Disney or Bust: Days 7, 8, & 9

Day 7: Animal Kingdom... is SO much better than I expected! I don't know what I thought, but there was some really cool stuff there.

We weren't in a hurry to get there, so we didn't arrive until almost 10am. Still, the crowd was not bad at all. As soon as we got in, we ran into a Caribbean/Reggae-type group performing in the street. They were playing some awesome music and had drums and rhythm sticks for all the kids to join in on. So fun.

Then, we made our way into "It's Tough to Be a Bug." It's a 4D presentation in a theater hosted by some of the bugs from Bug's Life. I didn't know what it would be, but it was great! Let's just say that you feel/hear/see/smell some unexpected things in there! :) The African safari ride was awesome, too. We got to see some beautiful animals and (if you could ignore the cheesy radio broadcasts about looking out for animal poachers) you really did feel like you were in another place.

We saw some really good things that day but, by far, the highlight of the day was "Nemo: The Musical." I can't believe we almost skipped this! It is a 40 minute, real musical - totally Broadway quality. Seriously. The singing was great and the effects and scenery were gorgeous. Reid was riveted the entire time.

We were planning on heading to the Dinoland section after the musical but... when we came out, it was really raining! There were people scrambling all over the place. We had ponchos and umbrellas so we were prepared, thank goodness. The park was only going to be open for another hour anyway so it wasn't too big of a deal, but it did ruin our plans of seeing the fireworks and Spectromagic parade at the Magic Kingdom later that night. That was kind of a bummer.

In the end it all worked out, though, because Reid fell asleep before dinner and was quite cranky when I had to wake him up. The rain came down all evening so we just chilled at the condo. All in all, we were really happy about how everything went - we had awesome weather up until the last afternoon so we can't complain!

Days 8 & 9: Friday (day 8) was our day to begin traveling back to SC. We were in no hurry and I HAD to make time to visit the outlets. It is not a vacation to me if I don't have some outlet shopping (even though I live within an hour of two different outlets here, but I digress).

Ross' mom and I shopped for a few hours while Ross took Reid to Monkey Joe's. (Yay for Monkey Joe's!) Then we drove the hour back to Sumterville to drop Grandma off, and we were on our way back north.

We didn't plan on driving all the way back in one day so we stopped in Tifton, Georgia for the night. We used one of those coupon booklets from the rest stop to figure out where to stay, which I have never done. I figured that nobody really uses those. Correction: nobody our age uses those. When I walked in to check in, there was a line of old folks a mile long, all clutching their coupons. Don't get me wrong - I love a good coupon and am not ashamed to say so - but these people were laughable. It was just too funny. :) I won't even get into the complimentary buffet breakfast the next morning. There's nothing like wrestling somebody's granny for the last waffle!

After the above-mentioned breakfast, we were on the road again. We made it back to Greenville in about 5 1/2 hours, which isn't too bad. It was a great trip, but we are glad to be back home!

(Oh, and I should mention that we ended up trying the roofbag again on the trip home and it worked just fine. We just had to fill it up all the way so it could be secured tightly enough not to slide off. It was nice to be able to ride in a not-so-full car...)