Disney's Animal Kingdom Theme Park is a zoological theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort in Bay Lake, Florida, near Orlando. Owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company through its Experiences division, it is the largest theme park in the world, covering 580 acres (230 ha).
The park opened on Earth Day, April 22, 1998, and was the fourth theme park built at the resort. The park is dedicated and themed around natural environment and animal conservation, a philosophy once pioneered by Walt Disney.
Disney's Animal Kingdom distinguishes itself from other Walt Disney World theme parks by featuring hundreds of live animal exhibits alongside traditional theme park elements. Special designs and provisions were incorporated throughout the park to protect the animals' welfare. The park is located on the western edge of the resort and is isolated from the other theme parks and properties to minimize external disruptions to the animals; as a result, the park does not feature nighttime fireworks shows that would otherwise disturb the animals. In efforts to be more eco-friendly, the park uses biodegradable paper straws and prohibits plastic straws, lids, and balloons. Disney's Animal Kingdom is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums and the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums, indicating they have met or exceeded the standards in education, conservation, and research.
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The park opened on Earth Day, April 22, 1998, and was the fourth theme park built at the resort. The park is dedicated and themed around natural environment and animal conservation, a philosophy once pioneered by Walt Disney.
Disney's Animal Kingdom distinguishes itself from other Walt Disney World theme parks by featuring hundreds of live animal exhibits alongside traditional theme park elements. Special designs and provisions were incorporated throughout the park to protect the animals' welfare. The park is located on the western edge of the resort and is isolated from the other theme parks and properties to minimize external disruptions to the animals; as a result, the park does not feature nighttime fireworks shows that would otherwise disturb the animals. In efforts to be more eco-friendly, the park uses biodegradable paper straws and prohibits plastic straws, lids, and balloons. Disney's Animal Kingdom is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums and the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums, indicating they have met or exceeded the standards in education, conservation, and research.
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TravelTranscript
00:00For this video, I'm headed down to Orlando, Florida to take you on a full guided walking
00:05tour of Disney's Animal Kingdom.
01:00Welcome back.
01:06If you had watched any of my previous walking tours, you'll notice that any of these attractions
01:11I either have a love or hate relationship.
01:13As a result of that, I either spend the entire time raving about the park like Magic Kingdom,
01:19or I spend the entire video kind of bashing it like Adventure Island.
01:24Unfortunately for Animal Kingdom, I do kind of think that this is not only the worst Disney
01:29park in Florida, but now that the Studios Park in France is getting upgrades, this is
01:35probably the worst Disney park overall in the world.
01:38Now keep in mind, it's just my opinion, and obviously that's subjective, and I'm sure
01:44there are some fans of Animal Kingdom out there that'll probably get angry at me for
01:48saying that, but I have pretty much been to every Disney park throughout the world, and
01:54this is the least impressive one, at least in my experience.
01:59I did attempt to present Animal Kingdom in the best possible light.
02:03That's why I visited the park during the Christmas season with all the Christmas decorations.
02:08I think that the park definitely looks best during this time of year.
02:12Now this first section of the park that I'm walking through right now is known as the
02:15Oasis.
02:16It's just a bunch of animal enclosures.
02:19Now if you look at the map, even Disney's too lazy to tell you what animals are here,
02:23and I wasn't paying close enough attention to which animals are actually in these enclosures.
02:28It was mostly just birds from what I saw, but who knows?
02:33Disney won't even tell me, so there's a bunch of furry things running around inside.
02:38And the other thing that's in Oasis is the Rainforest Café, as well as a gift shop,
02:44and that's pretty much everything for this land.
02:45So already kind of a disappointing opening to the park.
02:49Since this is a giant dead space in the park, I guess this isn't a good opportunity to tell
02:52you why I don't like the park.
02:55One of the reasons is these giant dead spaces in the park where there's, you know, just
02:58a couple animal enclosures and you just have to walk and walk and walk and walk until you
03:03get to something that's interesting.
03:05The idiosyncrasies of this park are just so off the wall for me.
03:09It is Disney's largest park by land size.
03:12It's over 500 acres, yet if you look at the attractions, there's almost no rides, and
03:18to build a Disney theme park with very few rides, it just, it kind of defeats the purpose
03:23in my opinion.
03:25Don't get me wrong, this park does have beautiful landscaping, and it does have that really
03:30immersive experience, but not in a pleasant way.
03:35These tree canopies look beautiful, but in the summertime they trap the humidity towards
03:40the walkways, so the ambient temperature at Animal Kingdom is something like 5 or 6 degrees
03:47above the other three Disney parks in Florida.
03:50So when it gets hot, it's a lot hotter here than the other three parks.
03:55So the section of the park that I'm walking through right now is known as Discovery Island.
03:59That's the section of the park that you'll find a lot of gift shops like the Island Mercantile,
04:05and there's a couple restaurants here.
04:07The main attraction here in Discovery Island is the Tree of Life.
04:11That's that giant fake tree that's in front of me right now.
04:15Inside that giant tree is an interactive movie called It's Tough to be a Bug.
04:20Now that particular movie is kind of clever, although I think it is showing its age now
04:25because nobody even knows that movie anymore.
04:29And that's just another great example of Disney's mismanagement of the parks.
04:34Almost every attraction now they use some sort of intellectual property from one of
04:38their movies, but a lot of their movies lately have been flops.
04:42So literally they're taking movies that audiences didn't really care for to begin with and turning
04:48them into rides, and it's so ridiculous.
04:52The best Disney rides are the ones that aren't based on movies, whether you're talking about
04:56Horizons or World of Motion or, you know, the dark ride Pirates of the Caribbean wasn't
05:01based on a movie.
05:03They made movies based on the ride after the fact.
05:07When Disney actually dreams up ideas clean sheet, that's when their parks are at their finest.
05:14So as you can see I made a hard left and I'm now walking towards Pandora.
05:18Pandora was one of the newest additions to the park, but that's not saying a lot because
05:24Pandora opened almost a decade ago, way back in 2017, and Disney just doesn't invest in
05:30this park because the attendance is bad, but the attendance is bad because they don't invest
05:35in this park, so it's a vicious cycle.
05:38Now Animal Kingdom is the first Disney park that I didn't come during opening week, at
05:43least for the parks that I was alive for.
05:45I wasn't around for the opening of Magic Kingdom in 1971, but I did come the opening week of
05:52Epcot in 1982, as well as the opening week of Disney-MGM Studios in 1989, but I skipped
05:59this one.
06:00In that time frame I actually went and opened Islands of Adventure instead.
06:04I'll be honest with you, I can't imagine what this park would have been like for opening
06:08year because I'm bored with it now, and that's after the additions of Pandora as well as
06:13Expedition Everest.
06:15I can't imagine this park without those two attractions, I mean, it's just, yeah, I don't
06:20know how this park is still open, and honestly I think this particular park would have probably
06:26gone out of business if the Disney name wasn't attached to it by now.
06:30This park probably loses money for Disney.
06:33I've come here in the off-season, and sometimes I'll show up an hour or two after opening,
06:40and there's only like six or seven cars in the parking lot.
06:42I'll be the only person riding on the parking lot tram, and it's just crazy to me that this
06:49is such a mismanaged park and I guess ill-conceived in a way, just because it's so overly large
06:56and you're just walking and walking and walking before you get to an actual E-ticket ride,
07:01and the lack of E-ticket rides are really what destroyed this park for me.
07:05I mean, it's just, you know, I'll ride Expedition Everest, and I'll ride Flight of Passage,
07:11and maybe Dinosaur, and I'm just kind of done for the day.
07:14I'll tell you one thing, if you're trying to get your cardio in, then this is the place
07:17to come to, because look at the timer, I'm already six minutes of walking and I have
07:23yet to get to a dark ride, which is pretty much ridiculous in a Disney park, but, you
07:29know, that's the way they laid this place out.
07:32Thankfully, I am in Pandora, which is the home of two pretty decent dark rides.
07:38On my right-hand side, I just passed the Satuli Canteen, which is probably one of the most
07:44unique restaurants here in Animal Kingdom.
07:48All their meals are obviously themed to the movie Avatar, and they do have some pretty
07:53tasty stuff, like the shrimp bowl, or the grilled beef and chicken.
07:59I skip any of the wild stuff, like, I just don't, I'm not going to eat blue noodles,
08:04that's just my, I think it's unnatural, so I'm not going to go there.
08:08So right now, I'm at the entrance to the Avatar Flight of Passage ride.
08:12This is a great little simulator ride, the ride technology is similar to the Soarin'
08:19ride over at Epcot, so I am a fan of this one.
08:23It's definitely a very immersive ride, and some people will get motion sickness on it,
08:28so just be advised if you have trouble with, I guess, projection rides, or you have issues
08:34with your neck and back, you might not want to ride this one, because it does bounce around
08:38quite a bit.
08:39The other dark ride that they have here in Pandora is the Navi River Journey, and I do
08:44have kind of a pet peeve with this particular ride.
08:48It has no storyline, you know, it's just scenery, and it's such a weird thing to take an intellectual
08:57property based on a movie, and then do a ride that actually has a zero story whatsoever.
09:03I don't know why you would do that.
09:04You basically just get in a boat, and you ride around for five minutes, and it's in
09:10complete silence.
09:11I mean, there's not even narration, and it just, it doesn't make any sense.
09:15The ride never made sense, and it's just a great example of Animal Kingdom, you know.
09:22So many of the attractions here are just, you know, just random head scratchers, and
09:27the River Journey is just like that.
09:29You have this really amazing animatronic at the end of the ride, and the rest is just
09:36kind of static.
09:37I mean, they don't even have really any moving animatronics besides the one at the end, so
09:43the shaman, I guess it is.
09:45But it is, it's probably the most gimmicky dark ride that Disney's ever built.
09:50I mean, James Cameron apparently discovered bioluminescent paint and decided to just do
09:55a whole ride randomly about bioluminescent paint, so if you want to see bioluminescent
10:02paint and dark lights for five minutes, that's basically all it is.
10:07In hindsight, I think Disney really missed an opportunity to be sponsored by Sherman
10:11Williams or DuPont paints, because, maybe even Rust-Oleum, because the whole ride is
10:17basically showing off different paint underneath black lights and little else.
10:23So now that I'm done with Pandora, I'm heading back towards Discovery Island, and, you know,
10:27this is Animal Kingdom, you know, I think the theme for this particular park was large
10:32concrete pathways through trees, because that's 95% of this park.
10:38So I'll only have to walk another 45 miles or so to get to the next dark ride here at
10:41Animal Kingdom, and for my Canadian viewers, that's about 1,000 kilometers, and, you know,
10:46I know you guys love kilometers up there, and, you know, 1,000 kilometers, that's pretty
10:50close.
10:51I suppose this would be a good time to talk about food again.
10:54If you were looking for a reasonably priced restaurant, at least by Disney pricing, there's
10:59a quick service restaurant coming up on my left-hand side known as Pete's Safari, and
11:07that's usually where I go when I'm hungry and want to try to carb up for the constant
11:14walking here at Animal Kingdom.
11:15I will basically grab a pizza at Pete's Safari, and, you know, you can go in there and get
11:22like a personal pan pizza and a soda in there, and it'll run you about 20 bucks, which by
11:30theme park pricing standards isn't, I guess, the best deal around, but because it's pizza,
11:37you know, it is a lot of food, and it is pretty filling, so that's usually where I go when
11:43I'm here at Animal Kingdom.
11:45I do eat on occasion at the canteen in Pandora, but I'd say probably about 75% of the time
11:51I go to Pete's Safari because I'm a quick service restaurant kind of guy when it comes
11:55to Disney parks, and Pete's Safari is also air-conditioned, and a lot of the restaurants
12:02here in Animal Kingdom are outdoor markets, like when you get back to Africa, it's mostly
12:07all outdoor stuff, so I like to beat the heat, especially in the summertime, and Pete's
12:13Safari is kind of the place to go when you just want some cool air-conditioning, and
12:18the prices are reasonable, so it's a win-win for me.
12:24This is probably a good opportunity to segue into the animals of Animal Kingdom.
12:30There are quite a few really good animal closures here.
12:35The Kilimanjaro Safari ride is about a 30-minute ride around their savannah in the back of
12:43the park, and you'll be able to see all kinds of different animals, like zebras and gazelles
12:49and crocodiles and hippopotamuses and giraffes and that type of stuff, so that's definitely
12:54one of the better rides here at the park, however, be aware that the animals are more
13:00active around dawn and dusk, and are kind of hiding for a lot of the day, so the quality
13:08of the experience will vary depending on the time of day, because like I said, the animals
13:12are more active at certain times of day than others, and a lot of times you'll just drive
13:16around and be looking at just hills of dirt, and not much else, because if you catch the
13:23animals while they're sleeping, it's not much of an experience.
13:27I guess it's time for me to bash the park again.
13:30The best animal enclosures at this park are all hidden in the back of the park, like if
13:36you're talking about the Kilimanjaro Safari or the Gorilla Falls, Planet Watch, areas,
13:43they're all buried in the back.
13:45Now I actually pulled out Google Earth, so I could measure some of the distances, and
13:52the distance between the parking lot and the entrance to the Maharashtra Jungle Trek,
14:01I measured that at about two and a quarter miles, maybe two and a half miles.
14:06You know, it's ironic that you have to actually walk a jungle trek just to get to the jungle
14:11trek.
14:12Yeah, I don't know why they laid this park out the way they did, it's so spread out,
14:18and there's so little content in this layout, it's just not a very good theme park.
14:23I do use my smartphone to track the distances of how far I walk in a theme park, and you
14:28know, I routinely walk about 12 to 15 miles per day, you know, covering one of these parks.
14:34It doesn't really bother me at the other parks, because there's plenty of attractions, like
14:39Magic Kingdom, you know, there's three days worth of rides to cover, you can't actually
14:43experience them all in a single day.
14:46I feel like there's plenty of stuff to do in Epcot too.
14:49Hollywood Studios, I don't think they have enough rides, but it's not that obvious.
14:54This park, it's way too obvious.
14:55It's just, I don't think they have enough e-ticket rides, I think they rely way too
15:00much on the zoo aspect, and that's why nobody comes to this park.
15:04So right now I'm at the entrance of Kilimanjaro Safaris.
15:07Now this is one of the primary attractions to this park, and I'm here in the busy season,
15:13during the Christmas season, you'll notice that the standby wait line had a five minute
15:17wait, and that's, I guess that's one of the positive aspects of this park.
15:23This park is so unpopular that even the major attractions are usually walk-on.
15:28The only rides that usually ever have a wait are Avatars, like Flight of Passage, and occasionally
15:35Navi River Ride, and Expedition Everest.
15:39Everything else is usually a walk-on attraction here.
15:41I guess to backtrack a little too, I should probably mention that right now I'm walking
15:45through the Africa section of the park, and I transitioned into this area when I walked
15:51over the bridge probably about two minutes ago.
15:54I generally skip the restaurants too at this section of the park.
15:57The problem with most of the meals that they prepare here is, you know, they're trying
16:01to be consistent with the theme, and they prepare a lot of the meals with beans, and
16:07I know that's a very popular thing that they prepare over on that continent, but I don't
16:14want to get sick when I'm at a theme park, and I know that beans in my digestive system
16:20don't get along, and I don't want to spend like half the day in the restroom.
16:25My advice is if you also have a problem eating beans, then you probably want to keep walking
16:32towards Asia to get a meal, because I think the foods over in Asia are a lot more palatable
16:41to most people.
16:43The foods here do seem to cause a lot of upset stomachs, at least in my experience.
16:47So I just walked back and forth to the train station at Planet Watch.
16:51That's a little train ride that'll take you to the conservation station, and it's an opportunity
16:56to see a couple animal exhibits, as well as seeing how they tend for the animals.
17:02It's basically like an animal hospital, where they basically give the animals physical checkups
17:09and stuff.
17:11Also in this section of the park is Gorilla Falls, which I think is one of the highlights
17:14of this park.
17:15If you're here for the animal enclosures, I personally think Gorilla Falls is my favorite
17:23one in the entire park.
17:24So it's definitely worth a visit if you're here.
17:28And right now I'm kind of walking in on the Harambee Market.
17:31This is that open-air kind of food court that I was talking about, and this is about as
17:36close as I get to eating a meal here, because like I said, the meals here are just not my
17:42cup of tea.
17:43I can't eat all the bean-centric types of foods, and I just keep walking, and I mean,
17:51if you want to, I guess, try something new, it's not a bad option, but I personally wouldn't
18:00spend $120 for the day to go to the park just to get sick.
18:04When I experiment with new meals and new types of food, I generally don't do it at a theme
18:09park, because I've had a lot of experiences with family members getting sick over the
18:13years because I practically live in these parks.
18:17So right now I'm going to be walking up to one of those status boards that'll show the
18:22wait times for the different rides, and you're going to notice that it's a pretty slow day.
18:27Dinosaur only has a 5-minute wait, Triceratops Spin only has a 5-minute wait, It's Tough
18:33to Be a Bug is a walk-on with 10 minutes as well.
18:36The only rides that are showing any type of wait are Avatar Flight of Passage and the
18:41Navi River Ride, and both of those are only showing a 55-minute wait, which are pretty
18:46reasonable for those rides.
18:48A lot of times you'll come here and the wait time for those particular attractions will
18:53be anywhere from 90 minutes to 120 minutes.
18:55I guess this is another opportunity to bash Animal Kingdom a little more.
18:59The last time I came here, which was a couple years ago, they actually used to have two
19:03roller coasters.
19:04They had Expedition Everest, which is one of the coasters I'm about to walk up to as
19:08I enter Asia, and the second roller coaster was Primeval World located in Dinoland, USA.
19:15Another common trait of Animal Kingdom is the disappearance of rides, and they've lost
19:21quite a few of them over the years.
19:22Primeval World was one of the ones they tore down, and now it's just an empty slab over
19:26there in Dinoland.
19:29This is a Disney theme park with approximately one roller coaster, and in my opinion, that's
19:34the most pathetic thing in the world.
19:36If you gave me the choice between going to Animal Kingdom or probably the closest rival
19:43park in Florida, which is Busch Gardens, I'll go to Busch Gardens ten times over Animal
19:48Kingdom once.
19:49I guess that shouldn't come as too much of a shock.
19:51I mean, one of my nicknames is The Coaster Schmuck, and Busch Gardens is arguably the
19:55best theme park in Florida when it comes to roller coasters.
19:58I mean, they've got, I think, 10 or 12, something ridiculous, and, you know, they've got things
20:04like Iron Gwazi and Ashikra, and even older rides like Montu and Kumba are amazing.
20:10So Busch Gardens gets most of my money, and Animal Kingdom gets very little of it.
20:15Another interesting aspect of this particular park is it does follow the typical hub-and-spokes
20:20design of, you know, most theme parks.
20:24What's interesting about it is they decided to do islands and man-made canals to create
20:29the illusion.
20:32Now within all these man-made rivers and canals, there used to be a scenic boat ride called
20:37the Discovery River Boats, but it was just another poorly-received attraction here at
20:42Animal Kingdom, and they closed it down really quick, even after they retooled it, like,
20:48a couple times.
20:49Like, I believe at the last iteration, it was called the Radio Disney River Cruise,
20:53which, oh my god, that must have been awful.
20:56I never came to the park when it was open, so I don't know, but the descriptions of how
21:01boring it was, honestly, a boring boat tour is completely consistent with the rest of
21:06Animal Kingdom, so I don't see what the problem is.
21:09So on my left-hand side, I just recently passed the show building for the Great Bird Adventure
21:14Show.
21:15I'm, I guess, a sucker for animal shows at parks, and, you know, if you want to see birds
21:20do cool tricks and, you know, swoop over your head and fly really low and, you know, all
21:25kinds of cool things, then it's one of the better attractions here at Animal Kingdom.
21:30This is probably a good time to mention that I have transitioned officially over now to
21:34the Asia section of the park, and I'm curving around to the left to walk towards the entrance
21:40of the Cali River Rapids Ride.
21:42It's a standard family spinning rapids ride.
21:45It is a lot of fun, and you will get pretty wet.
21:48Because Animal Kingdom is the hottest of the Disney parks in the summertime, this is such
21:53a godsend on those days where, you know, a lot of times with the humidity, the real
21:59fuel temperature in the park will be in excess of 100 degrees.
22:04I will point out that Disney has kind of decontented the ride.
22:09When the ride first opened, it was about poachers killing an animal, and they, I think they
22:15showed a dismembered elephant at the end of the ride.
22:18I can't remember exactly the ending, but I remember it being pretty intense, and because
22:24Disney kind of goes back and sanitizes their original attractions a lot of the time, they
22:31took a lot of the unique aspects out of the ride, and now it's just like a standard spinning
22:36ride like you'd get at Busch Gardens.
22:39As you could see by the video, the standby line for Cali River Rapids was five minutes,
22:44another walk-on ride.
22:46But that is par for the course for this park.
22:48I guess I'm not the only one who doesn't like it.
22:50So right now I'm walking up towards the Maharaja Jungle Trek.
22:54This is the other great animal enclosure in the park.
22:57Obviously this one's focused on tigers.
23:00Now Busch Gardens and Animal Kingdom both have tiger exhibits.
23:04Which one is better probably comes down to your preferences.
23:07I think Busch Gardens lets you get closer just because of how they configured the glass
23:12walls and you can really get up close and see the tigers really well at their enclosure.
23:17I think Animal Kingdom has the superior theming.
23:20They've got like these kind of almost rope bridges that kind of walk through the enclosures,
23:25and it just seems like they spent a little more money on constructing the actual exhibit.
23:31So I think when it comes to the cosmetic aspects, the Disney version is better.
23:38I will say this, the animal enclosures in Asia are pretty good.
23:42Like you're going to see gibbons and apparently red pandas and all kinds of wild stuff over
23:50here in this section of the park.
23:51So if you're here for the zoo aspects, then Asia's probably, Asia and Africa are obviously
23:58the best section of the park for those type of things.
24:00None of the, I guess you would call the interesting animals are in the front of the park.
24:05All the really cool stuff is in the back.
24:08Here's a pretty good look at what you're getting into if you decide to ride Cali River Rapids.
24:13It's a great ride and I think it's one of the most underrated ones here at Animal Kingdom.
24:17I wish they had more water rides.
24:19I mean, this park does seem very well suited for some sort of log flume, you know, kind
24:27of like Splash Mountain.
24:29One of the things that drives me crazy about current Disney management is they keep re-theming
24:34existing rides instead of building new ones.
24:37And I realize it's a maintenance and upkeep thing, but two out of the four Disney parks
24:43are starved of good e-ticket rides.
24:46Although Hollywood Studios has definitely improved now that, you know, Star Wars Rise
24:50of the Resistance has opened and Slinky Dog Dash opened as well.
24:54But Hollywood Studios doesn't have enough rides either because, you know, if you go
24:57on a busy day, some of those rides are like two and a half hour, three hour waits.
25:01So that tells me they still don't have enough capacity for all the guests inside the park.
25:07Now I'm talking about that because Disney has announced that they're going to be replacing
25:12the Dinosaur ride here at the park with Indiana Jones.
25:16That's just a sidegrade.
25:17I don't even consider that an upgrade.
25:20For those not familiar with the Disney parks, Indiana Jones is a dark ride out in California
25:24and Dinosaur is basically the clone of the ride located here in Florida, at least in
25:31regards to the ride layout.
25:33I mean, obviously the theming is different, but it sounds like Disney's just going to
25:37straight clone the California version of the ride.
25:40So for people who've already visited the California version of the parks, it's not really going
25:45to be a draw for Animal Kingdom because we've already experienced it.
25:49So I do have my fingers crossed that it's at least a new storyline for an Indiana Jones
25:53ride, but I have pretty low expectations simply because most new Disney rides have been disappointments.
26:00One of the things I will give Animal Kingdom credit for is they do have really good sightlines.
26:05So if you really want to get an iconic still photo or selfie with you and Expedition Everest
26:12in the background, this area coming up is certainly the best spot in the park.
26:18It's just perfectly spaced away from Expedition Everest with nothing in the way to ruin the
26:25view and it really is the perfect vantage point for whatever photo you want to take.
26:31But you can definitely tell that they planned this whole thing out and anytime you see those
26:36scenic telescope things set up for any kind of overlook, that's definitely one of the
26:42best vantage points in the whole park.
26:44So it's only about another 35 miles before I get to the next Disney dark ride.
26:49I'm once again walking through another one of those notorious dead spots in the park.
26:53I believe they're putting in a retail shop coming up on the left hand side, but it's
27:00really the only thing over here.
27:01It's just so random how you just walk and walk and it's just endless nothing.
27:08I feel like I'm walking around a dead mall with empty storefronts.
27:12That's how Animal Kingdom comes off most of the time.
27:15This river area over to my right hand side is a pretty good vantage point for the various
27:21parades and night shows that they do here.
27:24Actually I should probably rephrase that.
27:26I should say it used to be a good vantage point because this used to be one of the areas
27:31where you could see the Rivers of Light night show, but once again it's another attraction
27:36here at Animal Kingdom that they discontinued.
27:40There is a nighttime show that is called the Tree of Life Awakenings and it takes place
27:46at the Tree of Life towards the middle of the park.
27:50In my opinion it's quite the downgrade compared to Rivers of Light and it seems like they
27:54just decided to put a light show on the Tree of Life as a cost cutting move.
27:58So on my left hand side is the entrance to the best ride in the park which is Expedition
28:02Everest.
28:03Now people will talk kind of trash about Expedition Everest because when the ride first opened
28:10the giant animatronic of the Yeti used to move around and pretend to shake the train
28:14car you were riding in.
28:16Unfortunately because of the weight of the Yeti it was actually causing structural damage
28:20to the ride attraction.
28:22So the Yeti no longer moves in the ride they just have like a strobe light blinking next
28:26to the Yeti and most Disney fans will make fun of it and call it Disco Yeti.
28:34Despite that shortcoming it's still an amazing roller coaster and I do come to this park
28:39almost exclusively for Expedition Everest.
28:41Now I rarely start at Animal Kingdom on any of the days because the thing about park hopping
28:47at Disney parks is you have to wait until 2 o'clock before you can switch to a different
28:51park and it's kind of hard to find things to do at Animal Kingdom at least for me if
28:58I start at the park at open and have to wait until 2 o'clock.
29:01I usually run out of things to do here by noon and I'm just kind of twiddling my thumbs
29:06because you know you run out of rides so quick here.
29:10So for me I'll usually start the day at Epcot or Magic Kingdom, park hop here around 2 o'clock
29:15and then usually park hop to Hollywood Studios at night because I mean let's face it Tower
29:21Terror is the most fun for a night ride.
29:24Either that or I'll go to hit Tomorrowland at night because you know the Tomorrowland
29:29Transit Authority looks amazing at night.
29:31Obviously the world famous fireworks show at Cinderella's Castle was amazing at Magic
29:35Kingdom too.
29:36You know finishing the night at either Magic Kingdom or Hollywood Studios is just downright
29:41epic.
29:42Obviously the section of the park right now that I'm walking around is another great photo
29:47opportunity for you know selfies or family photos.
29:51This one can be a little challenging.
29:53You know when you're taking a picture of the Expedition Everest mountain in the background
29:57that one's easy to catch because it doesn't move but if you're trying to get your family
30:03photo with the train dropping down that pretty major drop you have to get their time just
30:10right or you'll miss the train and it's not the easiest thing to pull off.
30:16You know if you have like somebody with a like an old school mirrorless camera and you
30:22know they've got burst shooting then that's probably the best way to capture that moment.
30:26I don't know if any cell phones can support burst shooting but if they do that would definitely
30:30be the way to pull it off.
30:32I'm from the Android world and I don't think there's any Android phones that can do it.
30:37The iPhone which is a little more photo centric yeah it might have a mode that can do it.
30:41Coming up on my left hand side is a live stage show.
30:45It's called Little Nemo and the Big Blue and Beyond.
30:49It's kind of like a Broadway musical with puppet work and let's face it I'm clearly
30:55not the demographic that it was made for.
30:58I had an ex-girlfriend who kind of dragged me into that show telling me how amazing it
31:01was and it was 25 minutes of my life that I'll never get back.
31:06It's definitely not for me and I think for most men it's it's pretty cringe.
31:10They're definitely aiming for a younger demographic and probably the female persuasion.
31:16So right now I'm walking through the amphitheater section of the park.
31:20This is a pretty impressive amphitheater.
31:22I believe it has 5,000 seats and I don't think it's been used since they discontinued
31:28Rivers of Light in the summer of 2020.
31:31So it's basically been sitting empty for the last four years.
31:37Nothing more than like I guess a park bench in the park at this point.
31:40I was actually surprised that they let you walk down here because I thought for sure
31:44they would have blocked it off with a wall by now but it's still open you can still walk
31:49down there but it's kind of a pointless section of the park.
31:53So another weird aspect of this Finding Nemo show I just noticed on the website is according
31:58to the Walt Disney website this is located in Dinoland USA and the theming here doesn't
32:04look anything like Dinoland.
32:05You know you're about to see Dinoland in another couple minutes I'm going to walk through it
32:10and for those people who have never been to this park Dinoland USA is set up to look like
32:16like a roadside carnival.
32:19It looks nothing like this portion of the park.
32:22It's just it's just another weird oversight and mismatched theming that this park I guess
32:28suffers from and I don't think this was originally part of Dinoland and they just kind of lumped
32:34it in later on.
32:35I have a feeling this this used to be Asia and they just kind of shifted things I guess
32:40to make it easier to find.
32:42I don't I don't know what the story is and why they consider this Dinoland.
32:47So you can see how the theming is already starting to shift and change as the walkway
32:53has suddenly become like tar asphalt and this is like the real section of Dinoland.
32:59This is what Dinoland was themed to.
33:03It's an intentionally schlocky section of the park and it really does scream cheap to
33:08me.
33:09I think that when they were building this park they realized it just lacked attractions
33:14and they're even with Dinoland it still doesn't have enough rides and they just kind of slapped
33:19us together at the last minute.
33:21Disney did this land on the cheap and this is where the second roller coaster used to
33:25be located but now it's just a giant piece of asphalt and nothing else and you know there's
33:31some walls up where the coaster used to be and this this section of the park has always
33:36been a mess.
33:37It was poorly received when it opened and it's just gotten worse with time.
33:40So yeah this park is just such a mess.
33:45This happens to be the section of the park that they're planning to demolish and completely
33:49redo.
33:50The new land of the park is going to be themed after the film Coco.
33:54All I can say is anything's got to be an improvement over this.
33:56This is so beneath Disney.
33:58This would be sad at a Six Flags park.
34:01The fact that Disney kind of threw this together at the last minute to try to give Animal Kingdom
34:06some more attractions just you know it flopped miserably and it's about to go away and I
34:11don't think anyone will miss it.
34:13Now on my right hand side is the only surviving ride here at Dinoland which is Tricer Top
34:18Spin.
34:19What a great ride.
34:20I mean we only have five of these at the Disney parks so if you haven't gotten enough on the
34:26Astro Orbiter or the two Dumbo rides or Aladdin's Magic Carpet here's your chance to get the
34:32exact same ride experience as the other four rides.
34:36This time riding in dinosaurs instead of flying elephants, magic carpets, or jets.
34:42Needless to say when they redevelop this land I hope they kill this ride with fire.
34:46These are pathetic schlocky rides and just come on man.
34:50Iger can you not be a cheap son of a bitch?
34:53So coming up on my right hand side is the Boneyard which is a playground designed to
34:59look like a dinosaur excavation and this is a fun little attraction.
35:05Obviously I'm too big to go inside that one but they've got a lot of different slides
35:10and caves and rope bridges and it kind of reminds me of like a small scale version of
35:15Tom Sawyer Island.
35:17I mean Tom Sawyer Island was like the absolute best thing to do when I was a kid.
35:21I loved the different playground elements and I always loved walking across that barrel
35:26bridge that is adjacent to Haunted Mansion as well as exploring all the little caves
35:30underneath the island.
35:31I mean it just was a really fun experience and definitely one of my favorite memories
35:36of childhood.
35:37One of the things I've noticed on my recent visits to the Disney parks is they've really
35:42gotten carried away with the penny pinching.
35:45When I was walking around Hollywood Studios the other day I noticed they had drained all
35:48the decorative fountains in front of Tower of Terror and I don't think it's a maintenance
35:54thing.
35:55They generally don't want to run those pumps and fountains anymore because the last two
36:02times I've gone, whether it was the summer or the winter time, they just aren't running
36:08water in a lot of the fountains and I noticed they did the same thing here at Animal Kingdom
36:12at the dinosaur ride as well.
36:15The fountain is drained and it's been filled with leaves and so it looks like it's been
36:20like that for a while.
36:21You can also tell as I'm walking up to Dinosaur it's a super popular ride with a long line.
36:26I mean it hasn't gotten stale at all.
36:29It's based on a movie that everybody's seen and watches and re-watches over and over again
36:35and you know it's one of those timeless dark rides that always has like a two hour wait.
36:42Oh wait, maybe the standby is only five minutes which means it's a complete walk-on.
36:46Hmm, my bad.
36:48I think I've ridden Dinosaur maybe twice in my entire life and yeah.
36:57I'll never understand the whole ride system to Dinosaur and it's just one of the reasons
37:01why I hate this park.
37:03Even the e-ticket rides, most of them suck.
37:06I mean I love Expedition Everest, I love Avatar and probably Cali River Rapids and that's
37:12about it.
37:13For Dinosaur you know you're in these like 4x4 Jeeps and you know the idea is kind of
37:18cool of off-roading and everything but for Dinosaur you're basically riding down the
37:23track like it's a broken down old wooden roller coaster so you're banging up and down like
37:29relentlessly on the track and it's a deliberate choice and it's just unpleasant.
37:35It's like riding a roller coaster without the G-forces so it's just stupid and it's
37:42so dark in there you can barely see most of the good Dinosaur animatronics and it's just
37:50another great example of why Animal Kingdom is terrible.
37:53I mean even their big budget rides stink.
37:56I can't wait until this Dinosaur is actually extinct and I'm hoping Indiana Jones is just
38:02better executed.
38:03So I've turned around to head back towards the front of the park.
38:07Coming up on my left hand side is the Restaurantosaurus.
38:11That's another fast casual restaurant.
38:15It's not a bad place to go eat if you're looking for something inexpensive.
38:20It serves the exact type of food that you would normally associate with a theme park.
38:24You know you're looking at burgers and hot dogs and I think they got mac and cheese too
38:28for the kids menu so just basic stuff.
38:31The prices are roughly the same as the pizza place and most of the time I'm in the mood
38:37for pizza and that's the place I almost always go to but every now and then I'm in the mood
38:43for a hamburger and Walt Disney World makes a pretty decent one.
38:46So as you can tell I'm leaving Dinoland now and I'm heading back towards Discovery Island
38:52and you can obviously tell how the theme has changed dramatically.
38:56I've gone from the concrete walkways with the trees to the section of the park with
39:00the concrete walkways with the trees.
39:03In all seriousness now though I'm in another one of those notorious dead spots in the park
39:07where you just have to walk and walk and there's really nothing here besides some trash cans.
39:13As this walking tour continues it's becoming harder and harder to hide my sheer frustration
39:19with this park.
39:20You know if you watched any of my previous walking tours where I'm walking around like
39:25Magic Kingdom or one of the state parks or something there are plenty of things to talk
39:30about.
39:31But trying to do a walking tour of a theme park that lacks rides it's crazy.
39:37The layout of this park reminds me a lot of a theme park I visited in Canada called Marineland
39:42and Marineland was the same weird kind of bizarre layout.
39:46You would just walk to the roller coaster and it would be way the hell out in the middle
39:51of nowhere and then you'd walk out to like the drop ride and it would be way out in the
39:55middle of nowhere and then the next ride would be like a little flat ride and that would
39:59be way you know completely on the other side of the park from the other two like major
40:03rides and that park is sitting on I think a similar crazy footprint.
40:08I think that's like 800 acres or something.
40:11And Marineland's layout is even more awkward than Animal Kingdom's so it's just I've never
40:18seen a corporate theme park ever whether you're talking about Six Flags or Universal Studios
40:25or Cedar Fair that is this such a cynical cash grab.
40:30It's like in the 1990s Walt Disney World ran out of ideas and they're like let's just make
40:35a zoo with a couple bad dark rides because most of the dark rides here were never good.
40:40I mean Dinosaur was always pretty terrible, Navi River Journey is a ride with no purpose,
40:46Triceratops Spin is like the most generic flat ride you could possibly buy and Disney
40:52World already had four of them before they put it in here and then you've got Primeval
40:57Whirl which was a wild mouse roller coaster that was barely good enough for a Six Flags
41:01park.
41:02You know when I start doing these voiceovers after I'm looking at the video footage I never
41:07know which direction I'm gonna go I'm just always winging it and improvising so I had
41:11no idea whether I was gonna be negative and I didn't realize that I was gonna be this
41:15negative but honestly you know looking over this video footage I'd recommend just going
41:20to one of the other parks in Orlando this place is just kind of a waste of time.
41:24It's basically a zoo and that's really the only thing it's good at and honestly if you're
41:29in Orlando and you want to see animals at a theme park SeaWorld's a better balanced
41:33park.
41:34They didn't used to be.
41:35They used to be exclusively a zoo as well but SeaWorld spent the last like 25 years
41:40investing in rides and they actually have a pretty damn good ride lineup a lot better
41:44than this park and ever since they added that Sesame Street land they're just as good for
41:49small kids as a Disney park now.
41:51As I head back towards the park exit now I guess I should probably mention that this
41:56section of the park is where you're gonna find the best gift shops so if you're looking
42:00for an item to purchase for you know yourself or a family member or something like that
42:06right here in Discovering Islands they've got these two large gift shops like right
42:10in front of the Tree of Life.
42:13Speaking of the Tree of Life one of the cool aspects that I will give credit about this
42:17park is there's a lot of kind of like secret secluded like nature trails that are in the
42:23oasis as well as Discovery Island where you can kind of go on these little small meandering
42:29paths through the different animal exhibits and I did already film those kind of little
42:35walking trails too and post them on the channel in the past but it is one of the cool Easter
42:42eggs here at Animal Kingdom so I do give them credit.
42:45I think that there were influences from like Tom Sawyer's Island again because Tom Sawyer
42:51Island has a couple hidden pathways especially the one that goes underneath the fort that
42:57a lot of people overlook and Animal Kingdom's got those cool little hidden pathways as well.
43:03I always kind of chuckle a little when I see people waiting in line for the character meet
43:07and greets I just I never quite understood the appeal.
43:10People wait in line for like 90 minutes to two hours for somebody basically wearing a
43:15glorified Party City costume but the $150 million ride will have no wait because it's
43:22all played out.
43:23Well as I'm crossing back into the oasis section of the park I just wanted to thank you for
43:27joining me on today's walking tour.
43:30Didn't really anticipate being this hard on Animal Kingdom but in hindsight I realized
43:37that this is just not a very good park and you know if you want to see favorable reviews
43:43then I'd recommend watching the Magic Kingdom or the Epcot video instead because I rave
43:49over those parks but this particular one just isn't very good and I do think it's probably
43:55the worst Disney park in the world now since Disney Studios Park is getting quite the investment
44:02over in Europe.