Trip Log:

Started off the morning with no wake up call, but still up around 7:30. Ate breakfast then headed for the Animal Kingdom. Wandered through the park and off to the Safari. No wait so walked on. Got the last row this time. After the Safari it was time for Pangani. Grabbed a quick drink in Tusker house then off to Asia and the Jungle Trek. Headed for Dinoland for lunch. After lunch it was off to Pocohontas and the Lion King before one last Safari ride then back to the busses and the resort. Went on an excursion to get groceries and run a couple of errands. Back to the Resort and dinner. Headed for the Magic Kingdom. Walked Main Street and out to Liberty Sqaure to look for carmel corn, there was none, back to Main Street. Watched Wishes then to the busses and back to Pop Century to call it a night.

Thoughts & Observations:

• The only park most of the group had not been to yet was the Animal Kingdom, so off we went. We arrived around 9:30ish and were surprised to find the park feeling quite empty. We guessed the first rush of guests had entered and were scattered around and out of the way. For example our first stop was the Safari and there was a 5 minute posted wait.. we walked all the way down to the load area and had to pause to give the CM the number in our group, that was it.
  
  
• Upon rounding the bend toward Asia we were greeted by some extremely shrill sounds coming from above. It seems there was a contest or something going on between the two familes of Monkeys near the lands entrance. Their sounds echoed through the area. It was the most movement and sound we can remember seeing.
  
  
• Another unexpected and unseen by us event was occuring on the Jungle Trek. There were a couple CMs up on one of the temples throwing treats (looked liked bones of some sort) down to the tigers. It was great to see all the activity and interesting to watch the one that could not figure out what was going on for a several minutes.
  
  
• We had never seen the Pocohontas show and decided it was about time to visit. I really had not read much about the show during its six year run... so I did not know what to expect. Overall I was not impressed with the show. The animals seemed to just fly by and the focus was on the two trees and Pocohontas. I thought the animals should have been a larger focus with more stage time. The storyline of the show also seemed quite simple and non-engaging to me. The storyline of the show basically was that people were cutting down the forest and Pocohontas and her little tree friend were trying to discover how to stop the destruction. I am guessing it will be a long logng time before I see this show again... unless I get the ambition to go see one of the training sessions.. I did think the Grandmother Willow tree and the small tree.. the name escapes me now.. were some great puppets (I guess they are puppets).
  
  
• We ran late during the day and dinner and arrived at the Magic Kingdom around 8:30ish... our goal was 8pm to see Spectromagic, at that time we were still waiting for a bus at Pop Century. We had some time to kill so decided it was time for a carmel corn run to Sleepy Hollow... what a mistake.. the park was the most crowded we saw the entire trip and it seemed like 3/4 of the crowd decided to leave after Spectro and before Wishes.. so we were going upstream against the rush.. always a fun adventure. Still we managed to arrive in about 10 minutes, not bad.. of course they were out of carmel corn so it was back through the masses and to Main Street.. still managed to get to our spot with 5 minutes to spare before Wishes. I still am not sure why so many guests leave after Spectro Magic and before Wishes, this happened last trip too we noticed. Our best guess is they see Wishes on the other nights when it runs earlier.
  
  
• After Wishes we joined the exiting mob and got in line for Pop Century along with what seemed hundreds of other guests... luckily we were only a couple bus loads back.. The dispatching of busses seemed slightly off and it took about 30 minutes us to finally get onto a bus, which happened to be the third bus to pull into the stop. Not sure what they were doing but the process did not seem as orderly as usual, with empty busses backed up to come in, but not dispatched to us or other long lines.. for example later in the week when we did the same thing we were about the same spot but were gone in less than 10 minutes.
  

Pedometer Information for the day:

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