A Ride on the Wildside

Having reached the summit of Everest once, (see blog of Oct. 2009)..........

my thoughts upon entering Disney’s Wild Kingdom were that it would be a piece of cake the second time. 

 

 


So our first job upon entering the front gate was to rush over to the nearest fast pass station and grab a fast pass to arrange a time for our trek. 

 

Disney is the world leader in entertainment. With over 50,000,000 visitors a year, they have come up with many unique ways to move you through their attractions. One such way, the fast pass allows you to bypass the long regular lineups and into shorter lineups.  Everyone can acquire a fast pass, you can get up to 3 but can only get them one at a time and you can only get another when you have used your first one.  The fast pass gives you a window of time when you can arrive at the ride and use the special fast pass lane that bypasses the much long regular lineup.

 

Only 15 years old, Disney’s Wild Kingdom is the second largest amusement park in the world.  With jet lag nipping at our heels, we chose the Kingdom for our first full day in WDW with two goals in mind.

First was a ride on the Everest Expedition, a roller coaster ride through the Himalayas.  It was here that I discovered why it has been almost 30 years since I last rode a roller coaster.  I suffer from a severe case of kinetosis.


 

Kinetosis or motion sickness happens when your brain gets confused about your body's movement. The confusion stems from signals from your inner ear, which controls balance, transmitting one thing, while your eyes see or perceive something else. The conflicting signals that reach your brain cause physiological changes in your body. These physiological changes include but not limited to dizziness and an urge to revisit your previous meal.

With excited anticipation, we moved quickly to the front of the line, boarded cars that would take us to the top.  Due to silly safety rules, the littlest grandchild was unable to ride so Grandma opted out as well. Upon entering the car, we were instructed to pull a padded bar tightly down onto our laps and to ensure that it was securely latched. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t sit up. First clue that perhaps I had chosen a ride that exceeded my abilities.

Did I mention that the mountain is the highest of all Disney’s famous landmark mountains?  Two minutes and fifty seconds later, we were ejected from the mountain. I am hard pressed to remember the exact details of the ride for it was filled with conflicting signals to my brain. For the next few hours I walked with a decided list, as my world kept wanting to veer left and a lack of any to desire to eat solid food.

Now that I think about it, it was exactly the same feeling that I achieved at our first Everest experience. It was my last ride of the day.

 

Our second goal for the day was a decidedly friendlier ride.

It only had tigers

elephants, crocodiles,

cheetahs, hippos and rhinos to worry about.

With over 100 acres to explore, the Kilimanjaro Safari ride is home to over 40 different species of African animals that can be found roaming the Serengeti.

Having been to the Serengeti, (see blogs of  March 2011) we felt totally capable of dealing with anything the  ride would throw at us.  Even suffering from terminal motion sickness. 

With no child height issues, the whole family piled onto the rugged GMC trucks for a back country ride. These trucks would have been scoffed at by the real safari drivers who declared that only Toyota Land Cruisers were up to the task.  No offense to you Land Rover people but whenever Land Rover was mentioned in a guides conversation they crossed their fingers and spit. Probably some Tanzanian guide ritual.  

As advertised, we saw our forty species and it only took about 10 minutes to see what took us 6 days and dozens of hours in a Land Cruiser, to see in Tanzania.




 

The grandkids were mesmerized by all the various animals we saw that day, wondering if we could bring one home. Sadly, I had to admit to being allergic to cats, crocodiles and monkeys.


 

 

 

 

The day was filled with little adventures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With way too many photo ops.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was wonderful start to our week of adventures.