We got started a little bit earlier today – we were out of the room by about 9:15. We had a private bus to Animal Kingdom! We had to run to catch it, but there was no one else on it, and we didn’t pick anyone else up at Swan or Dolphin, either! The bus driver took us straight to AK instead of stopping at Blizzard Beach like they usually do.

It was another sunny day, but not as warm as it had been at the same time yesterday morning – though that didn’t last. Animal Kingdom was relatively uncrowded when we arrived at 9:35 – there weren’t even very many people back in Harambe when we went to get Safari Fastpasses.

Not too many options for breakfast at AK, so we went to Pizzafari. I had just yogurt and and a fruit cup, but Lee tried the breakfast pizza, which was topped with scrambled eggs, cheese, red and green peppers, and a white sauce. He said it was pretty good.

We had some time before our Fastpass so we wandered around some of the animal exhibits. But there were no otters, no lemurs or cotton-top tamarins – we did see some kangaroos bouncing around, though.

When we went into the Fastpass line Lee was actually selected to carry the “time pass”. There were a LOT more people back in Harambe than there had been 40 minutes earlier – the crowds were really picking up at Animal Kingdom.

We had a pretty good safari – there were lots of elephants, and we even saw two of the cheetahs.

The best part, though, was the male lion – he was awake and vocalizing – these little short roars that we think are called “chuffing”. Our driver said it’s a territorial thing where he’s announcing his presence – and she said it had no doubt driven the neighboring warthogs deep into their burrows!

There were lots of people on the Pangani Forest Trail – more than I’ve seen there in a long time. This meerkat was really taking its sentinel duties seriously – up on the highest point in the enclosure, and looking all around for threats.

One of the male silverback gorillas on the bachelor side was carrying around a palm frond, then settled down with it – and the big silverback male on the other side was doing the same kind of thing.

We took the train to Rafiki’s Planet Watch, which we haven’t done in a long time. We saw a big manure truck, and also one of the white rhinos in a backstage enclosure.

Inside, one of the bird keepers had a Harris hawk named Storm. They think she is about 18 years old, and she’s been blind for years – they think she was about 4 when she was rescued, suffering from a gunshot wound. 🙁 But she does just great even without her sight, and apparently is very calm and easy to handle, and does very well out in public. Beautiful bird.

For Halloween, Planet Watch was doing a Special, Not Spooky promotion where they were extolling the virtues of spiders, bats, snakes, and other creepy crawlies.

They’ve already put Prince Naveen to work – and his movie isn’t even out yet!!! 🙂

They had decorated one of their lab areas for Halloween with lots of stuffed animals who were wearing Halloween hats and costumes – it was really cute.

They were also holding a pumpkin-carving contest where guests were invited to vote for their favorite pumpkins done by various teams at Animal Kingdom.

My favorite was this owl, done by the Bird Team, but another one that I thought was really clever was the face of a goat with part of an Animal Kingdom map hanging out of its mouth – the Mammal Team did that one. (That one is second from the right in the photo above.)

They also had small pumpkins that kids could decorate with colored pens.

And they had this critter out for guests to greet – he is an agouti, and comes from South America. He was perfectly happy to let people pet him as long as he had his celery sticks (which had peanut butter in them) to chew on!

We enjoyed our time there – not something I’d want to do every time, but it was interesting, especially since they had special things going on for Halloween. Though we noticed that their goats didn’t get to wear Halloween bandanas like the goats as Disneyland do! As we pulled back into the train station at Harambe this sign made me laugh.

We went over to the Maharajah Jungle Trek in Asia. The Cast Member at the tapir exhibit cracked us up – he was doing his best Dr. Frankenstein imitation and talking about his greatest creation – the Frankentapir. 🙂 (Which, when you think about it, really does look like an animal designed by a committee.) The tigers were of course sleeping – the day had warmed up considerably. The white-cheeked gibbons (the ones that live in the “ruined temple” near Kali Rapids) were putting on a show, though – there are four of them – mom, dad, and their two daughters. The daughters were doing aerial acrobatics in the trees, and it was a lot of fun to watch. From the cast member we learned that the babies are blond when they are born, then they all turn black when they are about 7 months old, and then the females turn blond again a year or so later. The younger daughter is black now, while the older daughter is blond again.

We watched the Flights of Wonder show and then took the bus back to the Epcot Resort area – we got off at the Beach Club since we were going to Epcot.

And then, guess what – it was time for Eating Around the World – Round 3! 🙂 We started at Morocco, where I had the Falafel Pita Pocket and Lee had the Kefta (Ground seasoned beef in a pita pocket). As far as serving size went, these were one of the better values of the Festival, but they were both a little dry.

It was really a warm afternoon, which I guess kept the crowds down, because we never had too much of a wait at the food booths. At Louisiana I had the Crawfish Etouffe, which was quite tasty – though I would have enjoyed it more on a cooler day. And Lee had the Chicken and Andouille Gumbo, ditto. Actually the two also looked similar – can you tell which is which in the photos below? 🙂

(The etoufee is the top photo, the gumbo is the bottom photo.)

We also had the Praline Bread Pudding which was quite good – though not as good as my friend Jan’s! Lee also had an Abita Amber, which I had several sips of as well, and it was drinkable (coming from me that is high praise for a beer).

Let’s see…we watched the World Showcase Players in Italy perform an abbreviated version of Romeo and Edna because their “stage area” was in full sun. I don’t blame them at all for cutting it short!

From the New Delhi booth I ordered what is called the Rice and Lentil Crepe with Potato and Onion Filling on the menu, but is called Rava Masala Dosa on the receipt. The crepe part is made to order so I had to wait a few minutes. Lee didn’t really care for some spice that was in this, though I thought it was ok – not as good as the samosas and curried butternut squash that they have had in the past, though.

Lee went to the China booth and came back with the Rice Pancake with Beef and two pork pot stickers. He said the rice pancake was good, but unusual – thicker with a heavier more solid texture than he expected. He covered it red pepper sauce, which impressed the cast member. 🙂

The pot stickers were, well, pot stickers. They were fine, but nothing exceptional.

At that point we both wanted something cold and slushy – alcoholic was a bonus. 🙂 Lee got the frozen pina colada from the bar next to San Angel Cantina (we hadn’t realized that they sold pina coladas in addition to margaritas!), and I had the frozen Dragon Berry Colada from Puerto Rico. Mine was a lot smaller than his, but it had more rum, too – he was wondering whether his had any alcohol at all! I enjoyed mine – it was mostly strawberry-flavored, and really it was just about the right size.

We walked back to our room after that to take a break from the heat – and a nap. Tonight we went to the Party for the Senses at Epcot, but I’ll have a whole separate report on that.

Other thoughts on today…it was Halloween, and there were a lot of people, both kids and adults, wandering around both Epcot and Animal Kingdom in costume – we were surprised to see that, since I didn’t think adults were allowed in costume except at the Halloween parties at the Magic Kingdom. But maybe they bend the rules a little on Halloween itself.

We were also surprised at the big Halloween event going on at the Boardwalk – they had a stage set up on the back lawn with various craft stations set up, and there were also trick-or-treat stations set up along the Boardwalk. Mickey Mouse was there posing with kids and families – there was a huge line to see him. Like I said, we were surprised – we did not receive any literature on this at check-in, nor did I see anything posted in the lobby over the past couple of days. It was really nice for the resort to do this for the kids and families, though, since it was free!

It was another good day – though I wish it would cool off, but according to weather.com we’re stuck with this for the remainder of our visit. Oh well…we’ll be spending a lot of time inside at the Festival Center tomorrow since we are doing Sweet Sundays and two wine and cooking demonstrations.