Day 5: Feb 7th 2006 We Meet the Yeti

We were up nice and early today. We were all giddy with the possibility of riding Expedition: Everest. I didn’t read any reviews or look at any pictures of the attraction itself (other than the mountain) before we left because I wanted to form my own opinion without outside influences. We all rushed out the door and had breakfast wraps at Everything Pop.

Right before we headed into the park I decided I needed to use the restroom. Ok… I don’t know what’s going on with this particular restroom but it must have been designed by giants. I head into the stall and I of course go to reach for a toilet seat cover because there is no way my skin is coming into contact with toilet seat germs from people I don’t know! But the freakin’ toilet seat cover dispenser is towering over me. I literally had to stand on my tip toes to reach it. What the heck is up with that?! All the other restrooms in the whole resort were normal but this one made me feel like I was walked into some bizzaro version of “Honey I Blew Up The Bathroom”.

We were soon in the park and we headed right for Everest. YEAH! A 5 minute wait! We could totally handle that. We soaked up the glory that is E:E and its surrounding area before we rushed through the queue and boarded. I have never in my life been on a coaster that was so easy to enter. The floor of the coaster was flush with the loading platform and you just step right in. Plus the seats were very comfortable. The ride itself was great! Very smooth. The fist part of the trip was just like a speedy train ride through a scenic mountain… until you start your climb up and through the Yeti’s Temple. Then you get to the top of the mountain with the mangled track and it looks so great! Anyone know why there is a random (and very stiff) bird that pops up at the top of the mountain? We asked a Cast Member and he said it was like a vulture and was supposed to represent your impending doom with the yeti but I don’t understand why it’s the one thing on the attraction that looks so fake. Anyway… I didn’t have too much time to think about that because our train was soon zipping backwards through the mountain where we saw a shadow of the yeti angrily tearing up our track. Whoosh! Back down the mountain where we flew past the most amazing Animatronic figures I’ve ever seen. It was so huge and so fluid. Wow! At the end of the ride Mark and I looked at each other with huge grins on our face. We found Matt (who sat in a single seat right in the front) and we all said “Again!” We rode two more times in a row. On the last time there was a group of very noisy and annoying young teenage girls (Oh curse you dance competitions!) that insisted on screaming the whooooooole ride. So Mark and I did the only mature thing we could do… make fun of them. LOL! We got off the ride and decided to see what else Animal Kingdom had to offer. We walked away when Mark realized the annoying girls had irritated him so much he forgot his hat on the ride. He went back to check but they didn’t have it yet. So we decided to FastPass Everest to ride it later. (Haha! Its Mark’s pet peeve when people use “FastPass” as a verb)


The beautiful Expedition Everest.


Mark does the Yeti dance.


On the ride traveling up the lift to the temple.


The gnarled track and the hands of way too many irritating young girls.


Testing out the comfy Everest train cars. See how the guys make me sit on top?! I always get the short end of the stick cause I’m outnumbered.


I love the awesome detail in this park!

We headed to the Maharaja Jungle Trek. Mark was a bit disappointed in the bats with the 5ft wing span. Before we left I told him how I remembered that last time I was there I saw a bat... um… how shall I say this? I saw a bat playing his skin flute. But none of the bats were that active this time. LOL! I love looking at the big cats! They’re so graceful and powerful looking. We didn’t spend too much time in the room with the naked mole rats and the bugs because Matt is not a fan of the creepy crawlies and ran out of the room.


We take a rickshaw to the Jungle Trek.


Matt was frightened by my earlier tale of the restrooms crafted by giants and decides not to risk it and just… goes.


We go on the Maharaja Jungle Trek and I’m excited by the cute little squirrel.


Meow! Here kitty, kitty! Mark and I want to take you home.

After Mark’s disappointment in the bats we went to Africa where we got to see Noelle working in her cute little moo-moo. We said a quick hello and thanked her for ordering such nice (read: not rainy) weather for us today. We headed to the Kilamanjaro Safari attraction. This is such a great ride. Its amazing how close you get to all the animals. Besides the crazy lady behind us who wouldn’t stop talking (“Are the animals real?” “I don’t think they’re real.” “Do you think they’re real? “Well that one sure isn’t real.” Arg! Hush your mouth already! They’re real!) it was very enjoyable. The highlight of the trip for me was getting to see the brand new baby elephant! It was so adorable. (Crazy Lady: “Oh it’s so cute! It can’t be real, can it?!”)


The baby elephant! Here elephant! Mark and I want to take you home!

We decided we were hungry so we headed to the Tusker House. It was pretty busy so Mark and Matt waited in line while I went to get us seats. I found one towards the back and I waited. And I waited. And I waited. I looked through all the pictures on my camera and I waited. And I looked through the pictures I took with my phone and I waited. And I waited. Where the heck were those guys?! I thought maybe they couldn’t find me so I sent Mark a text message telling him where I was. And I waited and waited some more. FINALLY I saw them and I flaged them down (with what strength I had left. I had just about wasted away to nothing since I last saw them.). They said the service was really slow and after they gave Mark our food they skipped over Matt and started giving other people behind him their food until a nice older guy asked them what was going on because they kept skipping over Matt. He finally got his food and went to find me. From the time they got in line to the time they sat down it was 40 minutes. We dug in before I passed out from lack of food. LOL! I had a really good salad called the Tusker House Chicken Salad. Mmmm! It was really good. Mark had the Half a Rotisserie Chicken and Matt turned down a turkey wrap in favor of the Fried Chicken Sandwich.

After our yummy lunch we headed to Dinoland USA. We decided to try Primeval Whirl. It looked safe enough. It was just a wild mouse coaster that spins a little bit. We stepped into the oddly shaped vehicles and pulled the bar down over our heads. Mark was not pleased with the smell of our “time machine”. He said it smelled like mildew. And then… we were off! Oh my goodness! That ride gave us such an ass beating. LOL! I don’t think I have ever laughed so hard on a ride in my life but that thing whips you around like no other. We all had a mad case of the giggles (or what ever the manly equivalent is of the giggles for the guys.) so we rode it again. I probably got three of four bruises on that ride. And then that’s when Matt spotted it… Triceratops Spin. Oh lord! And it played county music. Doubly good for Matt, doubly torture for Mark and I. But being the VERY good and kind people we are we set aside our own feeling about country music and rode with Matt (calling him a red neck the whole time, of course. We tease because we care.).


About to get beat up on Primeval Whirl.


Mark thinks our first “time machine” stinks.

We headed to Dinosaur. Someone had told Mark this was a scary ride. The scariest Disney ride ever. And I laughed. I remembered thinking it was such a boring ride when I went. The exact same layout as Indy but really dark and nothing interesting to look at. We waited for Ms. Huxtable to tell us about our mission and to reprimand Dr Seeker for trying to get us to bring a dinosaur back with us. And off we went. Oh no! Who looked into the eye of Mara?! Oh wait… that was just us going back in time. And it was just like I remembered. Dark. Loud. And Dark. LOL! We all agreed that it was very un-scary and had a good laugh. Matt enjoyed it more than I did though. I wouldn’t be sad if I never rode it again but he liked it.

We decided to head to Everest again and use our FastPasses. Everest was still awesome! But they didn’t have Mark’s hat. Sadness! We decided to head out for the day and stopped and got Chai tea at a stand in Asia. It was really good! Before we got to the exit we stopped at Lost and Found and checked to see if they had Mark’s hat. The CM went to check and lo and behold came out with the hat. Mark did a little bounce and a clap and the CM said “I assume this is yours then.” Happy and with the hat we headed back to the Pop.

I wasn’t feeling too well so I took a short nap while Mark and Matt laughed themselves silly watching the Appliance Direct commercials until I got up. We decided to go to Downtown Disney. Mark and Matt bought pins (oh no! I’ve lost them to pin trading! I thought I was going to lose Mark to decapitation in Space but I lost him to pins!!) of each park we visited. Then we went and played with legos. Mark and I made an awesome space ship… with French doors. We checked out the shops and walked through Pleasure Island. We wandered through the Adventures Club which looked pretty awesome. We were getting hungry again so we ate at the Missing Link which was really good but after eating I didn’t feel good again. And Mark didn’t feel too hot either so after looking around for a while longer we headed back to the Pop for the night.


If you look close you can see a tiny Beth under the POP sign.