Where is Diggity Now? (WIDN?): Orlando

Welcome to the second post on our vacation to Orlando, Florida (see previous post here). We began our third day by celebrating my wife's birthday. We decided that we would make her wear this special birthday hat for the entire day:

The special Birthday Cake Disney Hat

Here's the best part. She had a button, provided by Disney, that let folks know it was her birthday. Almost EVERY SINGLE Disney employee wished her a "Happy Birthday" throughout the day. I know it's part of the employee training, but it's amazing. If you ever have a chance to spend your birthday at DisneyLand or DisneyWorld...go for it.

We decided to spend the day at Disney's Animal Kingdom. We thought that G-Man would enjoy this, as he's fascinated with animals...cartoon or regular variety.

The boys making their way into the park.

My oldest son decided to dress just like me that day ; )

It's really a beautiful park - even though it's all fake ; ) The centerpiece is the "Tree of Life" - a massive 14-story structure that looks like a real tree.

Tree of Life in the background

We arrived early, so that we could attend a "character breakfast". This is an organized event where select Disney characters can interact with individual children. We thought G-Man would enjoy this...and he did. Eventually. I think that G-Man expected the characters to be the same size that they are on TV. When Goofy's head is as big as your whole body, it can get a little intimidating. We started off the event by posing with Donald:

G-Man had a chance to also meet Mickey, Goofy and Daisy. The food was also pretty good.

Still a little apprehensive...

We then had the whole restaurant sing "Happy Birthday" to my wife, and she was given a nice cupcake:

We then went on the Kilimanjaro Safari, where we saw plenty of live animals. Several were only feet away from the vehicle:

The next day, we decided to spend our time at Epcot Center. This is probably the most low-key of the resort's parks.

G-Man kept call the geodesic dome, the "Big Ball"

They did a fantastic job of making another beautiful park. Our favorite part was the "World Showcase", with a different section for several countries of the world - Mexico, Norway, China, Germany, Italy, Japan, Morocco, France, UK, Canada and the U.S.

I have been to almost all of these countries, and it was fun to watch the kids talk about some of the places that I have taken them. It sure brought the "travel bug" out in me...there are plenty of places that I would like to visit, or even go back to.

Germany was fun - lots of gummy bears and they had play swords/shields to buy. We picked up two, so that G-Man could have a little fun...

We had to visit Canada, if only for my folks:

G-Man does his best "Price Is Right" impression...

We also visited the UK portion. They had a lovely English garden on display:

Aren't they cute?

While there, we ran into Mary Poppins! This was a real treat for G-Man, as he's been watching this movie every day for several weeks. He was excited, until he got very close to her. Then he became shy.

Aren't they adorable?

In the Innoventions area, we found a place that would let you try Segway scooters. We all gave it a try...

Wife & daughter-in-law on the Segways

Next, we tried the Spaceship Earth - a ride that takes place inside the big dome. The fun part was that our pictures were taken at the beginning of the ride. The system tried to isolate our faces, and then stuck them into videos at the end of the ride - talking about the future. Pretty funny...here they are:

My wife and I...

My daughter-in-law's "future movie" (my son was goofing around at picture time)

We found a special area that had most of the popular characters available for pictures. G-Man was still a little anxious about the whole thing...