Disney World. Day 6. The giraffes were really close.

We got up around 7:45, got dressed, and made it out by around 10.

We drove over to Animal Kingdom where we were met by massive lines to get into the park.  I don’t get it.  it’s November, it’s not supposed to be this crowded, and especially not at Animal Kingdom!

We got into the park and made our way first to Dino-land where we rode the Triceratops Spin (a dinosaur ride that goes up and down and spins, basically like Dumbo).  Hallie enjoyed.  Next I went on Everest using the single rider line, which had only about a 20 minute wait, while Tzvi and Hallie walked around looking for Starbucks.  They saw monkeys and then got coffee. I sat next to a nice grandmother. I met up with Tzvi and Hallie at Starbucks and we started heading to our next ride, but got stopped when Hallie saw a stand selling freshly grilled corn on the cob.  She had two.  Tzvi had one. We sitting next to a guy while eating the corn and Hallie kept asking “Who’s the man?” (I forgot to mention that when we checked into the Dolphin and the Bellman brought up our bags, Hallie kept saying “HI MAN! HI MAN!”)

Our next ride was the Kilimanjaro Safari.  I think Hallie enjoyed it.  Who knows.  She wasn’t as excited to see the giraffes as I thought she would be, but Tzvi was pretty excited.  We got really close.  Our guide was also really good, a struggling actor I believe, and talked a little bit about the Disney Conservation Fund, which Tzvi said he wants to support.

After that it was time for lunch so we went to Pizzafari, because God forbid two days should go by without eating pizza here.  Same pizza, still tasty.

We watched this man playing the African Harp, which was pretty impressive.

After lunch we headed into Pandora, a new land themed to the movie Avatar.  I’m not really sure why they built this.  I know Avatar is the highest grossing film of all time and that they’re building more movies, but I just don’t get it. 

Basically the land is a giant tree with a waterfall and two rides.  One of the rides, Avatar Flight of Passage, is a 3D flying simulator (which wouldn’t have been appropriate for Hallie) that we couldn’t get a fastpass for and had a 160 minute wait.  We didn’t wait.  The second ride is the Na’vi River Journey, which had a 140 minute wait for, though we did have a fastpass for that one. The ride is a dark ride that takes you on a river journey through the land of Avatar.  Disney did a great job on it and it’s beautifully designed.  As we went through it though, we kept waiting for something to happen, and nothing ever did.  Like it was just a ride on the river.  Thank God we didn’t wait 140 minutes for this, because it’s totally not worth that wait.

After the ride we left Pandora and put Hallie in the stroller.  She promptly fell asleep and we went shopping, stopping first to pick up some popcorn.  At one of the stores Tzvi bought a pin that says Disney Conservation Fund and has 10% of the proceeds go to the fund.  That was Tzvi supporting the Disney Conservation Fund.  Good job.

We were pretty much done after that but Hallie was sleeping and she really needed the nap, so we sat for a little bit and let her sleep.  After a while we walked back to the car and woke her up and got her in the car.

Along with his Shabbos food, my father had ordered a piece of baby chicken for Hallie.  The food was supposed to arrive at his hotel by 4, so at 3:45 when we left the park we drove over to his hotel.  Of course, when we got there at 4, the food still wasn’t there.  We visited with him in his room, saw the pool, and after about a half hour we got back in our car (still without the food) and left, but not before changing an explosive doodie diaper in the trunk of the car.

Back at our hotel we changed for dinner and got ready for Shabbos. Good Shabbos.

We went across the bridge to the Disney World Swan (the Dolphin’s sister hotel) for dinner at Il Mulino.  There are Il Mulinos in New York, but we’ve never been.  It was only 6:00 (probably our earliest dinner of the trip), but Hallie was already starting to get nuts.  From the minute we sat down, dinner was doomed.  Hallie started by taking her shoes off, so Tzvi told her that if she didn’t put her shoes back on he was going to take her out of the restaurant.  She didn’t, so he did, except he took her to the lobby where she jumped and rolled all over the couches and had the best time, which just frustrated Tzvi more.  Eventually he just gave up and brought her back.  She wasn’t much better for the rest of the meal, and, partially because “I’m not listening?” and partially because there was nothing on the menu that interested us, we skipped dessert.  It didn’t really seem to bother Hallie though, as she just said, “I’ll have my m&ms from grandma.”

Anyway, about the dinner itself.   Everything was really great, it was just too stressful to enjoy it.  The first thing they brought was a basket of two types of warm bread (sourdough and focaccia) and a plate of eggplant caponata and salami.  They promptly took away the salami and brought back a new plate with twice the amount of eggplant, which made Tzvi very happy.  It’s funny, because we usually eat Spanish eggplant from Gourmet Glatt on Friday nights, so this fit right in for Shabbos dinner.  Tzvi said it was delicious.  For appetizers I had a Caesar salad, which was pretty good, and Tzvi had a caprese salad that he liked a lot.  For our mains, I had a salmon sautéed in a garlic and olive oil with wild mushroom sauce over broccoli rabe.  It was delicious.  Tzvi had rigatoni with mushrooms, garlic and truffle oil.  His pasta was good (he loved it) but there must have been some hidden cheese in there.  At the end of dinner we told the waiter that we couldn’t sign the check because it was the Sabbath.  He was a little confused so he got the manager, who totally knew what was up and said of course, no problem.

After dinner we went back to the hotel and gave Hallie a quick bath.  It was almost 9:00, which meant it was almost time for fireworks.  We waited and at 9:00… nothing happened.  We saw some lights in the park, but then nothing.  Then we saw one firework.  And then nothing. It was weird because upon check-in they gave us a sheet of times that said Hollywood Studios had something at 8. Eventually there were some good fireworks to see, but it didn’t end up finishing until around 8:45.  Once that was over we went to put Hallie to bed but then we started hearing the EPCOT fireworks, which unfortunately we couldn’t see.

After she went to bed we drank a small bottle of Moscato that we had bought in the store in our lobby for $14 (it’s a half size bottle, so it was a super rip off) and then fell asleep.