When Disney opened its nature-themed Animal Kingdom park in Orlando, Florida in 1998 it went to great pains to point out that it was not a zoo. It even came up with a catchy phrase ‘nahtazu’ which was used in television commercials to promote the park.
Sure, it has plenty of animals, most notably in its 110-acre Kilimanjaro Safaris attraction which alone is larger than Disney’s fairytale-themed Magic Kingdom park in Orlando. However, the enclosures are more like rolling plains than traditional zoo pens and there are no cages.
Animal Kingdom also had fewer characters from famous films than there are in many of Disney’s other parks. Not any more. This has been fixed in time for the park’s twentieth anniversary this year and it has had a magic touch.
At night the giant tree in the center of the park showcases spectacular projections which seem flat despite being beamed on to bumps and knots (David Roark)
Animal Kingdom is home to more than 2,000 animals spanning 300 species of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians but Disney didn’t want to just put them on show. From the start, it set out to make animals the stars of the rides and shows so that guests would learn about them at the same time as having fun. It took more than the wave of a magic wand.
Crucial to this strategy was creating storylines for the attractions which are based on the real world. The safari had a plot connected to poaching, there’s a simulator which takes guests back to the time when dinosaurs were wiped out and the rapids ride races past felled trees (complete with a fake smell of burning branches) to show the perils of deforestation.
Unlike most other theme parks, Animal Kingdom’s attractions aren’t found in cartoon-like buildings on squeaky-clean straight streets. Instead, the entrances to many of the rides look more like boltholes on a Tibetan mountain trail. The queue for the safari snakes under a series of wooden huts with thatched roofs whilst guests get into the rapids ride by passing under a wooden hut resembling the houses that sit on stilts above the ocean in Bali.
It is thanks to Disney’s Imagineers, the wizards who design its theme park attractions. On Animal Kingdom they were led by Joe Rohde, Portfolio Creative Executive for Walt Disney Imagineering, and his attention to detail is astounding.
The pavement in the park has been artificially cracked and marked with what appear to be the hooves of horses and the exterior walls of the shops and restaurants are adorned with peeling posters, rusty-looking signs and cables draped around the eaves as is common in Asia. Disney doesn’t do it by halves so the walls aren’t just artificially weathered but the plaster on some of them has even been deliberately cracked to reveal fake bricks underneath.
The finishing touch is the dense undergrowth that engulfs the park. Animal Kingdom is famous for its foliage as its emblem is a 145-feet artificial tree. Known as the Tree of Life, it sits at the center of the park and has ornate animal carvings on its trunk. It is unmissable but still doesn’t make as much of an impact as its real-life counterparts which appear to be sprouting haphazardly everywhere you look. It gives the impression that guests have been transported to a rainforest in the far east and has the handy benefit of providing shade from the searing Floridian sun and daily downpours.
However, the park wasn’t just created to enchant guests but also to make an impact. In 1995, to celebrate the start of construction on Animal Kingdom, and show that it is serious about protecting the environment, Disney launched a conservation fund which works with non-profit organizations to reverse the decline of wildlife.
Guests at Animal Kingdom can contribute to it at cash registers in the park and get a conservation button in return. It has cast a powerful spell.
As of last year the fund had awarded more than $70 million in grants and supported over 2,000 conservation projects which have helped to protect more than 400 species around the world including elephants, cranes and butterflies.
In Columbia and Brazil 20 tons of plastic waste has been removed from the environment and more than 164,000 trees have been planted to protect cotton-top tamarin and golden lion tamarin monkeys. Sea turtles have benefited from the removal of 238,000 pounds of marine debris across 1.2 kilometers of nesting habitat in Florida. The fund has even helped to grow 2,300 coral pieces and plant more than 3,000 coral fragments to repopulate reefs in The Bahamas.
The focus of Disney’s efforts at Animal Kingdom is a sprawling care and nutrition center behind-the-scenes. The nutrition team prepares more than 1,500 diets and delivers more than 10,000 pounds of food to the animals daily at Disney’s Animal Kingdom and Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge. The park is also home to one of the leading zoo hospitals in North America and is one of only two in the US which has computed tomography scanners.
It has made Disney a powerful force in conservation and Animal Kingdom itself has even become accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. It has earned its credentials as an industry player but some said it needed a sprinkling of pixie dust to hold its own as a theme park.
According to the latest Global Attractions Attendance Report from the Themed Entertainment Association, attendance at Animal Kingdom was down by 0.7% in 2016 to 10.8 million. It ranked third out of the four parks at Disney World in Florida and had around half as many visitors as the Magic Kingdom. It has now been given a fresh glow and then some.
Last month saw the première of UP! A Great Bird Adventure, an update to an existing stage show where the actors are exotic birds. It tells guests how they have adapted to their environment and cleverly integrates characters from hit 2009 movie Up. There is a close connection to it.
Up’s plot surrounds an elderly man who attaches a bunch of multi-colored balloons to his house to explore the world with a talking dog called Dug and Russell, an inquisitive Wilderness Explorer who finds a rare exotic bird named Kevin.
The show combines characters from Up with more than 15 species of real-life birds which have been trained by Florida-based business Natural Encounters. Twenty trainers helped to bring the show to the stage and four work with the actors and birds during every performance. The line-up includes toucans, parrots, macaws and a trumpeter hornbill which has learned how to survive in Africa by snatching fast-moving prey in mid flight.
“We have a creative director who works with the bird group because we can’t make up things that the birds won’t do,” says Laura Offerdahl, executive producer, Disney parks live entertainment. “It’s positive reinforcement. The birds come out and there’s a lot of audience interaction.” Indeed, at one point, a row of guests standing opposite each other hold up their arms to form an arch which one of the birds flies under.
At one point in the new show a bird swoops through a canyon made by the guests’ hands (Matt Stroshane)
“We are still showcasing the birds but have added Dug and Russell into the show which makes sense because he is a Wilderness Explorer and the Wilderness Explorer program at Animal Kingdom is huge. The kids come and get guide books stamped so it seemed like a natural fit. Russell and Dug had a great bird adventure with Kevin so it ties into it and they interact with the birds,” adds Offerdahl.
Nearby, classic Disney character Donald Duck will begin to make appearances from Memorial Day in Animal Kingdom’s dinosaur-themed Dinoland area thanks to a storyline which sees him learning about his ancestors. At Donald’s Dino-Bash! Donald will be joined by seven related characters including ones from popular Disney cartoon Duck Tales.
“It’s going to be the new character destination for Animal Kingdom because there is no other place on property that has this many characters in one spot,” says Mark Renfrow, show director, Disney Parks Live Entertainment. “Here’s an opportunity to come and see eight characters throughout the day, all almost right next to one another. Each character will have its own themed meet and greet and there will be a dance party at night.” Then comes the main event.
A clearing in the thicket at Animal Kingdom reveals a pathway which appears to weave deep into a jungle. There are no neon signs warning guests what’s to come but curiosity draws them in and the reward is a spectacular vista.
A huge mountain appears to float against the blue sky. A waterfall pours down the side of it into a pool lined with giant spiky orchids whilst a giant flower bulb appears to shoot pollen into the air (it’s actually water). It looks like the set of a Hollywood blockbuster and that’s no coincidence as it’s a new land themed to Avatar, the 2009 sci-fi flick which still holds the record for having the highest-ever gross at the box office.
The Imagineers pull every trick in the book to immerse guests in Avatar’s world of Pandora, famous for its banshees and giant blue natives, the Na’vi. In the movie they live on floating mountains whilst the structures keeping them aloft in the park are cleverly covered with vines. Everything seems a lot bigger than it really is and there’s good reason for this.
The man-made mountains in the new land are actually a lot smaller than they appear (David Roark)
The mountains look taller than they are as their proportions get narrower the closer they get to the top. It’s an effect called forced perspective and it’s especially convincing when coupled with the paler paint used for smaller mountains in the distance. In fact, the only give-away came when a small bird landed on one of the mountains and seemed to be the same size as it.
Artificial moss abounds and the rocks have been painted to look like they have been weathered over decades rather than being installed over the past few years as is actually the case. The land opened in May last year and is unique to Walt Disney World. It isn’t just aimed at aficionados of the movie but also Millennials who crave the most escapist experiences so that they can post photos of them on social media. The otherworldly environment isn’t the only attraction.
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