… without blogging more about it.
Friday I had half-off, so instead of packing and lounging about the pool, we used our last passes to go to Animal Kingdom. I figured Squiggy would have more fun there than Disney/MGM (and I think I was right).
I had expected something sort of like the San Diego Wild Animal Park — open ranges of animals, a few Disney touches, kind of dull but educational and mildly entertaining.
More the fool I.
It’s the newest park at WDW, but it’s heavily forested (the advantages, I suppose, of building in a tropical swamp). And it’s a culmination of all the Imagineers’ work to create a total immersion into an environment. Walk through the E. African quarter, and it’s National Geographic time.
The safari takes you over muddy dirt roads — which are only upon examination paved roads with bumps and tire tracks embedded in. San Diego does a better veldt than Florida, but the use of topography and plantings makes different enclosures (and nice ones at that) look like all one range. For the kids there’s a clever integration of real animals and a simulated poacher storyline.
Some great fish pools. And a marvelous gorilla enclosure (with some of the most active gorillas I’ve ever seen).
Off in Asia, the nature walk there goes through marvelous, extensive “ruins” of a maharaj’s palace. Tigers, deer, etc., all in meticulously crafted surroundings. Really quite nice.
And under the massive (man-made), intricately carved tree in the center of the park, “It’s Tough to be a Bug,” a show that combines the cast of A Bug’s Life with 3D glasses and special effects “extras.” A lot of fun.
That’s about all we had time to see in the afternoon. Good stuff all, and a nice finale to the fun. I would strongly recommend Animal Kingdom to anyone traveling to WDW (I’d go there again before I’d go to Epcot).
And that should be the last of the (major) posts regarding My Trip to Orlando and What I Saw There.