LOVED Animal Kingdom! I never considered it one of the main parks at Disney but we all loved it enough that it is heretofore considered so at our house.

After learning our lesson at Hollywood Studios, we went to the easiest area first at AK-DinoLand. The crew went on TriceraTop first, I stayed to take adorable pictures. Super easy ride, what you see is what you get.

Next on to Finding Nemo-The Musical we lurved this, only thing that could’ve made it better was if Ellen Degeneres herself showed up to be Dori.

The kiddos played a bit in The Boneyard but mostly so I could figure out what exactly we were going to do that day for sure.

We had reservations at the Tusker House (in Africa, obviously) for dinner but I noticed the characters were there during lunch so we swung by to see if we could sneak in then.

Donald Duck greeted us which excited Binyam for obvious reasons.

It’s a buffet style meal and, even as vegetarians, was really really good. I had purposely reserved Tusker house because they specify African cuisine and there were certainly a lot of spices reminiscent of our time in Africa. Needless to say, we LOVED LOVED IT! If you’re going, definitely go for lunch-so much fun for the younger kids (Trysten’s reaction-really? I have to get in pictures with them?).

On our way out of Africa there was some great music being played. Tomas was talked into coming up front to dance where he promptly shook his booty. Classic.

One of the reasons I personally loved Animal Kingdom so much was because there was so much to see just walking around the park-not just at the attractions. There is a huge tree at the center of the park that looks incredible from any angle and there’s this human who moves so slowly-it’s incredible!

We also went on the Kilimanjaro Safaris. We enjoyed it because of how close we were able to get to the animals (in the jeep).

Rides/attractions we loved:

Primeval Whirl, Kali River Rapids (we went on this twice in a row! Caution: you get soaked), It’s Tough to be a Bug, Expedition Everest-Legend of the Forbidden Mountain.

*There weren’t actually any rides/attractions we didn’t like, though we left early to return to Hollywood Studios for Fantasmic so we didn’t hit everything AK had to offer.*

As mentioned, we ate at Tusker House, please do so as well!

Of course Animal Kingdom had a special place in our hearts because there was a small taste of Africa there. The kids loved playing on the drums, listening to the music and just overall being submerged in all of the “cultures”.