DISNEY WORLD REPORT: Animal Kingdom

Last week, my friends and I graduated high school. To cap off our final year of school together, a couple buddies and I came to Orlando, Florida for a week of Disney awesomeness.

It's been four years since my last Disney World visit, so this time around I thought I'd give a brief tour of the parks, starting with the Animal Kingdom and ending with the Magic Kingdom. Here we go.

Disney's Animal Kingdom is the largest Disney Park in the world, covering 500 acres of land. It is home to 1700 animals of all kinds, from all over the world. The different zones of the park represent different habitats: from Africa and Asia, to the fictional DinoLand, USA. The park is highlighted by a massive tree sculpture, known as the Tree of Life, accented by 325 carved animals along its surface.

Along with the scores of zoo animals, Animal Kingdom boasts a handful of park-exclusive rides, including Dinosaur, Kali River Rapids, and the monstrous Expedition Everest.

The Dinosaur ride, based on the 2000 Disney film, Dinosaur, is the Florida counterpart to Disneyland's Indiana Jones Adventure. It features similar ride vehicles, and the same motion simulation technology. However, the film is outdated, and so is the ride. Despite Indiana Jones being a much more intense and inspired attraction, the animatronics on Dinosaur are pretty awesome, and with short wait times, this is hardly a ride you'll want to miss.


Another quick ride is Primeval Whirl, or as my friends and I took to calling it, "Primeval Hurl". It's a wild mouse roller coaster like Goofy's Sky School at DCA, but the cars spin. It's nauseating, but a lot of fun for up to four riders if you can handle it.




The last ride I need to talk about is of course, Expedition Everest. Considered by some to be the Matterhorn of Walt Disney World, this ride is a beast -- no pun intended. With a construction cost of $100 million, Everest is still the world's most expensive roller coaster. And it's clear why.

The ride queue takes riders through hiking equipment shops, a Nepali temple, and through a lifelike museum dedicated to authentic tales of the Yeti that protects the Himalayas. The actual ride is more of the same; the chain lift goes into a temple decorated with shrines and a mural of the yeti, and into the mountain itself. I won't give too much away, but the ride is full of twists and turns, backwards and forwards, and the reveal of the yeti is chilling.

Aside from the rides, there isn't much else that needs explaining. The decorations throughout the park are magnificently detailed, and every setting seems very genuine to the culture it was inspired by. Live performances by musicians from Africa, Asia, and South America are also something you won't get at Disneyland. There is also an awesome Lion King stage show, and a Finding Nemo one I didn't get to see. The animal enclosures are like any other zoo, but the Kilimanjaro Safari is quite a unique attraction that takes you up close to all kinds of African animals from giraffes, to lions, to zebras.

While it's not as large and extravagant as Busch Gardens in Tampa, Disney's Animal Kingdom is as diverse and enjoyable as an amusement park can get, and as a Disneyland annual pass-holder, it's my personal favorite Disney World park to visit.