Animals are only seen in jungles or in zoo, this was my perception until I visited Disney Animal Kingdom. We can’t go in jungle to see how animals live because it is strictly animal territory where we cant feel secure and safe. In zoo, animals are restricted in cages away from their natural habitat, so obviously they are afraid to as they are in human territory and you would never know their natural style of living.
Animal Kingdom Park in designed for this purpose. Animals don’t feel that they are restricted or held in cages and we can see their habitat from a reasonable distance too. Disney opened the park for public on April 2nd, 1998 and has the status of being the 4th park on the resort. It is also the largest park in Disney, covering more than 500 acres of land. Animal Kingdom because of its unique features, has the honor of being the 4th most visited park in the United States and 7th in the world.
Park has 7 separate but interconnected territories and construction of 8th one is underway which is believed to be finished by 2013 and will be named as “Beastly Kingdom”, theme being based on the famous American movie “The Avatar”.
We decided to leave early that morning, as we were told this park is the most exhausting park in Disney. After refreshing breakfast we left for park in the Disney bus, in which driver kept telling about the history and parts.
By 10 am, we entered the 1st part of the park, which is called Oasis. Oasis has many animals like giant anteaters, ducks, mantas, spoonbills, and wallabies. Some stalls and shops that were selling drinks and ice creams. From there we entered Discovery Island, which was once called Safari Village. This part features animals like kangaroos, black crowned cranes, lemurs and many others. This part connects to all other parts of the park and ahs iconic “The Tree of Life”, an artificially grown tree, which is 145-foot-tall, 50-foot-wide.
We took a Disney Safari trip of Africa too in a jeep. This was the most scary and exciting part of entire trip as we were in a jeep with 6 folks and jeep was jumping on all rough and tough trails of Safari jungle. During our trip we saw giraffe, buffalos, gorillas, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, lions and tigers, giant elephants. The most amazing part of tour was to see all animals in their natural habitat and out of cages, which definitely was scary too. Atleast I never saw a lion from a distance of just a few meters ever in my life. It was a great adventure too as obviously we have to use our own vision to literally search animals from the running jeep in bushes and trees to capture photos.
After that we went to Asia, which represents major countries of Asia and their cultures like from India, they had a temple guarded by monkeys, from China many souvenir shops selling Chinese garments and accessories and mosque set up representing the religious beliefs of Muslims in Pakistan and Bangladesh. There was a scary ride too, which was set up on a model of Mount Everest.
Last but not the least was Dinoland where we had our lunch. The place was full of huge statues and models of Dinosaurs and we ended our day with a scary 3D ride, which was a hustling bustling coaster but the 3D animation in the tunnel made it a horrific event.
Overall the best part of Disney I believe.