Animal Kingdom, Day 5

On Friday, we finally made it to:

Of course there was a big beautiful Christmas tree as soon as we walked in:

I noticed 1 big tree at each of the parks & they were all decorated differently, to coincide with the park's theme. This one for example has animal heads & lots of jungle print on it. We stopped for a quick breakfast in Asia when we got there & then we headed to Expedition Everest for our first fast pass of the day:

Can you see that roller coaster hidden in the icy mountain behind them?! I remember wanting to ride this last time but Sadie wasn't tall enough. This year she was ready, along with the rest of the "big kids club":

This is pretty much the crew that rode everything & stayed out late. My sweet mom always stayed back with Max, Zoe & Sophie. Thanks again mom - sorry you missed out on a few things. 

We loved this ride so much that we all went back in to the single rider line to ride it again:

After we finished visiting Asia, we went to Dinosaurland which was better for the littles. There was a couple of rides that we could all do together & the kids played in the boneyard for a while:

Next stop was Discoveryland where we had lunch, saw a show & visited Pocahontas. We let Sadie see Pocahontas first because she has really been in to her lately. In case you forgot, that's who she was for Halloween:

After lunch we headed to the new world of Pandora:

This part of the park was not open last time we were there & these pictures do not do it justice because it was beautiful:

We've actually never seen the movie Avatar but I still really liked the rides. Thank goodness we had a fast pass because it had a 3 hour wait. 

When we left Pandora, we headed towards Africa to go on a safari ride. Along the way we picked up Mickey Mouse ice cream bars for everyone to enjoy. Sophie didn't like hers at all:

The jungle cruise was a lot of fun & everyone always loves seeing the animals:

My sister & my mom took the little kids to see the Lion King and the River of Lights show when it got dark. We saw Lion King last time & it was amazing but I was bummed to miss River of Lights since we hadn't seen it. But the big kids had somewhere else to be. On our way out of the park, I caught a glimpse of the Tree of Life again:

Really is a cool piece of art. It is amazing to see all the detail of the animals in the tree trunk up close. 

So where were we headed?! It was our last night there & I feel like we rode every single ride in all 4 parks at Disney except for the Rock'n'Roller Coaster at Hollywood Studios. A few of them rode it last time but I was with the little kids at Disney Junior. They kept talking about how fun it was so I was determined to get over there & ride it before we left. Let's just say it did not disappoint:

Unfortunately it was the one ride Sadie was not tall enough for but she would have loved it. It was an indoor roller coaster with loops in the dark. I loved it so much that I went back & stood in the single rider line to ride again :) While we were doing that, Bryan took Sadie to Tower of Terror & supposedly it's more fun if you ride it at night:

After our last rides of the trip, we grabbed dinner & then hit up the sweet shop. I will confess that we hit up the sweet shop in every single park. I have never eaten so many caramel apples, marshmallows, cake pops & rice krispie treats covered in chocolate! I think we walked enough while we were there to cover the extra calories :)

We officially closed down Hollywood Studios & were walking out after the fireworks had already ended. It snowed along Sunset Boulevard & was the perfect way to end our trip: