Mouse Extra

Today’s Building My Imagineering Resume is by Mike, contributing writer to Mouse Extra.  Today is the first of three articles dedicated to Mike’s ideas for building upon the Animal Kingdom theme park. 

One of the things you consistently read on Disney websites, message boards, and blogs is the Disney’s Animal Kingdom is a half day park. I’m not a subscriber to that theory myself, but that may be due to the fact that I am a zoo “buff.” I have volunteered at the world renowned Bronx Zoo for over seventeen years. I own volumes on biology, conservation, and zoo exhibitry. However, I know most people are not that extreme in their feelings on zoos. While I can spend an hour easy leisurely strolling through the Maharajah Jungle Trek, others whip through it in ten minutes pausing briefly along the way. Zoos have long known that the average visitor spends less than a minute at each exhibit. For those people, maybe the Animal Kingdom is merely a half day park which was only increased by a half hour with the addition of Expedition: Everest. For this reason, Disney’s Animal Kingdom has less single day pass guests than the Magic Kingdom or Epcot. If Disney invests in additional attractions at the Animal Kingdom, it can be safely assumed that the single day and non-park hopper crowds will increase.

Let’s start off with Camp Minnie Mickey shall we. This was initially meant to be a temporary land occupying the space destined to become the Beastly Kingdomme (more on that later). However, Camp Minnie Mickey turned out to be popular and the Beastlie Kingdomme (or however its spelled) turned out to be quite expensive. Thus, Disney turned the theater for the Festival of the Lion King into a more permanent structure. Now, I love that show. It’s the best of its kind at Walt Disney World, but it belongs in Africa. So lets move it to either somewhere near Harambe or adjacent to Rafiki’s Planet Watch. I understand the expense of that is prohibitive to the Board of Directors, but what the heck.  It’s my article, right?

Instead, I would turn both the character greeting area and the Pocahontas show into attractions in a new land, “America.” Since each continent has at least one walk through exhibit, we’ll create Grizzly Canyon, a mountainous terrain with Mexican wolves, cougars, and other animals. The path leads into a darkened cave where the lights switch day and night so the nocturnal animals, such as foxes, owls, and badgers, are more active. This would also include a colony of small fluttering bats, perhaps even vampire bats. At the Bronx Zoo, we used to have a colony of these creatures and they would lap up blood from a small dish. The path would end, of course, at the Grizzly bear’s domain.

I would also like to see an area for younger kids. Near the Canyon, I would construct Bambi’s Grove, or maybe something themed on Pocahontas. Here, I would have small exhibits with common critters like white-tailed deer, beavers, rabbits, and porcupines. Mixed in with the animals would be a carousel where children ride forest animals like elk, moose, and bison. A kiddie-coaster (along the lines of Goofy’s barnstormer) called Flight of the Bumblebee would zip kids past oversized flowers, spiders, and ladybugs in a giant garden.

Also, in this land, I would develop an ancient Mayan ruin named after an ancient Mayan word, perhaps meaning “unity” or some such. This area would contain the gift shops, maybe one with a Native American flare, the counter service food area, and a sit-down restaurant. I would go with Cuban and/or Caribbean cuisine as neither choice has been given any real justice at the World. The highlight of this area would be Amazon, an aquatic journey deep into the Amazon rainforest. The ride would start off passing riverbank exhibits for jaguars, capybara, tapirs, and a troop of loud howler monkeys. Then, your boat slides under a heavy canopy turning everything pitch black, where all you hear are insect calls and all you see are a caiman’s eyes. You then drop down a short (like Maelstrom) waterfall drifting into a brightly lit greenhouse filled with colorful tropical birds, like toucans and macaws, and primates. If you’re lucky, you may spot the sloth or tree anteater. In the water, there are species of turtles and Amazon fish. Perhaps, there is even the rare Amazon River porpoise. The dark drop is for two reasons- the lack of light keeps the birds from flying away, the drop keeps the fish in.