There is nothing like spending a birthday at Disney to make you feel young again. A quick check-in at guest services procured for me a birthday pin, complete with my name in large letters, so that everywhere I went Disney staff, and sometimes others, were wishing me a happy birthday. So how old am I today? Maybe five.
We spent the day at Animal Kingdom. Calvin enjoyed the flying triceratops carnival ride, but not so much the Dinosaur thrill ride, and we all enjoyed the Kilimanjaro Safari through Africa from which we spotted giraffes, elephants, lions, and cheetahs as well as a variety of grazing ungulates. We ate ice cream for lunch (gasp) and lest we forget that this is the place of dreams and memory making, we snapped a quick picture of the family with the Himalayas in the background...from the bridge in Kenya (or wherever we were in Africa).
The Tree of Life really is beautiful, carved with many species so as to be eye pleasing and thoroughly engrossing. We skipped the line at the runaway train (in the Himalayas) and fell in love with the tigers, the golden pheasants, and especially the flying foxes in Asia.
Home again, home again (or resort again, resort again) to enjoy the snack bar (and regular bar) and the pool, before heading back to Downtown Disney for a birthday dinner—crab legs and whole lobsters for five, plus wine, plus a surprise birthday cake at the end. We topped it off with Irish coffee before catching the bus back to our hotel, and with Calvin and the grandparents all in bed Jon and I capped the evening with a stroll on the resort pond, and a stop at the tiki bar.
