they so cute?
He's giving someone the eye. Or else he's hungry.
Another bird. Pretty, pretty.
Amanda and I broke off to do a trail together the first day. We saw tigers and bats and lots of other stuff that I don't know the names of.
Amanda trying to get a peek at one of the tigers. This little side trek we did together was one of the highlights of my trip.
Then we had a treat together while the others did that trail. I got a real kick out of that time we spent just the two of us.
A bird I know the name of.
Coy.
Hungry Hungry Hippo.
The Safari
He was trying so hard to move this tree.
I had to zoom in, and we were moving, but this picture didn't turn out too bad.
Same thing: zoom, moving, but also shot over our shoulders. Still, a Lion! I've never seen a lion in real life before.
I have no recollection of what animal this is, but those sure are some big horns.
Annndd…back to the birds
I took too many pictures of these ducks, but it was so cool how they would stick their heads under to eat. I have other photos and video of ducks diving down and swimming under water.
This guy was staring up at someone near me. This isn't even a good picture of it, because I was doing video when he was really staring. I wonder what he was thinking? Because it looked like he was thinking some big thoughts.
I began and ended with one of my favorite little animals, Amanda. Of all the things you could do and see at Disney, one of her favorite things was to play with rocks.
Fun!
.
steadily skipping stones 
Amazing shots!
Thanks! I think I might need to check out your site and get some dating tips – heaven knows I need help!
Your pictures are amazing. I have never been anywhere I can actually see all the animals. They are usually hiding. That’s amazing! Glad you got some alone time with your little cutie.
Thank you so much, Sara, that’s nice of you to say. I love pictures!! I took another look at the post today, and some of them are pretty good considering the zoom and shooting through glass and all. I have a great camera, for being a pretty regular camera. Also, my trick is to take 100 or so pictures and see which 10 come out alright :).
I was so happy with the safari ride and the walks at Animal Kingdom. I did the safari twice and the hippos were underwater both times. The elephants were out more one time than another, and the lion was only out the second time. But we were fairly close and I was happy.
That’s my niece and I was glad for the alone time. She has no attention for me when her Mom is around, that’s for sure. We took our time on the trail and went slow, which is both of our speeds. She didn’t mind me taking a million pictures and I didn’t mind her stopping to touch everything. At one point, we were just watching these deer (I guess they were deer), just watching until we were done watching. It was great!
She’s playing with rocks…that’s funny! But it seems as if you had fun too. I’ve never been to Disney World, I picture it being all rides but I guess it’s not!
She really loved those rocks. The second time we went to Animal Kingdom, she specifically asked to go back to do the rocks. It is funny. And I did have a really great time, too.
I’m not a ride person in general, but now I can’t really do any due to a back issue. But there were a lot of fun things to do there. I really just loved the animals and all of the parks were a real feast for the eyes. If it had been cooler, I think I would have enjoyed just walking around and looking a lot more. I would go back, but maybe not in the summer.
I didn’t talk about it, but we also went to Hollywood Studios. I think that one seemed a little less crowded to me, and it had a lot of bigger shows. We saw this Indiana Jones stunt show that was a lot of fun, and a Beauty and the Beast singing and dancing show that was really cute. I’m loading some pictures of that onto flicker right now. The other one I liked there was the backlot tour. They showed you some props mostly, but also a couple of film set type deals with water and fire and special effects. We never did get to Epcot, though, which my Dad said we were crazy for missing. You almost need two weeks to do it right without running yourself into the ground with exhaustion.
I love all the animals, especially the little girl. But the others I really, really like are the elephant (of course, if you know my fondness for these gentle giants), the hippo, and the roseate spoonbills, but I am used to seeing them as pink as flamingoes. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Patti. I had forgotten you like elephants! I’m going to try to get my Animal Kingdom pictures on Flicker tonight, so there will be more elephant pictures over there. I was really pleased to be so close to them, and all the animals. But elephants are another animal that I had not seen in real life before. I had seen giraffes at a small zoo a long time ago, but that’s about it.
I didn’t know they were called roseate spoonbills, but I really liked them, too. I couldn’t stop photographing them, and some of those pictures turned out well. The hippo picture is also a favorite of mine. It was in an enclosure with a glass wall so we could see underwater. It kept going round and round in circles, and then one time it didn’t come. We finally saw it had surfaced and so I just waited. I was so pleased to get that shot!
Amanda is a cute little animal, too! I like her the best, really.
We used to live in Orlando. Animal Kingdom is a great park. I always liked the walk-through animal exhibits, especially India’s. Disney does a great job of creating a totally emcompassing environment.
I think the India one is the one my niece and I went on together. It was definitely the better trail. But I did love that park, and I agree that Disney does atmosphere like no other park I’ve been in. We have Busch Gardens about 2 hours from where I live and that was my gold standard representative before. They also do a great job with environment. But I have to admit that Disney goes just a step farther, at least at Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom.