Caroline's Graduation and Disney Day 1

We had the best week last week celebrating my little sister's college graduation from Florida State University! Caroline graduated on Saturday with 2 engineering degrees and a physics minor so after lunch on Friday, I headed up to Tallahassee. We met up before dinner then headed to the FSU club at the stadium for one last dinner together there. Afterwards, I headed back to Caroline's apartment and stayed her last night with her and watched The Lizzie McGuire Movie which is one of our favorites.

Saturday morning, we were up early and got ready for graduation at 9 am. It was a great ceremony but it was over 3 hours long! Thankfully, the College of Engineering was the first one to walk so after discovering there was WiFi in the building, I was glued to my phone. I didn't realize that half the graduates and spectators had left the building (who knew you could just leave graduation) so after 2 hours, we all dipped out - best decision! We had lunch, packed up and headed back to Orlando.

Stephen and Caroline's boyfriend, Keith, met us at the condo we were staying at and before we knew it, it was time to head over to Disney Springs to meet up with some family friends. My dad was able to get a condo at the Wyndham at Bonnett Creek which is honestly the perfect place to stay when going to Disney. It's on Disney property (right between Disney Springs and Hollywood Studios) but it isn't owned by Disney so we were able to rent a 3 bed/2 bath condo with a full kitchen for less than a mid-range hotel at Disney. As a note, they offer a bus service but it will cost you a pretty penny per day. Since Stephen and I get free parking with our seasonal passes, we loaded everyone up in my car and drove to the parks every day. We usually do the Disney buses while staying onsite but man, driving was so much easier and quicker.

We did dinner ice cream at Disney Springs with our family friends and right before I was able to dig into our sundae, my mom ran into my best friend from high school and her parents! We got the biggest kick out of it and enjoyed catching up :) After hanging out for a while, we headed back to the condo and played a few card games before calling it a night.

Sunday, we got to Animal Kingdom just as it was opening for the day (y'all, my biggest Disney advice is to get to the park 15-30 minutes before it opens. You'll get to walk on so many rides, it's not hot and not as crowded. We did notice most of the parks ended up letting us in 10-15 minutes before official open time) and was able to do Everest, Dinosaur and Primeval Whirl right off the bat. Afterwards, we took our time walking around seeing shows and finishing up with the Kilimanjaro Safari. We did the safari around 5:30 pm and it was the best one we've ever done - the animals were out. We had a giraffe block the road and come right up to the car more times than I could count.

The Lion King show is easily the best show at Animal Kingdom... maybe all of Disney. Oh, and we hated the Finding Nemo show lol

Baby Giraffe!

And a baby elephant!

We wanted to stay and watch the new light show but we finished everything with about 3 hours before the light show so we decided to head back and play putt putt at the resort and another round of card games. It was the perfect way to end the night.

Linking up with Biana