Disney's Animal Kingdom

After a morning at MGM Hollywood Studios, we headed over the Disney's newer park, Animal Kingdom. After hanging out recently at the zoo & going on an *real* African safari in a few months, I was excited to see what they had in store for us.

The park has several areas, including an African village and Asia market, that have all the sights, sounds, food and shops of the real thing. Again, I was very impressed with their level of detail to the buildings and attractions.

The centerpiece of the park is this giant Tree of Life, which houses the adorable It's Tough to be a Bug's 3D Show.



The entire base of the tree is carved with intricate details of all sorts of animals. You can see it from just about everywhere in the park & walking into the tree, the details are amazing up close.

Surrounding the tree is a great big river that flows throughout the park that adds a nice sense of tranquility and makes the whole park feel like you've been transported a million miles away.



Our first destination in the park was to grab a Fastpass for the Kilimanjaro Safari. We climbed aboard these over-sized trucks and were off to explore some animals *in the wild*.



They had some GIANT black and white rhinos. It's really hard to appreciate how big they are until you get close to them. We should be able to see some of these guys on our African safari.



Disney did a great job of making very life-like and natural enclosures for the various animals. It was so much better to see them in something that resembled their regular setting than a small cage or yard.



There was a big pool with several dozen very mean looking alligators.



As a tree-lover, I really was captivated by these neat trees & impressed that Disney was able to re-create so much of the African landscape in the middle of Florida.



The ride was neat & fairly long for a Disney experience as we went across bridges and through watering holes for the elephants into the various habitats for many different animals.



The lion put on a pretty good show as we drove by....



It was fun to see a whole herd of giraffes wading through the tall grasses and munching on an afternoon snack.



These ostrich were just chilling out and we drove within about 4' of them.



The big roller coaster at Animal Kingdom is the Expedition Everest. I preferred being outside much better than the indoor, dark rides. I also did the DINOSAUR mini-ride back into time with lots of scary prehistoric creatures. It was very fun & I thought it had a neat theme.



One of the best shows we saw on our entire trip was the live-action Festival of the Lion King at camp Minnie-Mickey, which is similar to the Broadway productions I've seen of the LK.



The costumes, songs, singing, acrobats, dancing and music were all very entertaining and fabulous to watch.

I really enjoyed the Animal Kingdom park & we saw almost everything, including a few more walking tours of animals.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Went to the park with Zoe yesterday & got some great new shots of her in the wildflowers.