Our third day in the parks was New Year’s Eve and was probably my favorite day of the entire trip. We had breakfast reservations at Animal Kingdom’s Tusker House Restaurant before the park even opened that morning, so we didn’t have to wait in any lines! I had read to avoid Magic Kingdom and Epcot on the holidays, so eating breakfast and spending the day here was an excellent choice.
It was a chilly morning, so we were all bundled up, but it ended up being a beautiful day! We started out with a sleepy family picture in front of the Tree of Life from Disney’s The Lion King.
We spotted Everest while we were waiting in Africa for breakfast. My dad & I would later wait in an hours-long line to ride this roller coaster while the girls were enjoying nature trails with my mom and Josh. I kid you not, this was the scariest and most fun ride I’ve ever experienced! If the line hadn’t been so long, we would’ve done it again.
Tusker House got great reviews from everyone in our party – it did not disappoint. For lunch and dinner, they serve African fare, so we opted for the traditional breakfast instead. Not only was this the best food we ate all week, it was probably the best character experience we had, too. The girls loved the characters here and the all-you-can-eat breakfast bar was amazing!
This was just my first plate: Mickey waffles, bacon, ham, scrambled eggs and a cinnamon roll. There was a ton of other selections including fresh Krispy Kreme donuts.
After breakfast, we had a few minutes to wait before heading into the Kilimanjaro Safari. We saw a few characters from the Jungle Book and rode several rides in Dino-Land before backtracking to Africa for a second time all before lunch.
The safari is pretty much a ride-along zoo where the animals are in natural habitats. You are on giant jeeps and the animals are all so close. This has been one of my favorite parts of Disney every visit since the Animal Kingdom opened.
After the safari, we headed over to watch a broadway-like performance of The Lion King and grabbed a few slices from Pizzafari before watching the afternoon Jungle Parade. By then, the girls were exhausted and my parents took them back to the resort for a low-key evening.
But for Josh & I, the day was really just beginning.
Since we were warned to stay away from EC and MK on NYE, we opted to enjoy Hollywood Studios instead. The lines were far too long to actually ride anything, so we had almost 8 hours to kill before midnight. YES, EIGHT HOURS OF WAITING. When we drove over from Animal Kingdom, we decided to take a little nap in the car. We parked and Josh slept for almost two hours before heading inside. I napped a little and read a little and by the time we got inside it was almost time for our dinner reservations. We ate at The Hollywood Brown Derby, which is a steakhouse style restaurant and it was SO good. It was the first time all week we enjoyed a little adult conversation and we had an amazing waitress. They were passing out top hats for everyone to wear for the countdown, so Josh looked pretty dapper for the rest of the evening. We stopped by a souvenir shop after dinner for some glittery Minnie ears and I was all set, too. We walked through the New York streets to see the Osborne Family Christmas light show and got a few more fun pictures of us together. We finally decided to find a spot on the sidewalk a little after 8 o’clock to get ready for the fireworks. There was a live band performing and lots of people to watch, but Josh was pretty miserable waiting for almost four hours on the curb ;). He indulged me, though, and we rang in the New Year with thousands of other people and an amazing fireworks show! That is seriously one of my favorite memories we share together. So much fun.
