Westin Imagine Orlando

... Resort. On our second trip to Disney World, my family and I stayed at Animal Kingdom Lodge which was inspired by African architecture and village landscape that sits in the middle of a 33-acre wildlife preserve. From our room’s balcony, it looked like an actual African savannah. One morning we woke up to find three giraffes standing outside of our balcony.
The best benefit of ...

... the three roller coasters. The first was the new Manta roller coaster that is a flying roller coaster with an awesome queue through an aquarium full of Manta Rays. It was a really good coaster. Then we grabbed a bite to eat at the bakery before heading back to ride Kraken and Journey to Atlantis and Manta a second time.

Then we headed over to WDW to check into our Villa at Kidani Village in the Animal Kingdom Lodge ...

... streets for a nite on the town Saturday. The scene covered the spectrum, but it continued to shock us how cheep the drinks were. Seriously, SF makes you feel like you're robbing people other places. Sure wish I took some more pictures since I had such eye candy in tow...but only grabbed the few shots included. If you make it to the theme parks then please do yourself a favor and visit the city. It's worth the trip!

... USD238 per person. Now, there's no discounts for children, so do the maths x 7 and the exchange rate, and you will see why we thought we could possible give it a miss. Anyway our second option was the 'feeding of the dolphins' at Dolphin Cove, Seaworld. So that was first up. You pay $7 for a little tray of sardines, and then you go in, groups at a time, and get to hand feed the dolphins and pat them, as they come up to you. That ...

... the kids to Tom Sawyers Island instead of the Jungle Tree House), there was little other than the usual Disney experience. We were unfortunately caught out in a late thunderstorm, and rather than wait it out with the rest of the revelers, we opted to just make a dash for the car. We nearly drowned doing so, and had to work ***********vince the kids it was all part of ...

... she likes to check in with the vet when it comes to giving her new treats. Plus we already had a lot of gourmet and healthy treats left from our stay at The Muse. After walking around and window shopping for a while we headed back to the entrance to eat at Ruby Tuesday's. It was 6:00 and wasn't crowded so we were seated right away. It was really clean and nice in there, and our waitress was great! We ordered quickly and mom, dad and I all got the salad ...

... Studio Backlot Tour, and Who Want's to be a Millionaire?, and Toy Story Mania.

After a full day in MGM we made our way over to Downtown Disney for dinner at Portobello Restaurant and then we went over to EPCOT for illuminations.

... br>
When getting into the park it is standard operating procedure to stop and take lots of photos. The Depot and Main Street, USA with its cute store fronts, landscaping, and Cinderella's Castle in the background makes this a true photo op.

Then it was off to ride the rides - The whole family was in tow, as well as my sister's good friend Kevin who is a veteran Disney employee. He was a great person to have around as ...

We spend our first day - where I always like to go first, EPCOT. There is really something magical about this place! As we were on a time crunch with this trip we couldn't spend all day here - so we had to pick our top favorites and try the new rides and exhibits.

As always, I made a beeline to Test Track and then followed with the ...

... and that the Yankee's wouldn't catch up to the Red Sox for first in the American League East division, and I just said, "Yea, well, we'll see what happens!"  Just as a side note, the Yanks clinched the Division Pennant when they beat Boston that September, thank you very much.  We were seated and I asked if he was going to school in Florida, but he said that he was just dispatched from the army and was taking some time off to relax in the area.  He ...