Thursday November 2nd 2023

I was up before the sun this morning. Since this is one of the latest sunrises of the year, it wasn’t as impressive as it sounds. My reason for getting up early was a visit to Disney’s Animal Kingdom. It opened at 8AM, but more important, the animals are more active in the morning.

I planned to leave at 7:30, but didn’t actually leave until 7:50. Traffic was heavy, but not as bad as Monday morning. I was in line for the Kilimanjaro Safari ride just before 9AM. It turned into the longest safari ride I’ve ever taken. The animals seemed to want to stand in the road this morning. The safari trucks have to wait for the animals to move before proceeding. The ride is normally about twenty minutes. My ride this morning was almost an hour long.

Even though the ride was longer, it wasn’t better than normal. Most of the time the animals weren’t on my side of the truck. Added too that was the position and angle of the sun. The animals on my side of the truck were often right in the glare of the sun. I still managed to get a few nice pictures.

After the safari ride I walked all of the animal trails and generally wandered around the park. It was about what I consider to be normal occupancy. The wait times at the popular rides in the Pandora section of the park were over an hour. The other rides had average waits, except for Kali River Rapids. No one, including me, wanted to get wet with temperature in the low seventies. It had no posted wait time and most of the rafts passing by were empty.

My first ride on the safari in the morning had a posted ten minute wait, but it was mostly a walk on. I went back for a second ride on the safari in the afternoon. I had to wait about thirty five minutes for that ride. My position in the truck was very similar to my morning ride. Most of the animals I wanted to see were on the other side of the truck. My view was partially blocked by big people with Mickey Mouse Ears on their heads. This ride lasted the expected twenty minutes and did include a few different animals.

I was back home by mid afternoon. The early in the day visit allowed me to ride the safari twice, but I think the added sleep may have been more valuable. It was a fun day overall. On my next visit I’ll focus more on the shows. Today was the animals.