Notices

Location
Animal Kingdom

Age Restriction
14 years and over

Duration
3 hours

Wild By Design


Article by DIBB Member Jay66UK

Marvel at the amazing efforts that go into creating and sustaining a "wild" place like Disney's Animal Kingdom Theme Park. Discover how the Park's designers combined native art, authentic architecture, actual historical artefacts and Disney storytelling to transport you to exotic lands of reality and fantasy, filled with wild animals.

Disney’s Animal Kingdom has been described as one of the most underrated parts of the Orlando experience. Reading through trip reports or advice postings on The Dibb you find that many people set aside half a day for this park, using the other half day to rest, see Disney Studios, go to a water park or return to the Magic Kingdom or Epcot for some “real fun”.

The problem with Animal Kingdom is that it does not conform to the expectations visitors have for a Disney park. Here is a typical day, condensed into a paragraph.

You arrive eager to be thrilled, you rush through the turnstiles, you do the two coasters, the raft ride and the safari and, umm, now what? Perhaps you queue for “It’s tough to be a bug”, glimpsing the Tree of Life for a few moments. Then you exit the park. What was that all about then? What was the point in coming all the way over to the West side of the Disney property for THAT?

And on the way back to the car park or bus stop you notice how flat and featureless the landscape is. What a boring place. Perhaps we won’t bother next year? There aren’t even any restaurants with ADR to make you hang around, nor any fireworks to linger for. This is the way so many people experience the Animal Kingdom.

But there is another way, and the “Wild by Design” tour is a great introduction to it.

Costing $60 per person, this tour is open to up to a dozen people aged 14 and over. It is currently run twice a week on Thursday and Friday mornings. It is a partner to the Backstage Safari Tour, which it briefly joins towards the end. You need a valid park entry ticket, a bottle of water, a hat, some sunscreen and comfy shoes. A camera and lots of film/memory and batteries would also be a good idea!

The focus of “Wild by Design” is the Disney Imagineers’ creation of the “lands” that make up three of the five areas of the Animal Kingdom – Discovery Island, Asia and Africa. And when I say creation I mean from the hard landscaping through erecting authentic buildings and filling them with authentic artefacts to populating the land with unseen people and the stories of their lives.

We took this tour in June 2006 – “we” being a couple of adult Disney fans returning to Walt Disney World for the second time in 9 months. As we had been so recently we were looking some slightly different ways of enjoying what Disney has to offer. Having been impressed by the themeing last time, we took this tour as we wanted the chance to understand the work behind the themeing. And we weren’t disappointed.

What follows is an overview of the tour and a mention of some of the highlights – a taster to try to tell you enough about the tour without removing the need to do it or spoil it for you if you decide to try it yourself.

When you book the tour you are told to be outside the park at 0815 ready for an 0830 start. Remember to allow plenty of time to park or catch your bus and to get through the security check as you approach the entrance. Your tour guide will appear at the planters near Guest Relations with name badges and a very good headset for you to wear that enables her to explain to you exactly what is going on and enabling you to hear no matter how noisy or crowded the park becomes.

This is a walking tour and lasts around 3 hours with a breakfast break in the middle. Although there are stopping opportunities, you might want to grab the opportunity to use the toilets outside the turnstiles before joining the group.

You enter the park half an hour before regular visitors and this ensures you remain ahead of the crowd through most of the tour. Although there are no real “backstage” aspects to this tour, just being in the park before the bulk of the public gives an insight into all the effort that goes on during the hours it is closed.

Having passed through the turnstiles you start walking uphill. Fact one of the tour: the piece of land that became the Animal Kingdom was originally a pasture and was totally flat. Tons of earth were trucked into the park to create the entrance “slope” that is a feature of Disney parks. Why? Well, on the way in you are slowed down by the slope and you have to take in your surroundings – it is hard to just charge on past everything. But on the way out the slope assists you to reach the exit more easily.

There is lush, almost tropical foliage all around you and this is why the parking lot and entrance areas are so flat, open and sparse – all done to enhance the contrast between the world outside and the world of the Animal Kingdom. As you face the bushes the path forks and you see a plaque commemorating the opening of the park on Earth Day – 22nd April 1998. The whole point of the Animal Kingdom is to “inspire you to action” – to do something to help the environment or the planet. Throughout the park there are activities to get children in particular to realise the wonder of the environment and to make them want to protect it. And so Earth Day was chosen as the appropriate time for the park to have it’s birth.

So the path has forked – which way to go? Left or right? Well, Disney research tells them that most people will turn right. So down the right hand path you find the stroller rental and locker hire building. Both paths lead you through The Oasis, an area of nooks and crannies full of birds and animals in natural surroundings. As you round each corner you do not know what you will find, and your exploration is rewarded by glimpses of colour and activity.

The idea is that you will learn a lesson here and use this pause and explore technique through the rest of the park. Sadly, most people just charge through (“not running but walking briskly”) to get to Expedition Everest or Kilimanjaro Safaris and the lesson is not learned.

Another thing the Imagineers have done is add features to try to get people to look up and look down, beyond their normal “flat” field of view. The next time you are at the Animal Kingdom have a look at the pathways. They are made to resemble paths made by human and animal traffic and dried up streams.

Leaving the Oasis you reach the Bridge to Discovery Island, designed to resemble a Polynesian settlement. This is the Animal Kingdom version of Magic Kingdom’s castle forecourt area – all the lands are like spokes off this wheel. Ahead of you is the Tree of Life, which you return to later. On Discovery Island you might start to look up and notice that the rooves are full of animal carvings. Each building has it’s own themed set of animals – can you spot any of the themes that link the animals together?

You head on through Discovery Island until you reach the bridge into Asia giving a glimpse of Everest. As well as being integral to the ride, the mountain provides what Imagineers call a “weenie” – a visual element that can be used to draw people into an area. Big enough to be seen from a distance and interesting enough to make you want to have a closer look. The Tree of Life is another, classic weenie.

There is a shop just over the bridge from Discovery Island that has lovely themeing. We had been told that one of few words of English that the locals could speak when the Disney shoppers got there was Coke. The Coca Cola Company also happen to be one of the main sponsors of all things Walt Disney World, so the shop has a prominent advert in Hindi.

Everything down to the bike is authentic. The interior is absolutely crammed with props, and this is a place most people rush past to get to Everest or Kali.

Entering Asia you meet the keeper of the apes/monkeys that inhabit the towering areas of Asia and, after being told some background information, you are able to ask questions about the animals and how they live in the park. A lot of effort goes in to making sure that they are happy, and to avoid the problems of boredom inherent in a zoo environment. The enclosure areas not visible to the public include a variety of complex toys for the monkeys to play with, and their food is hidden and mixed each day to keep the animals active and “enriched”.

By now the gates have opened and the park is starting to fill up behind you. You will probably start to see the people hurrying to Everest whilst you head towards the Kali River Rapids ride, which does not open until 0930.

You walk around the full queuing area for Kali to be shown all the detail and told about the storyline that holds the area together. This is the village of Anandapur on the outskirts of a former Royal forest, but the loggers have come and are stripping the area of its trees. Continuing the conservation theme throughout the park, this activity is disrupting the natural balance and causing the damaging flood that is the Kali River Rapids ride.

A meeting is being held as you pass along the queue and all the “shops” are empty as the villagers and shopkeepers are at this meeting. The soundtrack being played in the area (the “background music”, or BGM) includes lots of atmospheric sounds interspersed with the sound of chainsaws cutting the trees nearby and you occasionally catch the whiff of burning wood. As you look around there are countless items of ephemera that perfectly fit into the world the Imagineers have created. All of these have been bought in India and brought back to bring life to the village. As have miles and miles of electrical wires stretching between buildings.

At the entrance to Kali River Rapids there is a sign saying that you must wear shoes at all times. This is not to do with safety, as most visitors assume, but to do with the original themeing. As the start of the queue is a temple area, the villagers would leave their shoes outside so the Imagineers stuck down lots of Indian shoes to reflect this.

Unfortunately, visitors approaching the ride assumed they had to leave their shoes there too, and chaos ensued as people cannot easily get back to the start of the ride to get their shoes. So the sign was put up to deter people and, later, the original shoes were removed.

After a detailed look at all of the queuing areas for Kali you head to the Maharaja Jungle Trek. The story behind this is pictured on the murals as you walk around the “trek” - the area was set up by the grandfather as a hunting ground, it was left to decay by the father, and finally the son started to use it as a wildlife preserve. The later murals show how man has disrupted the circle of life, but realised his mistake and started to try to make amends..

Having spent some time in Asia you head towards Africa via the walkway between Asia and Africa where the Flights of Wonder theatre is located. This area was very enclosed and without a theme – there are no cues as to where in the world you are. This is a deliberate “buffer zone” so that you don’t see Africa and Asia next to each other and you are distracted by a great view of the Tree of Life.

Emerging from nowhere land you reach the port town of Harambe – a former British colony somewhere in East Africa. It gained it’s independence in the 1960s and is now reliant on the tourist trade and, in particular, working as a base for safaris. There are still some relics of the colonial past on show.

Your first stop in Africa is breakfast at the Tusker House restaurant, a large building designed like an old fort – you can see the “original” line of the building in the ground where the fortifications would have been. And the odd, reddy brown textured wall would have been covered in very porous coral to act as a form of temperature control.

You sit as a group in one of the back rooms with a huge tray of fruit salad and pastries, and whatever drinks you want. This is a great chance to chat to your fellow travellers and the tour guide and to recharge in the air conditioning as the day is inevitably growing hotter.

Inside there is a lot of African theming, including the Jorodi beads shop. This is named for Joe Rohde, the main Imagineer for Animal Kingdom who apparently has a very large piercing in his ear.

After breakfast you head towards the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail to meet one of the gorilla keepers. The trees here are called Sausage Trees, and the fruits from it hang down. They are checked every day before park opening for their security as the sap can cause a bad allergic reaction. We had been told about lots of gardening done when the park is shut to visitors to ensure it stays looking wild and unkempt.

On the day we went we bypassed the start of the trail, but this may be because we were behind schedule. The gorilla keeper gives a fascinating insight into how they care for these great big animals. The level of training is amazing, and we were told how they often give the gorillas their food in canteen tins placed about the enclosure as though they have been stolen from travellers – more “enrichment” that seems so important. The ways of keeping the animals in place are pointed out – it is all done with such subtlety.

After the gorillas you go to the Kilimanjaro Safari area and meet up with the Backstage Safari group. Cutting around the back of the ride, the two tour groups have their own “land rover” for a “no lies” version of the safari. One of the two tour guides takes over the commentary from the driver and explains a lot of the tricks used to ensure that the ride is exciting but safe and to ensure that visitors get to see plenty of animals despite the heat of a Florida day.

This is the end of the tour. After the safari the two groups separate and you head back into Africa to fill in some “end of tour” evaluation forms and are given a special Disney pin, only obtainable by doing the tour.

When considering booking the Wild by Design tour I kept asking myself why I was spending nearly £70 for two of us to be shown around a theme park. At the time it seemed like an extravagance.

Having done the tour I have to say it is money extremely well spent. I now wander into Asia or Africa and have a real appreciation for the worlds that have been created by Disney Imagineers. I keep noticing more and more little things that create or maintain a story and hold your attention.

And I spot the park commandos rushing between thrill rides and I smile. To them Animal Kingdom is the weakest of Disney’s parks – but they have to tick it off their list. To me it is the best themed and most creative of the fantastic places on Disney property.

But then I’ve done the Tour and I understand. I hope you will too.
Page created by LaurenM on 18-09-2010 13:06.
+ Last editted by Trace on 12-03-2014 15:04. View History

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