7th Invades Walt Disney World Part 4: Animal Kingdom
Posted by 7th on July 26, 2005

Well, it's been about half a year since I covered Disney/MGM Studios, so I guess it's time to visit the fourth of Disney's Florida theme parks, Disney's Animal Kingdom.

First, a little history.

The year is 1995. Disney is operating with three theme parks, the newest of which is Disney/MGM Studios, a park that initially began strictly as a place to record shows like the New Mickey Mouse Club (starring future stars like Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, and Christina Aguilera.) It was expanded and transformed into a Theme Park that celebrated the movies as a kneejerk reaction to Universal's plans to open a Universal Studios in Orlando.

This strategy effectively cut the knees out from under Universal and trumped their new park, which although successful, wasn't as big of a hit as it would have been had Disney not beat them to the punch by opening Disney/MGM in 1989.

So it's 1995, and Disney turns its eyes towards one of only two remaining big competitors in Florida: Busch Gardens (the other being Sea World, which has fueled rumors that Disney's next big Florida park will be an American version of Tokyo Disneysea, one of the most kickass parks I've ever read about.)

When I was a kid, Busch Gardens was subtitled "The Dark Continent." Now known simply as Busch Gardens of Tampa Bay, it is a fairly large theme park that has an African theme (amidst the various beer ads and references) and is known for its African wildlife and roller coaster thrills... and beer. Lots of beer.

I'll delve into Busch Gardens in a future invasion, but suffice it to say, it's a really fun park and has more roller coasters in its confined space than Disney has in all four parks combined. Clearly Disney saw this as an opportunity for stealing more market share, as for the second time since 1989, their design for a new theme park was based entirely on the idea of taking another company's business. After all, Tampa is about 90 minutes from Orlando. If Disney had something similar to Busch Gardens, their guests would be less tempted to check out and head for Tampa, extending their stay and dollar spending on Disney property by at least a day. Smart thinking, right?

Disney's Animal Kingdom is similar to EPCOT in that the final product is far different from what was initially designed. Originally announced as "Disney's Wild Animal Kingdom" on June 5th, 1995, the park was to be a celebration of all animals: Animals that exist, animals that used to exist, and animals that never existed. You'll notice in the image above that one of the animals in the original logo is a dragon. This dragon was still seen (and may still be seen) on AK merchandise well after the park opened, even though the "mythical lands" area of the park never made it off the drawing board. The star ride for this area was planned as an indoor "roller coaster style attraction" where the rider's train, which hung under the tracks, would be chased through the ride by a gigantic audio-animatronic dragon. This was later modified to be set in a post-apocalyptic Britain to coincide with the (then) upcoming Disney film Reign of Fire. When the movie bombed, all plans for the ride were scrapped, as were all hope of the "mythical lands" area of the park ever seeing the light of day, including plans for a new Disney "dark ride" entitled The Last Unicorn.

So due to time and money constraints (being that they wanted the park opened as quickly and cheaply as possible) the Mythical Lands area was scrapped and the "theme" of the park was redesigned around the Lion King's concept of "The Circle of Life," giving the entire park a kind of conservation "love Mother Earth" tree-hugging hippy feel. Considering the fact that Animal Kingdom was, by design, a rip-off of Busch Gardens, and The Lion King itself was a huge rip-off of a Japanese cartoon, this was, in a way, apropos.

Disney's Animal Kingdom opened on April 22, 1998. I did not attend the grand opening, because I was not yet in Florida. I did not move there until the following October, and hence did not miss the massive crowds that slammed into the gates on opening day: massive crowds that were caused by what I have come to call the "Disney/MGM Studios Syndrome."

As I've mentioned before, the concept is simple. Rather than build these attractions as new lands in the already existing parks (the Africa addition to EPCOT's World Showcase was cancelled in lieu of AK's construction) Disney opens a whole new theme park with two or three rides in it, which of course requires additional admission, additional gift shops, restaurants with overpriced food, etc etc etc. So I was not at all surprised when, in February of 1999, with my new Florida Residents pass in hand, I was finally able to visit Animal Kingdom, and found an absolutely HUGE park that had a total of two rides, not including the now-nonexistant boat ride and the train ride to Rafiki's Planet Watch. Two. But, that was in 1999. Surely in the seven years since its opening, they've added a whole plethora of new rides to experience, yes?

Hah. I laugh in your ignorant face! Hah, I say!

The current ride count (if you include the train ride) is: six, and two of those are carnival-style kiddie rides. This is pathetic. Busch Gardens has seven roller coasters alone, not to mention three water rides, various kiddie rides, 4D movies, and so on and so forth. But still, AK has proven to be successful, though it is universally known as the least popular of the four parks. Let's delve into why...

The Park Entrance

Well, start at the beginning. The entrance is a wide, open courtyard where families can get their bags and such in order, and just hang out before and after their park experience. It has a huge mural of a tree carved into the ground, but the design is only visible in full from a hundred feet up or so. Since there are no rides where a guest can be that high anywhere in the park, the effect is wasted, and the beautiful design goes mostly unnoticed by the thousands of people who walk right over it every day of the year: typical Eisner-Era Disney planning at its finest.

Also at this entrance area is the only table-service restaurant in the entire park, a first with Disney. Most of the parks have numerous restaurant experiences that guests can call in and book tables for up to 90 days in advance. Animal Kingdom just has one, which is part of the reason why it's not as popular as the other parks, especially with adults who'll spend the entire day in AK missing the culinary and alcoholic options available at EPCOT. Even stranger is the fact that this restaurant is not even owned or operated by Disney, but is part of a nationwide franchise.

I am of course referring to the Rainforest Cafe. This is one of two RFC's located on Disney property, the other being over in the Downtown Disney Marketplace area. Their outter decor is different (the Downtown Disney RFC rests at the base of a rather neat light-up volcano, where the Animal Kingdom RFC seems to be inside a cave carved from an out-of-place rock formation) but the inside is virtually identical.

The restaurant takes theming to a level that the designers of The Hard Rock Cafe and Planet Hollywood could never dream of. The inside is themed after an actual rainforest. The bar area sits beneath a giant mushroom. The floors and walls are adorned with lush greenery, both real and fake. The gift shop is all plush animals and tee-shirts with the famous Rainforest Cafe Tree Frog emblazoned across the front. And inside, there can be found numerous animatronic animals, including elephants, gorillas, monkeys, and cheetahs.

Flanking the entrance to the actual dining area and the gift shop are mini aquariums with various tropical fish. Outside in a little waiting area are parrots and other tropical birds, along with a bird handler who explains their habits and such while you wait to be seated. The menu is small compared to other chains like Outback or Bennigan's, but is HUGE compared to your typical Disney menu of 4-5 entrees. The food is high-quality, and reasonably priced, considering how large the portions are.

No, the only thing I find unlikable about this restaurant is the noise. This is definitely a family restaurant. And by that, I mean it is loud. The gorillas hoot. The chimps squeak. The birds squawk. The cheetah snarls. The elephants trump. Every so often the lights go out and there's a "tropical rain storm," complete with thunder, lightning, and actual rain that falls into predetermined areas so as not to get you wet. And of course, the kids yell and scream at all of it. This is a fun restaurant, no doubt about it. But if what you're looking for is a nice, quiet locale for a date with the misses, avoid the RFC like the plague and stick with Le Cellier in EPCOT.

The Oasis Entry Garden

The moment you pass the turnstiles, you enter the Oasis, a Garden of Edenish area with nature trails, hidden caves, waterfalls, and various animals, including tree kangaroos, iguanas, and numerous species of birds. This is a great place to cool off in the heat, with its damp caves, and lush plantlife, so thick the sun can't even get through. But being placed in the front of the park, its use as a cooling off area is pretty pointless, as you'll die of heat stroke trying to get to it from any other area of the park.

No, the real reason this little area is here is NOT for cooling off. It's all about landscaping. It's there simply to make the BIG REVEAL of the park's icon more dramatic; you walk through the trees, come around a corner, and as you crest the top of a hill, out of nowhere, you see this:

Rooted in the center of the park's central "hub area" known as Discovery Island (named after a Disney wildlife preserve on property that was closed down after AK was opened) the Tree of Life stands as the symbol for the park's "Circle of Life" philosophy, and as the home for one of my favorite "4D" films on property.

A path winds down and around the tree, and eventually leads you to a cave underneath its roots, where you can hear mosquitoes singing various famous Disney tunes like Beauty and the Beast and A Whole New World. As you make your way to this cave, you'll notice that the bark of the tree is actually covered in carvings of various animals, both alive and extinct. Since this is the first attraction you come to in AK, it typicaly has the longest line, so you can try to keep the kiddies occupied by making a game of spotting all the animals carved ino the tree (there are dozens to be found, and you'll have plenty of time waiting to find them all, believe me.) What attraction, you ask?

It's Tough To Be A Bug is a fantastic ten minute long "4D" film starring the characters from Pixar's A Bug's Life (which is generally considered the least popular Pixar film, but what the hey.) Here, Flik and his pals put on a show to teach you how hard life as a bug can be, which includes a visit by a stink bug (which results in the theater being filled by a very foul-smelling fartlike gas) and an unwelcome visit by the evil grasshopper named...well... Hopper, in full, 6+ feet tall animatronic form.

Let me say this right now before I get any complaints from parents who take their urchins into this show based on my recommendation. If they're less than seven years old, DON'T. Steer clear. As strange as it sounds, this show can be very traumatic for the little ones. At one point during the show, Hopper sends a "squadron" of hornets into the theater, exhibited by very realistic buzzing noises and little prongs implanted in the seats that stick you repeatedly in the back. He follows this up by having the entire theater fill with smoke, after which dozens of giant animatronic spiders fall from the ceiling right towards the screaming heads of your youngsters. This is topped off as the lights come up, and a pre-recorded announcement asks that all guests remain in their seats to give the cockroaches time to leave the theater, upon which you feel various squirmy things crawling under your ass. Again, I can't stress this enough. No small kids, and no girlfriends/wives/mothers-in-law that have bug phobias, as when they go running across the aisle screaming, it's my toes they always seem to aim for. My toes implore you: keep the kiddies and bug-fearing women out of this show.

Besides the Bug Show, Discovery Island is mostly a dining and shopping locale, though the dining is not up to Disney par, to say the least (well... its on par with their other counter service locations, but who wants a New Age park filled with fast food joints?) The first option is the Flame Tree Barbecue, a counter service location where you can get ribs and such. The other eatery is called Pizzafari, the most popular with the kids. Again, it is counter service, and the pizza is about the same quality as a Digornio's microwave pizza, only you'll pay three times as much for it as you would from the Walmart down the street. The kids will love it, as you sit and watch them tear into a one topping pizza that is most likely sitting in your freezer at home.

So, now that they've had a pizza pick-me-up, it's time to head to the next area on our tour:

Camp Minnie Mickey

As you might've already guessed, this is the primary "kiddie" area of the park.

The primary function for this area is to serve as a set location for character greetings. One of the biggest complaints Disney has fielded over the years from guests is that it's too hard to find the characters, who in the past would seem to magically appear out of nowhere, and then vanish again after fifteen minutes of autograph signing. Though characters can be found in other places in the park, Camp Minnie Mickey serves as a permanent location where characters can always be found (though specific ones aren't guaranteed.)

They'll hold your kids, sign autographs, and if it's Tigger, perhaps cop a feel. It's all in good fun!

Also for your viewing pleasure is Pocahontas and Her Forest Friends, a show that features Pocahontas herself and an animatronic Grandmother Willow as they teach the little 'uns the importance of "SAVING THE PLANET."

This is easily the least popular show in the park (if you don't count the equally boring "Flights of Wonder bird show.") In fact, I can't say that I've ever sat through the entire thing. No, if you're looking for a good show in Camp Minnie Mickey, you have to head over to the BIG theater.

The festival of the Lion King is the most popular show in the park. It's a modified, shortened version of the popular Broadway play, and features live performers, puppetry, and numerous special effects. The music and dancing is phenominal, the kids love it, and the theater has a ceiling with air conditioning, so you get a wonderful 20-30 minutes out of the heat. If you only have time for one show during your visit to Animal Kingdom, make it this show, as the other live show is just afwul. I hate the fact that I even have to mention it, so let's avoid the topic until absolutely neccessary, shall we? Oh, and just because I love to mention it whenever possible, this show is STILL a complete rip off of Kimba The White Lion, no matter how good it is. Thank you, carry on.

Dinoland U.S.A.

Dinoland U.S.A. is easily the most popular area of the park, and with good reason. When the park opened in 1998, Dinoland was home to the only actual thrill ride in Animal Kingdom, and that is still the case, and will be until next year.

The area itself is split into three mini-lands: the Institute, The Dig Site, and Chester and Hester's Din-O-Rama

We'll cover them one by one.

The Dig Site is the first area you come to, framed by the skeleon of a brontosaurus (or whatever they call them these days.) It's basically a kid's playground area that's been disguised as a paleontological dig site. The kids can run through the gangwalks and various chutes and ladders provided, get extremely hot and sweaty, then follow that up with a nice trip to the boneyard, where they can dig up "dinosaur skeletons" that each day are hidden under the dirt for the next batch of kiddies. Then your hot, sweaty, dirt-covered urchins will come running back to you wanting to go get something to eat (and will come up with fifty or sixty different reasons to touch you with their mud-covered hands on the way to said dining experience.)

Dining-wise, there's only one restaurant here, and again, it's counter service. It's cleverly entitled Restaurantasaurus, and serves oversized Disney burgers with McDonalds fries (and naturally, the fries alone cost as much as an entire value meal would off property.) During the mornings, a portable buffet is rolled in, and the restaurant becomes "Donald's Breakfastasaurus" where kids can enjoy ignoring their cold bacon and powdered eggs (bused over from the Boma restaurant inside Disney's Animal Kingdom lodge Resort across the street) that you paid 17.99 a head for (10.99 for kids aged 3-11), while Donald and his friends waddle around signing autographs.

With bellies filled and (hopefully) mud washed off, you're clear to head to the Institute area of the park, where you'll instantly be struck by the strangest sense of de javu.

When the park initially opened, this attraction was called "Countdown to Extinction." In the summer of 2000, Dinosaur hit the big screen, and the ride's name was changed accordingly. As you can see, a statue of the movie's hero "Aladar" was also added to the fountain in front.

Even before this was done, any idiot could look at the building's false front and tell that the designers had Jurassic Park in mind when they built it. Especially when you walk inside the lobby and you see this:

The lobby's center piece is the skeleton of a Carnotaur, a meat-eating cousin of the T-Rex from the late Cretaceous period, and the star villain from the movie Dinosaur (he was also the star villain of the ride two years before the film opened, which shows you how long the movie was in development. This ride was open to the public two years before anyone even knew about the movie, except for perhaps Harry Knowles, who knows about every movie that will ever be made, or has even been considered in a passing thought about being made.)

You're lead into a small "briefing room" ala Test Track, where Mrs. Huxtable from the Cosby Show appears and explains that you'll be heading back in time via time rover (a six-wheeled jeep-like vehicle system that is also used in the Indiana Jones ride in Disneyland) to visit the land of the dinosaurs. The scientist running the experience, unbeknownst to Mrs. Huxtable, reprograms the system to send you back to just a few minutes before a meteor strikes the Earth, because he has detected "through the time stream" a live iguanadon (also known as Aladar) that he wants you to bring back alive. So off you go!

You hop in the jeep, a bunch of lights flash in your face, and boom, you're in a jungle at nighttime. The scientist leads you via time stream radio through the forest searching for the iguanadon. During the adventure, you naturally run afoul of the evil carnotaur, which chases alongside your vehicle numerous times before finally cornering you and roaring in your face (to produce the neccessary terror shots for the after-ride photo booth) including the realistic hot blast of rotting-meat scented breath in your face. You "switch to four-wheel drive" and zoom through the forest, just as pieces of the meteor start to slam into the ground all around you. You spot the iguanadon just in the nick of time, and the scientist "locks him in." Then, as you head towards the time gate, the Carnotaur appears and rushes at you from the other side of it. The scientist dork screams "You're not gonna make it!!!"

And then you make it. You pull a hairpin turn around a corner and see the iguanadon on a security monitor tromping happily through the complex.

I have only one complaint with this ride.

When it originally opened, it was full of really kickass laser effects throughout the ride... laser effects when the time drive kicked in, laser effects for the time gate when you came back... when you originally spotted the iguanadon, a "laser cage" sprang to life around him when the scientist said "he's locked in!"

All of them have been removed, so now you just drive by the iguanadon and he stares at you..no laser cage, just a driveby. The time transfer effect is now just a whishy sound effect and flashing lights, making it far less impressive. I don't know if the laser effects proved too costly to keep working day in and day out, or if people complained about their brightness after having rode through the ride in almost complete darkness (no doubt to hide the ride mechanics and make the meteor effects more realistic.)

I seem to be one of the few people who remembers these laser effects, but trust me, they were there. And now they're not. To most people, it's a cool ride. To me, it's a cool ride that used to be better. Ah well.

Chester and Hester's Din-o-Rama

When Walt Disney opened Disneyland back in the 50's, he did so because he couldn't stand the nasty carnival style Coney Island-like amusement parks that were the norm. He hated the attractions that lacked story or theme. He hated the loud, obnoxious midway games, and he hated that most of the rides were attractions that his daughters rode by themselves while he sat on a bench and watched. So he built Disneyland to be a park he'd WANT to take his kids. In many ways, he built Disneyland more for himself than for the children of the world.

But now he's dead, so to honor his achievements, Disney (knowing that Animal Kingdom was extremely short on things to do) consulted with 3rd party contractors to produce Chester and Hester's Din-o-Rama (the first Disney "land" where the Imagineers had no involvement in the actual construction of the rides.)

In keeping with Walt's vision and Eisner's urge to shit all over it, Din-O-Rama is directly themed after the kind of shitty carnival-style amusement parks that Walt hated so much. It's a mini-land that has two rides, a gift shop, and a bunch of midway style carnival games. It's a humungous black boot right up Uncle Walt's dead ass, the clearest expression of Eisner's middle finger in Walt's face that I've ever seen or heard of.

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The "big" ride here is the Primieval Whirl, a "spinning time machine" coaster-style attraction that is not in any way, shape, or form worth the hour long wait to ride it.

Loosely based on the "mad mouse" style kiddie coasters from the early days of amusement parks, the Whirl's cars are round and set on an axis. It's as though someone took the spinning cars from the Magic Kingdom's Mad Tea Party, and set them on a track. You go up a hill, and then you spin around in circles and you slowly (and I do mean slowly) make your way back to the bottom.

The ride is a good introductory coaster for youngsters, but is decidedly lacking that Disney theming magic. It needed to be an indoor coaster with animatronic "cartoon" dinosaurs and lots of lighting effects. As it is, this was just a cheap way to split the crowds into another queue line.

The other ride in this land is the Triceratop Spin. There's no surprises here. It's Dumbo with dinosaurs... dinosaurs that, I might add, didn't have wings, and didn't fly. True, elephants don't either, but Dumbo had big ears. These dinos just have big horns, and I've never seen anything fly by the use of a horn (unless you count the General Lee's blast of "Dixieland" whenever it leapt over Roscoe.) I'm not going to say anything overly mean about the ride, since my little one loves it so. All I will say is that, thanks to the Triceratop Spin, Disney now has the exact same ride duplicated four times in its parks (and three of them are in the same park!) Walt would never have allowed such laziness in design.

The rest of this area is split amongst the gift shop, a concession stand, and the midway games, one of which I do have to express an affinity for:

Whack-a-Dino.

Every time we go, I have to play it. I've been good at Whack-a-Mole ever since I was a little kid, and I take great pleasure it beating out the other dads trying to win their kid a dino plushie every single time I play. Then, with giant stuffed dinosaur in hand, I proudly proclaim to my wife that I am "The Whack-A-Master" and carry my dino trophy (which I won under the pretense of trying to win it for my toddler) around like it's the Stanley Cup and I'm Marty St. frickin' Louis. I know, I know. I'm a dork. But I'm a dork that always wins my kid a dinosaur from Whack-A-Dino, so you can bite me.

Oddly enough, there is one more attraction here in Dinoland, but I can't for the life of me figure out why it ended up on this side of the park. I'm speaking of the previously mentioned attrocious live show known as Tarzan Rocks.

Assuming that the two best features of Tarzan were the Phil Collins sound track and the "extreme sports" aspects, Tarzan Rocks blends bits of the story line with all of Collin's songs and a boatload of extreme sports enthusiasts zipping around the stage and audience on in-line skates. All of this is transpiring while guy who looks more like Brendan Frasier from George of the Jungle than Tarzan swings around in a loin cloth and a guy in a Turk suit leaps around the stage making the young ones cry with his oddly spooky giant gorilla eyes.

Yes, it's just as asinine as it sounds, so much so that I would be doing its suckitude an injustice by trying to give a play-by-play, so I'll just let you have a look at these and judge for yourself.

Go ahead and take the time to wipe the vomit from your chin before continuing. I'll wait.
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... all done? Good. Let me stop for a second and have you take a look at this:

One thing I forgot to mention is the walking. Animal Kingdom is huge, the largest park on property. It's all themed on Africa (and Asia) and thus they wanted to correctly convey the VASTNESS OF THE DARK CONTINENT. Thus to get from one land to another, you walk. And walk. And walk. And walk some more. You will walk more in this park than you possibly have over the entire course of your natural life. You have nothing left but ankle stumps by the time you make it back to your overpriced, undersized Disney resort room, so make sure you bring a backback loaded with bottles of ice water, and that your shoes are Gellin'. And what's worse, the park (due to the animals) only stays open till 5 pm or so, so you have five hours less than at the other parks to see everything you want to see (this is also why AK is the only Disney park that doesn't have a fireworks show, besides the obvious spooking the animals would get from it.) For this reason, I think Disney should either extend AK's operating hours, or reduce the price of a one day ticket there, since you actually get five hours less than you do anywhere else.

But I digress, So let us walk to...

Africa

Africa is made to look like a really run down Mexican village from a Robert Rodriguez movie. Of course, rundown villages from any third world country tend to look the same, so that's not really saying much. There's one restaurant of mention here, and again, it's counter service, but it's the best tasting in the park (if you're not into Digornio's Pizza.) The restaurant is the Tusker House, (which is funny, since a lot is said in AK of the evil involved in poaching elephants for their tusks) and it has some of the best rotisserie chicken I've ever had. I was not aware that rotisserie chicken was so popular in South Africa (perhaps George Foreman brought his George Foreman Baby Rotisserie with him when he fought Ali thereand encited a phenomena) but it is nonetheless delicious.

The first attraction in Africa is actually a ride that will take you out of the land altogether, the Wildlife Express.

This is a train built to resemble a typical African steam train from the 1800's. The seats all face sideways so that you can have a better look at the scenery you pass by (and so you won't see all the "behind-the-scenes" stuff the train passes by on its righthand side, as you'll spend the entire ride looking left.)

You pass by the Elephant cleaning area, and various other backstage locales, but unlike the train at the Magic Kingdom which can be used as a leisurely way to reach any area of the park, this train goes to one specific location alone: Rafiki's Planet Watch.

It's kinda pointless really, riding this train that takes you to just one place in the park (which you can't get to by walking, I might add) only to spend a maximum of thirty to forty minutes there before having to break down all your gear to accomodate those damned sideways seats and see the exact same shit on your way back because the seats only face one direction. But in case you're one of those types who just HAS to see everything, here's what that train ride gets you:

This is the Conservation Station, another locale where the "Save Our Mother Gaia" New Age Hippy mentality is shoved down the throats of your kids by the way of "Save The Planet" action figure sets and cartoon educational children's books about how global warming will one day fry their brains like an omlet.

There's some live animal exhibits with snakes and various lizards, isolation booths where these new headsets produce the real-life experience of a thunderstorm in the rainforest (this, I must admit, was very very cool) a petting zoo where donkeys, llamas, sheep, goats, and other barnyard friends are available to spread their funk to the hands of your offspring (and hence, to your dinner that night) and lastly, wonderful character meet-and-greets such as the following:

So then, you hop back on the train and go back to Africa, where you'll find the Majambe Safari, the signature ride of the whole park.

This is basically a truck ride through a wonderfully crafted area made to resemble a wildlife preserve. Disney Imagineers have gone to great lengths to make it really seem as though you're out in the middle of the Savannah, watching the animals roam. Again, when you first come around that corner and get your first glimpse of the animals grazing (supposedly) freely, it has a real "Welcome Dr. Grant" Jurassic Park feel to it.

The ride has a story to it, of course, that being that you're chasing poachers through the preserve; poachers who are trying to kill Big Red, the star female elephant, and her baby Little Red.

To be honest though, you spend much of the ride too engrossed in seeing these animals to take much notice of the story line (the animals are kept in their "areas" by means of small electric fences that are only a foot high or so, and by way of well hidden trenches that are disguised by the landscaping, although some do occasionally find their way out by way of the dirt roads used by the gameskeepers. This is why, when I first rode this attraction, I was able to pet a giraffe behind the ears when it stuck its head into our truck. This is also why, on the same ride, I nearly had a heart attack when our truck was chased by a charging rhino that had somehow made it onto the main road (made all the more harrowing by the fact that I and two Japanese women (who were simultaneously screaming in terror and snapping pictures) were the only people on the back row, right in plain view of that rhino's horn.)

Eventually, you spot the poachers (an automated jeep that goes zipping around a corner across the river from you, complete with revving engine and machine gun fire fx!) and give chase. You come around the corner, and a castmember is standing there in an African army uniform (the funny part being that it's usually a skinny teenaged white girl) holding the animatronic poacher at bay with her trusty plastic M-16. Yay! We saved the robot elephant (the only fake elephant you'll see on this ride.)

And from here, we head all the way back across the park to:

Asia

Asia opened the year after Animal Kingdom did, and was considered a welcome addition that should have been done when the park opened, though in my opinion, it didn't really add that much.

There's no dining here, short of ice cream carts and the like. No, no kickass Chinese restaurant or Thai food. Just ice cream and hot dog carts.

The first area you'll want to explore here is the Maharaja Jungle Trek, a nature trail where you'll see giant bats, bengal tigers, and various other creatures.

Once you've walked all that time in the hot sun looking at the laziest tigers you've ever seen, it's time to cool off on the Kali River Rapids ride.

This is one of the longest Jungle River Rapids style boat rides I've ever been on. It's also the worst. Disney's designers again went through a third party contractor on this one. Disney did all the theming (the whole ride is again about conservation and such... your boat passes by an area being deforested by loggers, complete with an 18 Wheeler and big burning tree pyres) but the ride was all done out-house (no pun intended.) Apparently, they didn't notice the word "rapids" in the term "Water Rapids Ride" as there really aren't any. This is the tamest rapids ride I've ever rode. You get a liiiiiiiitle splash when you come off the first big lift hill, from then on, you're dry as a bone.

I've experienced, in total, four rapid-style rides in my lifetime: Smokey Rapids at Dollywood, Grizzley Rapids at the now defunct Opryland, the Congo River Rapids at Busch Gardens of Tampa Bay, and the Kali River Rapids at AK. Kali is the worst. There's very few drops, and you get, at the most, marginally wet, unless you're lucky enough to be on a boat with some really obese people all seated on one side, causing that end to constantly dip and splash water on everyone.

This is apparently what happened to Erik Estrada, whom I saw departing the ride the very first time I ever rode it. He was dressed in a blue hawaian shirt and was cursing a blue streak, both in English AND Spanish. He was soaked from head to toe, his charcoal gray pompador flattened across his hispanic brow. It was one of the funniest things I've ever witnessed.

Sadly, I have never gotten that wet on this ride. The thrill just ain't there, folks. Even the "water guns" kids can use to spray you as you pass by aren't as powerul as the guns at Busch Gardens. But I'll talk more about those when I do my BG invasion. Point is, for all the hype this boat ride gets, it really really sucks, and doesn't offer anything new. If you wanna ride a kickass water rapids ride in Orlando, I hear Island of Adventure's Popeye Rapids ride is the one to try.

Finally, before we leave the park, I'll give you a preview of the newest addition to the Asia area.

This is Expedition Everest, a new indoor/outdoor roller coaster scheduled to open sometime in 2006. It has a maximum speed of over 50 mph, includes an almost 90 degree drop, is said to have full 360 inversions inside the mountain, and is also said to go both forwards AND backwards. No idea how tall the coaster itself is, but the mountain that holds it is almost 200 feet tall, which would make it almost as tall as the new Sheikra drop coaster at Busch Gardens.

Never one to produce a plain jane roller coaster (the Primieval Whirl notwithstanding of course) Disney has pulled all the stops on this one. Included in the experience is said to be a "terrifying" encounter with the Abomidable Snowman, making this a high speed 21st century update of sorts to Disneyland's Matterhorn ride (a remake of the Matterhorn was scheduled to be the main attraction for an eventual Sweden pavillion in EPCOT's World Showcase, but was cancelled when the plans for this ride made it rather redundant.)

I am eagerly looking forward to this one, as it'll finally give me a real reason to visit this park. They've been talking about it since before Mission: Space opened, and is supposed to put Disney back on the map for thrill ride enthusiasts. We shall see.

At any rate, this park, again, is the least popular. Why? No good places to eat, very little shade (there are hardly any shade trees, and very few benches to sit on in said non-existant shade... the majority of cool places to rest are inside restaurants, where overpriced Cokes are in abundance. Coincidence?), too much walking, and very little to actually DO. Way too much of Animal Kingdom is comprised of things to WATCH. This is why Disney had to start their famous "Nahtazu" campaign, which had an African choir singing "Nahtazu!" Circle of Life-style whilst the commercial showed a shitload of animals. "Animal Kingdom is many things, but one thing it definitely is, is Nahtazu!"
Yes it is. It IS a zoo, with a handful of rides and shows. Everyone who's been there knows it. This park needs to be WAY more interactive. It needs RIDES. And they need to actually plan out their rides, so things like this don't happen:

One of my favorite rides when the park opened, the River of Life boat cruise, was taken out a little under a year after the park opened. Why? Because it was poorly thought out, that's why. The ride was considered more of a transportation method than an actual ride. As you can see by the above posted map, Discovery Island is surrounded by the River of Life, which also branches out to other parts of the park. The problem was, there were at least two different places where you could board the boat, which confused people as to where they got on, and where they got off. Add to this the fact that there wasn't much to see on this boat ride, aside from an animatronic Aladar playing in the river (which, when last I checked, had been removed) and what you had was a boat ride with no entertainment, and where most of the passengers had no frickin' clue whether they were coming or going.

The confusion about where to get on and off was causing such traffic jams and consternation that the park closed it down. For a while, they talked about somehow extending the river over to the Animal Kingdom Lodge and using the boats as an exclusive way for DAKL guests to gain entry to the park, but that never came to fruition, probably due to the fact that the river would end up having to somehow corss over the highway that seperates the park area from the DAKL grounds.

My suggestions are as follows:

1) Build the damned Mythical Lands. Who cares if Reign of Fire flopped? Go back to the original medieval plotline and built the damned coaster, AND the unicorn dark ride. if there's one thing AK needs, it's a fun Pirates of the Carribbean style dar ride boat romp.

2) Re-open the Rivers of Life boat cruise with just ONE entrance and exit point, and make it as much of a 21st century version of the Magic Kingdom's Jungle Cruise as Everest is of the Matterhorn. Add a storyline, with some comic dangers, some animatronics, basically give it the Disney touch you never gave it the first time.

That and the new Everest coaster will be a good start towards making the park worthwhile, but it's still going to need more than 7 attractions if it's going to avoid the Disney/MGM syndrome, where the park is viewed as being the home of just two fun attractions (namely the Tower of Terror and the Rock N' Roller Coaster. Disney/MGM just added the Motor Stunt Show, but again, it's a SHOW. You watch it, you don't experience it. AND they tore down the Golden Girls house and the rest of Residential Street to do it!)

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

Next time, we'll take a gander at Disney's water parks. Till then, have a magical fuckin' day!

Oh wait! Before I forget, Animal Kingdom DOES have one more attraction: