Elena's Make A Wish Trip, part 6: Animal Kingdom and Epcot

Well, I know it has taken like five million years for me to finish up our Make A Wish trip posts. But you would not believe the last few weeks since we got home. We are currently in the hospital with Elena. She is a very sick little lady - this morning in the ED, they were trying to decide whether to send her up to the Immuno-Compromised Unit (ICS - standard protocol) or to the ICU. They chose ICS, but were watching her very closely. Thankfully, tonight, she seems to have turned a corner and the doctor told us that we didn't need to worry about going to the ICU anymore.

So, I decided that while I am sitting here in a hospital room, I really need to finish off these posts, so we can move on to other things. :) Thanks for sticking with us. Without further ado, I give you: part 6.

We set out on Wednesday with lofty goals of making it to the three remaining Disneyworld Parks: Animal Kingdom, Epcot, and Hollywood Studios. Shortly after getting started at Animal Kingdom, we realized that there just wasn't going to be enough time. So, thinking that Hollywood Studios was probably a lot like California Adventure (which we've been to), we contented ourselves with the Animal Kingdom and Epcot and we were still rushing! :) There were just too many fun things to do in one short week! But it turned out to be a really fantastic day filled with lots of character meeting (a.k.a. Elena in heaven), a fantastic performance of the Lion King, yummy frozen lemonades and giant turkey legs, a very cool African safari, lots of star treatment for Elena, a very intense roller coaster, an "almost date night" around the world, and a fireworks and laser light show to end the night.

The African Safari came highly recommended to us, so we headed for that first. It did not disappoint.

I spy with my little eye: some submerged hippos, a lioness, and a tree that looks like it's upside down.

We wandered around some more and eventually made our way over to "Expedition Everest" - a rather crazy roller coaster that Eric somehow convinced me to go on by myself. I am getting soft in my old age ;). Seriously though, I've never had much of a stomach for roller coasters, but the older I get, the more I'm finding that I have pretty much no tolerance for crazy rides anymore. My stomach is doing flips at just the memory.

We wandered toward Dinoland, where Elena rode another "Dumbo" like ride - some sort of flying dinosaur and went on (surprise!) another carousel. :) Then we made our way towards the theatre where The Lion King was being performed. We had some time to kill before the show and to Elena's delight, we ran into about six or seven different character meeting lines nearby.

Meeting so many characters totally MADE Elena's day. Like I said, she is a social little girl. She was eating up every minute of it. All of the characters were so great with her - really attentive and tender. Tender really is the best word to describe it. It made my heart happy. They took extra time with her and hugged her and basically melted into little puddles over her - Chip and Dale even stopped in the middle of heading for a break to meet with her first. And with the power of the magic button, we walked right up to the front of every line. It was pretty neat!

First off were Thumper and Miss Bunny from Bambi - who I'm pretty sure she didn't know from Adam. But that didn't matter to Miss Elena - they were lifesize, cute, fluffy, nice bunnies, so they were automatically winners:

Even Lily thought they were alright.

Then we met Rafiki, who Elena did know. :)

Then Pluto...

...who Elena got a kick out of when he signed her book on top of his nose.

Then Goofy...

Chip stopping on his break...

I spy with my little eye: a fanny pack (yes, a fanny pack).

And Pocahontas!

After the character meetings, we headed into The Lion King theatre. I highly recommend the show! Definitely a must do in Animal Kingdom. We were given front row seats and boy was it a treat! The show was excellent! We had so much fun. There were acrobats, larger than life Lion King characters, dancers galore, a fire-eater, singers, colorful costumes, and people flying. Timon came up and hugged Elena in the middle of the show and then she was pulled onto the floor by one of the dancers to dance in the final number! She enjoyed her "star" moments. Seriously, I'm telling you - the power of the button. The treatment and attention they gave her was so neat to see. We all had big, goofy grins on our faces. It was incredible and touching to see how hard everyone in Disneyworld worked to make sure that Wish Kids have the time of their lives.

A little clip of the show - so you can feel like you were there. :)

The "zebra lady" pulled Elena out onto the floor. Here they are talking about what to do.

Leading our section, the "Giraffes" in our cheer

So, this video didn't capture it the greatest, but this is the ending part from when Elena was out on the floor with the performers. She is walking with the zebra lady at the front of the line, you can see her a little at the beginning on the left side of the screen and then you don't really see her until the end because I was too excited watching that I didn't start videoing in time. At the end of the video, Timon talks to Elena again - you can see them on the right side of the screen. He says to everyone, "Give yourselves a big hand. Great job." Then to Elena, "Especially you - you were teriffic!" Check out the grin on her face. :) She thought it was pretty cool that Timon was talking to her.

After the show, we had to leave to head over to Epcot. Elena and Lily were zonked out before we made it out to the parking lot. That's what an exciting day will do. :)

In Epcot, we enjoyed checking out the futuristic exhibits, riding the Finding Nemo ride, and going to "Turtle Talk with Crush" and then Elena and Lily zonked out again. The sun had just set and we enjoyed the gorgeous walk towards The World Showcase - it was very picturesque. The pretty buildings of The World Showcase (which are built to look like the different countries they're showcasing - England, China, France, Italy, The United States, India, etc.) surround a large lake in the middle, everything is lit up by lantern light, and the streets are cobblestone. It is really pretty. With our kids asleep in the stroller, it felt like a mini-date for Eric and I - just walking, holding hands, browsing, and talking. :) We got caught in a 5 minute downpour (but the rain was warm, so we didn't mind), took a ferry ride across the lake, hunted for a restaurant that wasn't booked (tip: make reservations in advance to dine in Epcot's World Showcase - everything looked and smelled so good, but it was packed!), and to finish off the night, we watched the Illuminations firework and laser show. It was a very full, wonderful day!