No! That's the goats home, not yours!

I have been wanting to take the kiddos to Rafiki's Planet Watch in the back of Animal Kingdom for a while now. Actually, ever since the cast member told Lani and I that we couldn't go back there because of our strollers. Scott was off today so we figured we would go check it out. Yesterday the weather was seemingly nice so we figured today would be just as nice, wrong. Oh my gosh it was INSANE hot. I really thought I was in Africa on safari! We got the kiddos on the train to head to the conservation station, but if you ask Scott it's not really a train it's a bus. Total side note on this, Scott used to drive the steam trains at Magic Kingdom way back in the day. The steam trains at Magic Kingdom are totally authentic and are actually powered by steam, hence the name. And as another totally side note Scott was definitely a hottie in the engineer costume (I'm going based on photos since he was my manager when I met him and not an engineer).

Coming back to the actual story, the train at Animal Kingdom is an electric train, not a steam engine, so therefore in Scott's mind not a train. Either way the kiddos loved it. It's really a neat ride if you ever get a chance, you get to see where the animals are housed at the end of the night. I got to see this a lot when I worked at Animal Kingdom, it truly is an awesome sight, especially if the animals are in their houses. The area back there is really neat, they have more animals in that area and a ton of staff to explain everything to you. When you get to the way back they have conservation station which shows you some more behind the scenes stuff (like the vet area and what they feed the animals) and today was elephant appreciation day. They had a member of animal programs that works specifically with the elephants there and she was talking about how they feed and take care of them. They also had a board that showed all the elephants they have and their names and birthdays. I actually worked at the park when Nadhira was born and got to see her before she was brought onto the safari. It was one of the sweetest things I had ever seen. When they are that little they tend to stand underneath their Mama and both of them rock to the baby elephants heartbeat. Adorable, right?


On the other side of conservation station they have the "affection section" otherwise known as a petting zoo. They have llamas, donkeys, cows, and goats. All the animals are in their own habitats so they aren't walking around with you, which I love. I'm not exactly one with wild animals, or any animal that is not a dog. Aaron wanted nothing to do with the animals, he preferred to stand by the industrial size fans with his daddy. Jill, or shall we call her Jilly Irwin, wanted to be in the actual habitat with the animals. Dear Disney, those little ropes have nothing on Jilly Irwin. At one point she tried to put her hand in the goats mouth. Fantastic. Needless to say we were not in there that long for fear of losing an appendage or two. All in all it was a great day at Animal Kingdom. Hope you had a great day too!