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MAGIC VACATION, PART II

So last week, I shared our journey to the Magic Kingdom and Epcot. This week, I will share days two and three, where the family went to Animal Kingdom and MGM studios.

We woke up on Friday to rain, something that I found quite exciting, because we were going to Animal Kingdom, and the rain would provide a nice ambiance, as if we were actually in the jungles. The rest of my party saw it merely as an opportunity to get wet.
But we were not going to let the rain ruin anything. “None of us will melt!” I cheerfully announced.

“Yeah, but we’ll be soaking wet,” my literalist wife added.

The first thing we decided to do at Animal Kingdom was take the African safari, one of the best attractions at the park. Here, you load up in a truck with a bunch of folks and go cruising through an area that is crawling with African animals. My 4-year-old, Allie, had fun seeing giraffes and elephants and cheetahs and the like and calling out all of their names. My 2-year-old, Parker, had fun seeing giraffes and elephants and cheetahs and the like and calling them all “doggie.”

After the safari, we took some walking paths to check out some of the animals. One of the ones we saw was the meerkats exhibit. Meerkats are cute little fuzzy animals with a featured role in “The Lion King,” so children, naturally, want one. The person working the exhibit, in an attempt to educate, said to the crowd, “So who here thinks they would like to have a meerkat as a pet?” Of course, every small child immediately becomes ecstatic about their pending pet meerkat, and so completely tuned out to the rest of the talk about how they have razor sharp teeth and claws and will shred anything in their path, like a fuzzy little Cuisinart. Perhaps he should move that part to the beginning, because all a 4-year-old hears is “Who wants a meerkat?”

We made the rounds for the other animals in fairly short order, since the rain was now coming down heavier and steadier. But this was OK, because we had to rest up for what would be the coup de grace of the day: MGM Studios.

The whole week had been building up to MGM for my daughter, since we would be going to see Playhouse Disney. Playhouse Disney is the catch-all name for the kids programming on the Disney Channel, and includes familiar shows as “Winnie the Pooh,” and probably some less familiar shows such as “Stanley,” a kid with a talking goldfish who dives into a book (“The Great Big Book of Everything,” as it were to learn about animals). For the performance, we were all crammed into a dark theater and seated on the floor. Giant puppet after giant puppet came out on stage and sang various songs, which my daughter thoroughly enjoyed. My son, meanwhile, showed that a large bear puppet can be terrifying, and that the grip of a 2-year-old can be painful to a grown man.

But the real highlight at MGM for me was the fact that numerous sports stars were there, since we happened to be there on “ESPN the Weekend,” a fancy cross-promotional endeavor between Disney and ESPN. Bunches of well-know athletes were there, taking part in public forums and parades. We saw Tony Gonzalez, Mugsy Bogues, George Gervin, Keith Primeau and Lisa Leslie, just to name a few. The ultimate, though, was during the parade. As we stood at the parade line, cars crawled past us, each carrying a Disney character and a a sports star. One car came into view, and there was the greatest receiver in NFL history, Jerry Rice. “Allie,” I said excitedly to my daughter, who was perched on my shoulders, “do you know who that it is!?!?!!?”

“GOOFY!!!” she said.

True enough, Goofy was in the car with Rice. I tried to explain to her that Jerry Rice held every major receiving record in the NFL, and she was seeing a living legend. “YEAH, GOOFY!!!”

In all, the Disney trip was a fantastic time. We got home, thoroughly spent, but can’t wait to go back next year. If nothing else, our new meerkat will enjoy going to visit his former home.