Posts Tagged ‘Disney's Animal Kingdom’

Mar
1

Theme Park Thursdays: Hiding the Dead Bodies

Theme Park Thursdays feature photos from one of our theme park adventures in the past.

Sitting Sideways on the Animal Kingdom Train (2007)

Sitting Sideways on the Animal Kingdom Train (2007)

Following up last week's post about seat orientation on Disney railroads, we visit Disney's Animal Kingdom in 2007, which also has a train line. Granted, unlike the Magic Kingdom-style stream versions, AK's train is diesel-powered — but made to look like it is steam.

Look this way... ONLY!

Look this way... ONLY!

The Wildlife Express connects Africa to Rafiki's Planet Watch on a rather short run. Like Disneyland's train, the seats also are oriented to point you to one side. However, unlike Disneyland, you can't actually see behind the seats — it's blocked off. Apparently, Disney didn't want to invest in theme for both sides of the train tracks, so they decorated one side, and left the backstage areas "as is" on the blocked side. As my friend Jason Steele noted, this better enables them to hide "drunk cast members, dead bodies, discarded trash, and piles of money."

Jun
2

Theme Park Thursdays: Road Closed

Theme Park Thursdays feature photos from one of our theme park adventures in the past.

Road Closed (2007)

Road Closed (2007)

Don't try driving down this road… it's closed!

Of course, if you are driving down this road, then you have other issues, since this is located on the Kilimanjaro Safaris attraction at Disney's Animal Kingdom. Forget avoiding the road… focus on avoiding lions, hippos, and elephants instead!

We took this photo during a September 2007 trip to Walt Disney World… and it was quite hot when we camped there.

Sep
1

Theme Park Thursdays: Lost MGM Beasts

Theme Park Thursdays feature photos from one of our theme park adventures in the past.

Bus Directional Sign (2007)

Bus Directional Sign (2007)

This directional sign is located at the Ticket and Transportation Center, and points to bus stops that you can use to visit Disney's Animal Kingdom and the Disney-MGM Studios.

I snapped this photo in September 2007 knowing that the Studios was going to get a name change to Disney's Hollywood Studios, thus that iconic logo would disappear from the parks forever.

You should also note the logo for Animal Kingdom, which harkens back to when the park opened. If you look carefully, you'll see a dragon represented in the middle. Originally, Animal Kingdom was to represent animals that are no longer with us, animals in the present, and fictional animals. While the first two points are met, the budget for Beastly Kingdom was cut and it never happened, only to be substituted by a placeholder land with ugly garbage cans.

However, given Disney's recent announcement that a land based on the film Avatar is in the works, we might actually see something surreal in Animal Kingdom after all!