We quite enjoyed spending time in Animal Kingdom, and no, it wasn’t just because it was the coolest park temperature wise! I hadn’t really expected us to spend much time here, but we were pleasantly surprised.

The Layout of Animal Kingdom

Animal Kingdom has six different areas, similar to Magic Kingdom, these are Oasis, Discovery Island, Pandora – The World of Avatar, Africa, Asia and Dinoland USA.

Oasis is the area you walk through to enter and leave the park, which we barely spent any time in. While Discovery Island, is actually an island in the centre of the park which is surrounded by the Discovery River but provides the most direct link to each of the other areas.

Oasis

As previously mentioned, we really didn’t spend much time in Oasis, merely using it as an entrance and exit more than anything. There isn’t a lot here anyway; a gift shop, a café and a couple of animal exhibits. It didn’t appear to be an area that many people spent a lot of time in.

Discovery Island

Similarly, we didn’t spend a lot of our time at Animal Kingdom on Discovery Island. It had activities that appealed more to the younger visitors like the start of Wilderness Explorers, and the only attraction was “It’s Tough To Be a Bug” which neither of us were very interested in.

However we did end up eating at Pizzafari one day and we were pleasantly surprised with the value for money. We got refillable drinks, a small pizza, and a side salad. The restaurant has multiple cool rooms with plenty of seating as well as mobile ordering so that we only needed to go to the counter to collect our food which was great!

Pandora – The World of Avatar

So, I have a confession. I have never seen Avatar. Even when it was first out and being hyped up, I never went to watch it. As such, I didn’t have any interest in this section beyond thinking that it was wonderfully created. Harry wasn’t very interested in Avatar either, but we walked through it several times and heard glowing reviews from the Disney employees about its rides (if you’re familiar with the films!), so he would have been tempted if the queue hadn’t been so long.

Africa

When looking at our ticked off park map (at the end of each day we’d check off where we’d been and what we’d been on), this was definitely where we spent most of our time. Even attractions that hadn’t originally appealed to us turned out to be a lot of fun and really interesting.

The Celebration of the Festival of Lion King was amazing! We had some of the best seats in the house but that only allowed us to better see the performers and the animatronics. The whole experience was energetic and captivating from start to finish with well known music and characters, as well as a new spin on certain elements (like a fire-eater).

“Kilimanjaro Safaris” was an attraction that I had wanted to go on because of everything that I had heard about it online. It reminded me a lot of the zoo we went to when I was younger, where you’d drive around a portion of it to see various animals. The safari was a lot of fun and very interesting thank s to the information our driver was giving us. Our group was actually pretty lucky because we were able to see all of the animals, as sometimes they are difficult to spot in their environment from the guided tours track.

After our experience with “Kilimanjaro Safaris” we decided to follow the “Gorilla Falls Exploration Trail”, as per their suggestion. We hadn’t really considered it before but I’m glad that we did it because we learnt a lot about the various animals on the trail, from both the information stands and guides at different intervals. It was also on this trail that Harry declared that he should have become a wildlife photographer.

Rafiki’s Planet Watch

Last, but not least, for the Africa section is “Rafiki’s Planet Watch”. It wasn’t something that either of us had heard about before getting to the park, so we weren’t entirely sure what to expect, in fact if memory serves, we thought it was just going to be a train ride around different areas while they spoke about Disney’s conservation efforts. While this was a part of the attraction, there is more to it than just a train ride. You get off the train at a second station and follow the path. At the end of this, you will find a small petting zoo (which a lot of the kids loved), and the conservation station. The conservation station is great if you enjoy learning about animals and how Disney care for them, even giving an insight into their veterinary services.

It was also here that we took part in The Animation Experience. For those of you who don’t know, I’m not the best at drawing and have very little confidence with it, while Harry loves it. He saw this and really wanted to give it a go. The session is run by one of Disney’s artists and you are shown how to draw one of their animal characters, step by step. It was actually really easy to follow, leaving you with a rather unique souvenir.

Asia

The Asia section of the park is home to two of the more famous rides at this Disney Park, Kali River Rapids and Expedition Everest. I can honestly understand why they are so popular after having a go on them. I was so nervous about going on Expedition Everest (don’t ask me why, I usually get this way around rollercoasters), so when we ended up at the front of the first car I was ready to forget all about it, but I’m glad I didn’t. The ride is thrilling, and we both got off it talking about how much fun we had.

Kali River Rapids was one of the rides that I was most looking forward to, as I love rides like that. It helped that the day we went on it, it was very warm so we dried off really quickly (especially as we would have been sitting in wet clothes for the Lion King show otherwise).

This area is also where you will find the “Feathered Friends in Flight” show and the “Maharajah Jungle Trek”. We unfortunately kept missing the start of Feathered Friends in Flight, so if this is something that you really want to see make sure you know the show times!

Dinoland USA

The final location to discuss at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Park is Dinoland USA. It is a fun little area with plenty of activities for kids, like the Boneyard, Fossil Fun Games, and TriceraTop Spin. We didn’t actually go on any of these three though, although we walked through the Fossil Fun Games area looking at all of the carnival games on offer and I would have loved the Boneyard playground as a kid.

We did, however, ride the Dinosaur, the only fast paced rollercoaster in this part of the park. The queue area for this ride is partially outside and partially inside, filled with fossils, skeletons and dinosaur facts. It was a thrilling ride where you are sent back in time to save a specific dinosaur from extinction.

Another attraction that we enjoyed in this area of Animal Kingdom was new when we visited. It is called Disney KiteTails. You sit facing across the water and watch as various kites designed after Disney characters perform to classic songs related to the same film. When we watched it was the Jungle Book, which was really fun to watch.

Discovery River

One of my favourite features of Animal Kingdom is the river that runs through it, this will come as no surprise to those who know me. Discovery River creates some picturesque scenes and calm areas under the tree canopy.

It is also along this river that a boat carrying Disney characters can be seen. You can usually tell when this is the case as you will hear some music and generally see a crowd leaning over the fence.

Conclusion

Animal Kingdom may seem like a more relaxed park, and while it is it isn’t one to be underestimated. We had a lot of fun exploring this Disney Park and learnt a lot at the same time. It was refreshing to have a later start and an earlier finish which was helped by the larger areas of shade and the beautiful Discovery River.