Park Insight: Disney’s Animal Kingdom

This week we discuss the history, facts, and secrets of Disney’s Animal Kingdom park in Orlando, FL.  There are so many things that have gone into the creation of this revolutionary theme park and we hope to educate you on all we know ourselves! Since we go through a ton of information in this episode, we’re going to make it easy for anyone to follow along by posting the notes we used while recording!

You can download Park Insight: Disney’s Animal Kingdom on iTunes, Stitcher, or Google Play Music, or listen to it here.

History

• 4^th park
• Opened 4/22/98
• Largest park – over 500 acres
• First animal conservation themed park
• “nahtazu” – fictional word for park advertisements until 01/2016
• Houses 8 of the most endangered species
• White rhinos (endangered) – 8 have been born in the park, only 11,000 left worldwide
• The park originally was going to include 3 classifications: existing, extinct, mythological
• Beastly Kingdom: mythological/imaginary section of the park: evil with dragon castle and roller coaster and good with unicorn maze
• Remnants include
  • Unicorn section in parking lot
  • Dragon in logo
  • Dragon-shaped fountain near camp Minnie-mickey
  • Dragonhead statue above ticket booth
  • Fire blasts seen from boat ride
• Pandora is now providing the park with imaginary land/life

Facts

• The tree of life is built from an oil rig structure
• There are more than 300 carvings
• It took 10 artists, three Imagineers- working full-time for 18 months
• The tree itself is 145 feet tall and 160 feet wide
• It’s topped with more than 102,583 leaves in five shades of green
• There’s one image of a chimp called Greybeard who is the chimp that Jane Goodall worked with. It was added after Jane visited the park and noticed they left it out
• Disney Animal Kingdom scientists have been conducting in-depth studies on the vocalizations of elephants since 1998. They’ve uncovered flirting interactions between male herds and female herds, and discovered two new vocalizations
• Zebras were introduced to the Kilimanjaro Safari ride in 2012 – and removed just four months later
• Some of the park’s plants were chosen by an elephant
• Expedition Everest is the most expensive roller coaster ever made, and at 199.5 feet tall, it’s just shy of the Federal Aviation Guidelines that would have required the faux mountain to have a red light beacon on top.
• The music-writers for the movie Frozen wrote the songs for Finding Nemo: The Musical at Animal Kingdom
• You won’t find plastic straws, cup lids, or ballons at Animal Kingdom
• The Animal Kingdom is also the only park without openings into the bathrooms

Secrets

• There’s a secret entrance through Rainforest Café
• On the Dinosaur ride, towards the end, there are pipes that are yellow, red, and white with text written on them. They are the chemical formulas for mustard, ketchup, and mayonnaise.  McDonald’s used to be a sponsor for the parks.
• There is a US Route 498 that runs through Diggs County. Animal kingdom was opened in April of 1998
• Imagineers have piped chilled air onto picturesque rock structures and areas in the Kilimanjaro Safari ride. This is to coax lions and tigers to sit atop the rocks in the hot sun for good pictures by tourists. Food is hidden in trees and logs and rocks so that the animals are coaxed out of hiding places so they are out and about more
• The animals are required to spend the night in the safety of their pens
• Trainers have conditioned each species to respond to a different sound
• You can meet Sue…sort of. At 13 feet tall and 40 feet long, the statue in AK is an exact replica (except the real Sue is actually 2 feet longer).
• A robot Dinosaur used to roam park grounds. The park once featured an animatronic dinosaur named Lucky that could walk, interact with guests, and even give autographs all by itself
• There also used to be a talking trash can like in the Magic Kingdom and a tree man
• DiVine (a person on stilts who is dressed like a walking green vine) also makes appearances at the park and fans are wondering if she too will join the retired magic of Animal Kingdom
• The Carnotaurus baddie in the Dinosaur! Ride isn’t an exact representation of the real carnotaur – this one has bigger thighs, knobbier skin, and more height – so Imagineers decided it was a new sub-species.  They named it “Carnotaurus robustus Floridana,” meaning “Stout meat bull from Florida.”
• Imagineer Joe Rohde has mentioned that the design team considered a Noah’s Ark concept as the entrance to the park, but decided that it was too controversial