I’ve been knocked out sick since Christmas Day of all days… so sorry for taking forever to finishing the story    HERE IT IS!

Day 4 - Animal Kingdom

So in 2003 on our honeymoon we didn’t even make it to the Animal Kingdom.  In fact, we skipped a LOT of things (Tomorrowland in MK and EPCOT completely for example) that we should have taken the time to do.  I’ll also take this moment to meander into the Smoking Area side-story.  If you’re a nonsmoker and don’t travel with a smoker, you’ve completely missed out on some of the most beautiful places in the WDW parks.  Most smoking areas, other than ones in the MK, were keenly placed in the most out of the way, hard to find places - for obvious reasons.  What this also means is that they’re normally a nice quiet place to go get away from the crazies.  They’re also some of the most visually appealing places you can find.  There’s a sunken area at EPCOT near The Land that’s really secluded, and at the Animal Kingdom between Afria and Asia there’s a little path that leads up into the “rainforest” to a VERY secluded quiet spot that’s worth taking a break at.  Another great view at AK is in Africa, just past Dawa Bar (look for the canon).  It’s a little balcony that looks out over Discovery River and a little camp set scenery.  So Amanda’s watching this African tribal street act out by the Dawa Bar while I take a quick smoke break.  I drag her back there to check out the scenic view.  Then we turned around to wander north towards Kilimanjaro Safaris (where the parade stage entrance/exit is) when again we’re approached by a cast member.  “Are you guys going to stick around and watch the parade at 3:45?”  Of course… “Would you like to be IN the parade?”  ARE YOU KIDDING!!!???  Uh YEAH!!!  “Great!  You’ll be on the MICKEY FLOAT!” she says.  Oh HOW COOL IS THIS!?  So this is the FULL parade, the normal daily Mickey’s Jingle Jungle Parade, unlike the mini-parade we were in at MK.  We’re instructed to go to that backstage door at 3:15 and wait.  At the gate, other chosen families were led back in one group at a time (we were last).  Inside the door to the right there is a wall of lockers for us to put our stuff in if we want and we get our “costumes”, basically a festive vest and Christmas Tree hat and are led to our float.
Too exciting.  I only wish I had brought our video camera to film FROM the parade, because as we came out onstage a cast member snapped our picture with a disposable camera and then handed it to us to take pictures from the float, but video would have been so much better…  Anyway… I think we had the song memorized before we ever got onstage and sang and waved the whole parade away.  A couple of stilt performers in front of us had some good fun with us - after noticing we’d been singing for a while, they’d turn around to us frequently to make sure we were still singing along lol.  Here they are, they let us take a picture of them together after the parade 

What a great time, and for someone seriously considering a job at WDW and wanting to get back into performing they sure picked the right guy to give a taste of the Disney Show Life to.

Honestly, after this day, the rest of the trip was pretty much down hill.  We hopped from park to park the last few days and begrudgingly came back home.     I’m ready to go back already!