Disney's Animal Kingdom - part 3

For my final post concerning Disney's Animal Kingdom I'm providing an assortment of photos taken from around the park, mostly of the animal themed architecture and details. Click on any image to see it larger. Check back this weekend for a post that includes much of the yeti related aspects of Disney's Animal Kingdom.

The thing that surprised me the most about Animal Kingdom was the sheer enormity of the Tree of Life. Pictures absolutely do not do it justice as they simply cannot convey the scale of this centerpiece and symbol of the Animal Kingdom park. It's really impressive, and just stepping a few feet in one direction or another will reveal new details and new animals carved into the surface of the tree as if they were grown that way. I was amazed.

My favorite thing seen at Animal Kingdom was this seen close to sunset:

Crossing from Discovery island into the Oasis area on your way out to the park we came across this scene. The trees were filled with hundreds of ibises roosting for the night. These are not part of the park's captive fauna. these are essentailly wild birds who choose to reside here and can come and go as they please. As anyone who has been to Walt Disney World can tell you the ibises serve as the pigeon of the parks. They are everywhere, particularly around outdoor dining areas where they scavenge for dropped french fries and other morsels.  Even though they have been reduced to something of a nuisance, they are still a pretty exotic and welcome presence for me since living in New England I never see them. seeing so many of them gathered in one place was pretty spectacular.

I was also pretty excited when I spotted a wild armadillo from one of the buses.


   

Disney's Animal Kingdom - part 2

Like, Africa, Asia is represented by a fictitious town, "Anandapur" Sanskrit for "place of all delight" a mix of Nepal, Indonesia, India, Tibet  and Thailand set at the base of the Himalayas. I was really impressed with Anandapur and it quickly became one of my favorite places in the various Disney parks. You could tell that the Imagineers really had a great time putting it together as well. The attention to detail was quite incredible here.

The only part of Asia that I thought could use some work was at the Kali River Rapids. The ride itself is quite a bit of fun with a bit of a safe Russian Roulette aspect to it.  The raft that carries you through the rapids turns as it goes, so that no matter where you choose to sit in the raft there's a chance that as the raft turns, you'll be the one ending up getting most soaked at the drops. this was one of my son's favorite rides in all the parks. What I found lacking was the environment surrounding the river. There was quite a bit of beautiful theming arranged for the queue, but except for a bit of unnecessary forced "story" involving deforestation, there wasn't really anything to see beyond surrounding foliage. Some ruins, and even animatronic animals would have been welcome, and far more interesting than "burning" logs and a truck about to fall into the river.

Much of the theming around Animal Kingdom's Mt. Everest included Yeti motifs which will be featured in a separate post this coming weekend. Details of the signs seen throughout Asia can be viewed in this prior post and one of the trash cans can be found here.

Here are some photos taken throughout Asia at Disney's Animal Kingdom. Click on any image to make it larger.