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October 3, 1998
Orlando, Florida
Here I am in front of The Tree of Life, the central icon for Walt Disney World's fourth theme park, Disney's Animal Kingdom. The Magic Kingdom has Cinderella's Castle, Epcot has Spaceship Earth and MGM Studios has the Chinese Theater. Over 325 different animals are portrayed in the gnarled roots, trunk and branches of this completely fake tree. The maze of twisting passages around its base provide room for one of those endless Disney queues leading to a 400 seat underground theater presenting "It's Tough to be a Bug", an 8 minute 3D multi-media show. Lot's of fun! |
| The Animal Kingdom, largest of all Disney parks, consists of five lands surrounding the central hub, called Safari Village. They are The Oasis, Camp Minnie-Mickey, Africa, Asia and Dinoland U.S.A. Most of the large wild animals are located in Africa, but there should be more in Asia when it opens in 1999. |  |
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Lisa reluctantly posed for this picture after a three hour drive from Jacksonville. We left home about 7:00 am. Our Florida residents passes didn't allow access to this new park until we upgraded them for $1.36 each. In December we will need to renew for another year for all four parks. I'm sure there were some actual out-of-state tourists plunking down $42 for a one-day one-park admission, but most of the adventures were of the common Florida resident species. I don't think the Animal Kingdom comes close to the entertainment value of The Magic Kingdom or Epcot, but this was our first visit, and we didn't take time to explore all the areas of the park. |
| The largest area of the park is accessible by boarding an open-air safari truck for a 15 minute ride. We didn't see many animals on our Kilimanjaro Safari across the African savannah. Maybe they were hiding, out to lunch, or dead. The elephants and giraffes were hard to miss. |  |
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With no animals in sight, our driver kept repeating, "In
the meantime, we can enjoy the African landscape that surrounds us." The
landscape looked remarkably similar to my backyard, overgrown, weedy, but
authentic. The ride through the animal area includes a little story about
game wardens arresting illegal poachers, preying on elephants for their
ivory tusks. We used our safari truck to help catch the poachers!
I prevailed on a couple of young Chinese women to take this picture of us. I guess they didn't speak English, but some broad gestures and nods got the idea across. They even let me hold their camera and take a picture of them. |
| Bird's are easy to see, and don't seem to be bothered by the constant rumbling truckloads of tourists. Parrots and other exotic birds are scattered all over the park, and there's also an outdoor theater for trained bird shows. |  |
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Here on the bridge from Africa to the Safari Village, this
was supposed to be another picture of me with The Tree, but Lisa's aim
was off. The Disney artists did a great job making this six month old park
look ancient and run down. It felt like an old unsuccessful theme park
with bad maintenance procedures.
The Safari Village is a mecca for souvenir hunters and hungry, thirsty adventurers. We didn't go to Camp Minnie-Mickey, the kids area, and we didn't see any of the costumed, lip-synched musical shows with Pocohontas, the Lion King and Jungle Book. The wildest ride of the day was the fast, jerky Countdown to Extinction through dark caves with lurching prehistoric monsters at every turn. |
| Here's a safari truck making it's rounds on muddy, bumpy unpaved roads. Only the driver has a seatbelt. There's a train ride past the actual backstage animal living quarters to Conservation Station, where you can see the staff caring for the animals, or visit the petting zoo. More snack bars and gift shops there too. |  |
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