Animal Kingdom This is the newest Disney park and also the worst. Lots of the park isn’t built yet, and some of what is built seems kind of slapdash, like they were just trying to fill up space. Unlike the other park’s slogans which hint at their specialness (The Magic Kingdom’s "Fantasy Reigns," MGM Studios’ "Where Showbiz Is," and EPCOT’s "Discover the Wonder"), Animal Kingdom’s is "Nahtazu!" A fake African word that’s both an apology and a defense. The slogan should be "Justazu!" since Animal Kingdom is essentially a zoo with some rides—except that the rides aren’t as good as ones in the other Disney parks and the zoo part isn’t as good as zoos in most big cities. Ultimately, the park seems like an homage to The Lion King, which probably isn’t enough of a draw for anyone. It’s definitely the least "Disney" of Disney World: everything is brown and cramped and not very interesting or happy. This is the park to skip out on. Oasis,
Camp Minnie-Mickey, Discovery Island, Africa, For the other three parks, we’ll talk about each of the lands and attractions individually, but we only spent two hours at Animal Kingdom, so we’ll just talk about the few things we actually saw before running away. Rusty thought the best of the lands was DinoLand U.S.A. because it was the most open, least claustrophobic area and also the most bright and colorful with a carnival motif, but Carrie thought that it was essentially just your average state fair. This is Disney World, after all, and they should be held to a different standard. Do you really want to waste your time playing overpriced fair games and winning cheap stuffed animals? For Carrie, none of the lands stand out; they are all equally junk. The rest were certainly very cramped and even kind of hard to get to (there’s a lack of visual in the entire park since it’s jungle everywhere you look), and we didn’t go to Camp Minnie-Mickey or Rafiki’s Planet Watch at all. The Tree of Life Walking through this and seeing all the animal images "carved" into this fake tree was kind of cool, especially for little kids who like to find "hidden" things. Ultimately, though, as a central image, it doesn’t compare to the other Disney parks (especially for Carrie, sort of for Rusty): the big blue Fantasia hat, the big golf ball, Cinderella’s Castle—these things are all amazingly colorful and magical, and weird. This just looks like a big tree. Carrie: B- It’s Tough to Be a
Bug Watching this movie took Rusty back to the days of watching movies in the auditorium of his elementary school, where he’s earnestly trying to watch the film and all the six-year-olds are just screaming their heads off with laughter and other noises. Like the rest of the park, this film was just Disney going through the typical motions and then taking them too far. It was hard to understand what the movie was about, beyond going for the easy surprise and easy laugh for the kiddies with all the water dripping on you, air blowing in your face, backs being poked by "stingers," and especially the zillion times they sprayed stink on us from the farting dung beetles. Most of these things were done in the other 3-D movies from the other three parks, but this was taken to an annoying, overdone level. Carrie: D Kilimanjaro Safaris
We much prefer audio animatronic animals to real ones. You get the same effect with a fake lion, minus the depression of seeing such a beautiful living thing trapped in this dorky amusement park, miserable in the Orlando heat, lying around trying to hide from our Jeep. The animals weren’t very impressive anyway – it’s the same stuff you’ve seen a million times in a zoo. This was essentially the tour you can take at the San Diego Animal Park, except that it had a ride-like narrative about saving a baby elephant (which was admittedly cute and fun to see) from a poacher, with a few Disney touches like driving over a creaky, shaking bridge. Carrie: C Kali River Rapids The sign at the front of the ride says "You will get wet, you may get soaked!" but that’s not necessarily a good thing, even on the hottest of days. The creators of the river rapids didn’t understand that what makes water-based rides fun is that you get just wet enough for a thrill, not so wet that you walk off with your underwear dripping. It took Carrie all day to dry, and then her clothes were stiff and uncomfortable and she felt like the dirty water had left a dirt-film on her body. The ride was kind of fun in spite of things, but in many ways it was the worst ride here because it hampered our enjoyment of the other rides. Save this for last, so you can go back to your hotel and change right away, or don’t go on it at all. Carrie: D Primeval Whirl This is essentially a standard amusement park tilt-a-whirl that moves on a standard amusement park roller coaster. The herky-jerky feeling of this made Carrie uncomfortable and made her cringe, but not in the exciting roller coaster way. Rusty liked it a little better, but only because it was one of the better rides at Animal Kingdom—which of course isn’t saying much. Carrie: C+ |
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