Hotels & Trave

Disney’s Animal Kingdom….not a family favorite! Animal Kingdom

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On our recent visit to Disney World, we decided to spend a day at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. This was our first ever visit there as it was not yet opened when we were there about 12 years ago. This park is now about 10 years old, however but, in my opinion, it still has an overall “unfinished” feel to it. I have to say that of the four Disney World parks, this was my least favorite park of all.

Disney’s Animal Kingdom, obviously, has an animal theme to it. There are attractions here where you will see live animals in semi-natural habitats. The park is LARGE and though a lot of that space is used by the animals rather than the people guests, it still requires a LOT of walking so be prepared. We also found that there was not a lot of shade or places to go to “beat the heat” so we found it to be quite hot, more so than in the other parks that had more shade and more attractions inside air conditioned buildings. Now, I know, you’re thinking that if one goes to Disney World in June, one needs to expect it to be hot but, in my opinion, this park was just not built for the Florida heat!

The park itself is divided into 7 main sections. If you visualize the park as a clock, you enter at 6 o’clock in “Oasis.” In the center of the clock is “Discovery Island.” There is a pathway around Discovery Island and from that pathway are the entrances to the other areas. (There are no shortcuts from one area to the other as there are in other parks. One must enter and exit the area from the main pathway which we often found to be very crowded.) The entrance to “Camp Minnie-Mickey” is at about 7 o’clock. Walking around the outer edge of Discovery Island you will enter “Africa” at about 11 o’clock. From Africa, you can take a train ride to “Rafiki’s Planet Watch” area. At about 1 o’clock is the entrance to “Asia.” The final area is “DinoLand USA” and is located at about 4 o’clock.

Oasis

We found that there really was not much in the Oasis area of the park at all. There was a minor attraction with some animal exhibits in it but my kids did not find this at all interesting and just wanted to move on. There is a Rainforest Café for your dining pleasure. We did not dine here but I think that this was a good choice of a restaurant for Animal Kingdom as it really fits the theme of the park. There is a bit of shopping in this area as well and that’s about it.

Discovery Island

The next area we visited was Discovery Island. WE did not spend too much time here as, again, we did not find much to do. There are some trails where you can see some animals and this was somewhat interesting but my kids wanted more excitement and so we did not hang there long. There is a 3-D movie that is available called “It’s Tough to be a Bug.” This takes place in the base of the “Tree of Life” that is the symbol of the park. The park map described this film as having “creepy crawly moments in the dark” and this was all my daughter needed to hear to not want to see this at all. She does not like bugs! There is some quick service dining options as well as some shopping in this area as well.

Camp Minnie-Mickey

Basically the attractions in this area are character greetings and 2 shows. There is a Pocahontas show and a Lion King show. We chose to see the Pocahontas show and it was good. It was not anything spectacular but the kids enjoyed it. It did feature some live animals and that was fun to see. WE chose not to see the Lion King show because the kids did not want to sit through two shows in a row. All of the character spots in this area were VERY crowded and though we wanted to get autographs, we chose not to wait in the lines as it would have taken over an hour to see ONE character! That was ridiculous, in my opinion!

Africa

The Kilimanjaro Safari is the highlight of Africa and, in my opinion, all of Animal Kingdom. Our wait in line was only about 10 minutes, at which time we boarded a safari car which was like a car with long rows. Each row accommodated 4-5 people and each car had about 8 rows. Your driver is your tour guide and will point out lots of real live animals as you drive through. We saw giraffes, gnus, white and black rhinos, ostrich, lion, yak and elephants, to name only a few. Not only do you see the animals but you learn about them and you are entertained as well. Supposedly, this is a 2 week journey and it is cut short when you wind up “chasing after” the bad guys who are trying to poach animals. You drive over a rickety bridge and lean to one side not to fall off of it….it is all done in fun, of course! We really enjoyed our safari ride and took it twice and saw different animals both times.

The only other attraction in Africa is a walking tour where you can see more animals. A walking tour when it is 95 outside just did not seem like much fun to us so we skipped this.

As for dining in this area, the Tusker House Restaurant comes highly recommended but we did not have reservations so we were not able to get in. Lunch and dinner are served buffet style with carved meats, rotisserie chicken and lots more. They include a vegetarian area and an area for children’s foods such as corn dogs, macaroni and cheese, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. There are also some fast food options in this area where you can get hamburgers, sandwiches and bakery items.

Rafiki’s Planet Watch

From Africa, we took the Wildlife Express Train to RAfiki’s Planet Watch. We thought that there’s be scenic things to see on the ride since the ride has long benches facing out the right side of the train (rather than the typical rows of seats all facing forward) but there really was not much to see at all. There are some exhibits and activities along a trail for the kids once we arrived. It really was not much though. . One was a scavenger hunt in a small area where kids could circle the things they found on a wipe-off board, for example. There was a bird show on the trail but it was out in the open sun and much too hot to stand around and watch There is a small petting zoo area but my kids, especially my son was a bit scared of the animals though they seemed quite tame. There is a building called Conservation Station that we found to be not much. Well, my daughter did get to meet three characters and get autographs form them in the Conservation Station. She met Pocahontas, Rafiki, and Jiminy Cricket. We really did not find much else to do in this area so we took the train ride back to Africa and headed on our way. There is no food or drinks in this area, you must take the train back to Africa for this, so plan your day accordingly.

Asia

I hate to say it but we basically skipped the whole Asia section. There was a show about birds that my kids were not really interested in seeing. There was another walking tour to see more animals and we did not want to do that in the heat. And, there were two rides which my son was not big enough for and my daughter was not interested in at all. One was the Kali River Rapids which is a white water rafting ride that will get you soaked and the other is the Expedition Everest that roller coaster fans will really love! None of this interested us so we didn’t feel the need to explore the area.

DinoLand

DinoLand has a lot of interesting areas to visit, especially for the smaller children. There is a cool playground area called The Boneyard. It was quite crowded but both of my kids had a lot of fun playing here. They played for over 30 minutes and I had to finally drag them out to move on to something else. There are two rides in this area, Primeval Whirl which is a small roller coaster ride and Triceratops Spin which is just a carnival type ride that goes in a circle, similar to Dumbo, except you ride in a Triceratops. There are carnival type games here as well. And, there is a show that we enjoyed quite a lot, Finding Nemo—The Musical. This show was really packed but it is because it was really good. The story of Nemo is told through live actors dressed as fish and it is all set to music. It was a lot of fun and the family enjoyed it. The only dining in this area is fast food burgers and fries.

Overall Impressions

Overall, I found that there was a lot of walking for not a lot of things to do. The attractions were few and far between. Way too many of them were out in the hot sun and most of the year is way too hot for this in Florida. There were also a lot of walking tours that could be transformed into a ride of some sort, like the Kilimanjaro Safari. We enjoyed that ride and wished that some of the walking tours could have been some sort of similar ride. Not only would it have been more entertaining for the family, it would also be easier for everyone.

I really felt that there was not a lot for the kids to do at this park. There were few rides that they could go on and, after all, this is an amusement park. They liked the shows but wanted more than that from the day. We just felt that this park did not live up to Disney standards for imagination and fun. Also, compared to the other Disney parks, there were few dining choices in this park. There were more quick serve choices than sit down choices but both were lacking.

Recommendations

I would recommend that if you are going to visit this park, you do so in the cooler months. I would also recommend that if you are going to be in Disney a limited amount of time, you save this park for after you have seen the other three parks because they are more enjoyable than this one is. Unless you are one who really likes to walk a lot, especially in crowds, this park will become tiresome very quickly. I will not be visiting again soon but maybe 10 years from now, I’ll have to check it out again and see if they have made improvements!

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