What’s Animal?.

Animal Kingdom is Walt Disney  World’s newest park. Best described as a high tech fusion of theme park and  zoo, Animal Kingdom is also, perhaps, Walt Disney World’s most misunderstood  park. In order to understand what Animal Kingdom is, it is helpful to  understand the history behind the idea.

Walt Disney was fascinated by the  exotic, especially wild animals. Walt’s childhood on a farm gave him a passion  for animals that never left. In the 1950s, Walt hired a series of two-person  teams, often husband and wife, to create a thirteen film series of wildlife  documentaries. Eight of these True-Life Adventures went on to win Academy  Awards. The films, documenting the natural behavior of animals as diverse as  seals and bighorn sheep, could be considered early forerunners to the work of the  late Steve Irwin and Jeff Corwin today. At the time, zoos were largely dismal  places, with animals contained in small, barred cages and controlled by force.  As such, Disney’s True-Life Adventures provided many people with the only  glimpse they could have of authentic animal behavior.

Animal story

Animal Kingdom is as educational as  it is entertaining, adding a conservation message to virtually everything it  provides. Yet the lessons do not feel forced, as they are carefully woven into  the storylines of the attractions. Animal Kingdom provides a venue to stroll  nature trails that lead to animal exhibits, or follow the main pathways to  high-tech thrill rides. This ability to create one’s own adventures makes the  park appealing to guests of every age group and interest, following Walt’s  mission of creating parks where the entire family could have fun together.

Yet Animal Kingdom, like all Disney  parks, is not without its own share of rocky history. The original park concept  called for lands dedicated to animals past, present, and mythical. While past  and present are represented liberally, the only mythical creature in the  current version of Animal Kingdom is the Yeti, featured prominently in the new  Expedition Everest attraction.

As the story goes, Beastly Kingdom  was to have been a separate land within Animal Kingdom, celebrating the creatures  of myth from unicorns to dragons. However, budgetary restrictions in the  belt-tightening Eisner years left Imagineers without the money to develop the  additional land. Beastly Kingdom was postponed, perhaps forever.

Imagineers argued that without that  land, Animal Kingdom would be only a half day park, not worth the full price of  admission. Eisner’s solution was to slap together Camp Minnie-Mickey, in the  same style and with the same lack of planning as Mickey’s Birthdayland, now  Mickey’s Toontown Fair, in the Magic Kingdom. The Festival of the Lion King,  housed in Camp Minnie-Mickey, is now one of the top rated attractions in Animal  Kingdom. Besides the show, however, there is not much there other than  character greetings. The Imagineers were, however, promised that Beastly  Kingdom would replace Camp Minnie-Mickey the following year.

Animal Kingdom struggled immensely  in its first year of operation. Guests got lost on the twisting, winding  pathways. The searing Florida heat was a real problem, with guests developing  heat exhaustion on a far too frequent basis. As predicted, guests were angry at  the lack of attractions, feeling that their money had been wasted. The park was  unable to offer a nighttime fireworks show, as is standard in other Disney parks,  due to the stress that loud noises and lights would put on the animals.  Consequently, guests refused to stay past 4 pm, when the animals wound down for  the day.

Animal Kingdom siphoned away a  significant number of guests from the other parks, without recouping those  numbers by being its own major draw. This is common in the first year of a new  park’s operations and, if left alone, the numbers eventually work themselves  out. But in the bottom-line conscious Eisner years, this was unacceptable. The  money that was earmarked for the Beastly Kingdom project the following year was  instead distributed to the other parks for new attractions to bolster their  attendance. Beastly Kingdom was indefinitely postponed.

In an interesting twist of fate, the  Imagineers from the Beastly Kingdom project got fed up, and many left the  company. It just so happened that Universal was in the design phase of their  newest gated park, Islands of Adventure, and wanted to design a mythical land  known as the Lost Continent. Beastly Kingdom is alive and well there, with a  different name and similar though not identical attractions.

Despite the problems that have  plagued Animal Kingdom, efforts have been made to expand the park, making it  worthy of a full day’s admission price. And now, with Eisner’s successor Bob  Iger at the helm, a new Disney Renaissance has begun. Iger has promised a new  era of returning to Disney’s core values, freeing up the money to make things  right. Although shareholders and long time fans remain guarded, all indications  are that Iger is a man of his word. In the meantime, enjoy Animal Kingdom for  what it is, a living tribute to one of Walt Disney’s greatest dreams.