Dopey Challenge 2022, Day 2, part 2

 

Animal Kingdom is barely a half-day park in normal times. Nowadays, it's even less so with several shows no longer being done, and with Expedition Everest closed for refurbishment. I don't usually go on Kali River Rapids, just because it's typically too cold to deal with getting wet. Na'vi River is not really worth bothering with unless it's both hot outside and it has a short line; it's a good way to get out of the sun and heat, but is not something that's worth more than 10-15 minutes of a wait. And Flight of Passage will only be a one-time ride for me now that FastPass+ is gone, and I refuse (at least for now) to bother paying for Genie+ or Lightning Lane. And Dinosaur!, while a fine ride that I do like, winds up giving me a headache because of the immense shaking of the ride vehicle. So, it's mostly a walk through the nature trails, taking photos in various areas. And not as big a deal that I wasted two hours of my day on one line at the expo.

This year they have golden sculptures scattered throughout the four parks -- the Fab 50. The ones I was able to find in AK were only in front of the Tree of Life:

Where the other parks have cavalcades on floats or cars that they drive through the parks, in AK they do the same thing on boats:

So, with rides basically off the table for the afternoon (given that Kilimanjaro Safari had far too long a line at that point), I made sure to get on some of the nature trails.

And I've heard a few mixed things about Kite Tails. The reviews I first read were for this show at night, when the kites were aloft with flames. As a daytime show, there was no such. The kites were kinda neat, and using known songs from Disney films (for the show I saw, just The Lion King) was much better than the prior show they had in this space. It's cute, and possibly worth returning for the other shows, but likely the same basic thing, just with different kites and music. There's only so much that can be one with ski jets pulling large kites across a relatively small body of water.

A small snippet (since I'm limited in what I can upload, size-wise):

Finished with everything I intended, I head out of the park to get a bus to Old Key West, where I had reservations at Olivia's Cafe. I had read a review about their fried chicken, and damn, it was GOOD! Definitely worth it to go to this cute little off-the-beaten-path family restaurant.

Given there aren't buses between hotels (far too many permutations for that to make sense), back to AK for some night-time photography and watching the Tree of Life awaken. 

                                                

Having gone around the back of the park to Asia in order to get the ice cream cone I like getting in the park, I had it in-hand still when I decided to take advantage of a PhotoPass stop.

And then, given the timing, I stopped at a couple of different nooks in the back area that have a good view of the Tree of Life. Lo and behold, I got the answer to a question: does the Tree of Life Awakens get projected on the back side of the tree? YES! And there is ZERO CROWD back here. Fantastic find if you want unobstructed views, devoid of crowd noise. And I was even able to get some shots of the tree with the full moon in view, too.