[u]Saturday, 24th April 2004 (Day 3):</u> By now we had got over most of the jet lag and ready to start or first full visiting day in Orlando. It began as a warm, sunny day and we planned to go back to Animal Kingdom early to see the animals, perhaps finish by 3pm or so and 'hop' over to Magic Kingdom. But I suspected that we might require the full day to complete AK even though we had already completed Dinoland USA, Discovery island and seen the parade the previous day. Due to my own unfamiliarity with the park (we missed AK in 2000-1 when we had to cut our trip short) meant that it would require more time to explore. Moreover, I dod not believe those forum posts claiming that AK could be done in less than a day. All of us love animals and it turned out that my hunch was correct.
We took the ususal route of US27 - US192 - Sherberth Road and Osceola Parkway to reach AK in less than 15 minutes from the villa. We arrived just before 9am to find the park more crowded than the previous day. Most people in our group wanted another walk through of Oasis and Discovery Island Trail and this took up the first hour. I felt the landscaping was very well done and enjoyed watching and photgraphing the animals. I had never seen a sloth or axis deer before and the overall impression was one of a well maintained animal sanctuary than a zoo.
We has less than 20 minutes to wait before getting on a vehicle for the Kiliminjaro Safari. I felt this was a very worthwhile attraction with very natural landscaping for the animals. It was nice to see that they had plenty of space for themselves and did not feel hemmed in like in a conventional zoo. But I felt a bit miffed for leaving out my elderly in-laws for the ride; it was not anywhere as bumpy as the guides suggested and we managed quite a few good photos.
Likewise, the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail was excellent. Both gorillas were active and seemed to respond to the presence of humans. The enclosed [msnsad] aviary was wonderful and we got to see a lot of tropical birds that none of us had seen before.
Afterwards, we did the train trip through Rafiki's Planet Watch. This took over an hour despite our agreement that 15 minutes was the limit in the petting zoo. I felt the part about conservation could be presented better but otherwise everything was fine.
Back in Harambe village, we got some sandwiches and hurried to the Flights of Wonder bird show. I thought that it was brilliant, and still find it hard to belive that a parrot can sing 'Yankee Doodle Dandy'. This show is unmissable and I recommend it to everyone visiting AK.
Kali River Rapids was a nice but rather tame family raft ride through 'rapids'. It got us plenty wet and helped to cool off. Maharajah Jungle Trek was another good walk through, but unfortunately the tigers were asleep as we went by. The bat enclosure was another good setup and we got many good photos.
It was almost 4pm by the time we reached Camp Minnie-Mickey and we just managed the last showing of Festival of the Lion King. It was good, but we had seen the wonderful Lion King Play in London's West End 2 days before our departure and so the Orlando show seemed to be rather loud and OTT by comparison. It appeared that the Pochahontas show had been cancelled and so we finished by going to the Character Greeting Trails for my niece to get Disney autographs.
It was just past 5pm closing time when we finished with AK and returned to the villa. We felt there was no point in hopping to MK with less than 2 hours left to close and decided to do it all on Tuesday.
My overall impression of AK was that it is a nice Theme park, but tries too hard to be Disnified and kid-friendly. I think children 6 years and above should be made to realise that there are other things to parks than rides and it would have been better to present AK with a bit more 'green' approach and a greater onus on real animals. Dinoland USA looks rather garish and out of place in an animal park and I feel the rides should have been built into the landscape rat
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