Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Spring Trip - Day 5 - Disney's Animal Kingdom

April 11, 2012

Today we will be meeting our daughter after work, so we decide to return to Disney's Animal Kingdom and do some of the things we missed earlier in the week.

The problem comes because yesterday, the cold I knew I was getting decided to make itself known. The sore throat became a stuffed nose, and I cannot sleep at all with a stuffed nose. Thinking I was able to handle the problem, when we returned from the Magic Kingdom last night, I stopped into the store at Pop Century and bought some nose spray and some Benadryl (antihistamine). As expected it worked its magic and I slept like a baby. Sounds like all would be well today then, right? Well it would have been except I decided to take the Benadryl this morning to keep my nose from stuffing up again. (You see where this is going?)

We left the resort at our normal time, and I was feeling fine as we approached Animal Kingdom, but as the day wore on, I just got sleepier and sleepier. By the time we got near Discovery Island, I was fighting to stay awake.

Our first stop is at the Tree of Life where the standby line for It's Tough to be a Bug is (as usual) non existent, so we took the long walk through the queue (it seemed interminable!) that lead to the entrance. When we finally got into the theater, I was happy to sit down ... and try to stay awake. (I succeeded ... this time.)

Once through, we head over towards the theater to see what the schedule for Finding Nemo: The Musical is, and find that there is a little over an hour until the next performance. Since my wife loves playing the carnival games at Hester & Chester's Dinorama (and we have plenty of stuffed dragons to prove it!), I find a seat in the shade while she plays a few games. With effort I don't fall asleep and start snoring on the bench.

When she is done, we head directly to the Theater in the Wild and are able to enter the theater immediately and get seats. By this time the antihistamine is working its strongest magic, and I know that my eyes close a number of times during the show, which is unusual. There are attractions that I historically use to take a nap in, but this isn't one of them - it is a great show with some memorable music.

By now we are a bit hungry, thirsty and hot, so we decide to get fastpasses for Dinosaur and then wait until we can use them and grab a small bite at Restaurantasaurus. We get just a small bit to eat, since we will be meeting our daughter and going out for dinner later this evening.

Soon it is time to return to Dinosaur and use our fastpasses - which at the moment really do not save us any time over the standby line ... which is only a few people deep and they all get into the same preshow as we do.

By now, the antihistamine is starting to wear off and I am waking up a bit, so as my wife makes a pit stop after Dinosaur, I do something for the first time today. Have you noticed a difference between all the previous trip reports? That's right, no photos! I had my camera and gear with me, but did not have the strength or motivation to take the camera out of the bag. (If you know me and the 300+ photos I usually take each day here you now know just how bad I was feeling.) Today, I took a single photo ... this one!

It was now approaching the time to meet our daughter, and this time she would not be coming into the park, but we would meet her just past the bus stops in the parking lot, so we make our way out of the park. As planned, she picks us up and we travel to Lakeland for dinner. Happily by the time we reach our destination the antihistamine has worked its way totally out of my system and I am my old self again and able to enjoy our Mongolian BBQ.

You can bet that I will not take a Benedryl tomorrow morning before we spend the day at Disney's Hollywood Studios!




No comments:

Post a Comment