The Complete Guide to Disney’s Animal Kingdom
Animal Kingdom is the newest of the 4 theme parks that make up Walt Disney World. It opened in 1998 and is a hybrid of a traditional amusement park and a zoo and wildlife conservation station. In addition to hosting some of Disney’s best attractions, the park contains a series of wildlife trails, presenting guests the opportunity to slow down and enjoy the beauties of nature. You can even take a mini-safari on the Serengeti here! With stunning additions such as the World of Avatar, Animal Kingdom is better than ever. I thoroughly enjoyed my day at the park earlier this year. I’ll cover the specifics of my day in more detail in another post, but for now I’ll be providing you with a guide to the attractions found in Disney’s Animal Kingdom.
- First time headed to Walt Disney World? You’ll want to check out my brief guide to the basics HERE.
Disney’s Animal Kingdom – the Basics:
- Where? 2901 Osceola Parkway, Lake Buena Vista, Florida
- When? Animal Kingdom is open daily, however hours differ by season and day of the week. Disney Resort guests can get into the park 30 minutes before regular park guests. On certain days, resort guests are also eligible for extended park hours in the evening. In my experience, Animal Kingdom is usually the park that has the earliest opening time each day.
- How much? Basic park tickets start at $109.00 USD per day for one park. Park Hopper passes cost more, and you can also pay to add on the Genie+ feature, which lets you make Lightning Lane (skip the line) reservations for certain attractions. When staying on Disney property, I purchase my tickets with my resort package.
- How to get there: All Disney resorts are connected to Animal Kingdom by the Disney shuttle bus network.
- Website: https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/destinations/animal-kingdom/
Things to Know Before Visiting Animal Kingdom
I personally recommend doing Animal Kingdom towards the back end of your Disney vacation. To me, the park is always one that can be toured with a more relaxing pace, making it ideal after a busy few days at Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios. In saying that, Animal Kingdom opens early. Like really early. On the day of my most recent visit, the park opened at 7.30am to Disney resort guests (and at 8.00am to regular day guests). Since you’ll want to be at Animal Kingdom about 60 minutes before park opening, that means setting a very early alarm to ensure you’re there on time. If you can be on the first bus from your resort for the day, you’re doing great.
That ties into my next point. While I’m sure Galaxy’s Edge does something similar at Hollywood Studios, Flights of Passage draws huge lines INSTANTLY. You want to be right at the front of the queue entering the park and following the cast members into Pandora. Your only chance of doing that is being at Animal Kingdom early enough that you beat the pack of others doing the same thing. Its a stressful start to the day, but once you’ve ridden it, things will be much calmer for the remainder of your day.
As with the other Disney parks, Animal Kingdom now utilises the Genie+ system. It has replaced the old Fastpass+, and is basically a means to book “skip the line” windows at most attractions throughout the day. Genie+ comes at an additional cost to your park admission. I don’t think its essential at Animal Kingdom (you’ll be able to fit everything in without it), but given the advantages Genie+ provides at other parks, I think its worth purchasing for your trip.
Genie+ covers all the rides at Animal Kingdom except for Flights of Passage. To skip the line at that attraction, you need to pay for an Individual Lightning Lane reservation.
- If you’re planning on spending a day at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, check out my 1 day itinerary HERE.
Layout of Disney’s Animal Kingdom
Disney’s Animal Kingdom shares a basic layout that is similar to the Magic Kingdom – the classic “hub and spokes” model. You enter Animal Kingdom through the Oasis, the park’s Main Street equivalent. Instead of being one simple thoroughfare to the centre however, the Oasis is made up of a number of paths passing various animal exhibits, all converging at the same destination. That destination is Discovery Island, home of the Tree of Life. This massive 14 storey artificial tree is the park’s icon. From here, the remainder of the Animal Kingdom’s lands branch out from the hub. Moving clockwise through the lands, you’ll encounter Pandora: the World of Avatar, Africa, Asia and DinoLand USA. I’ll now take you through all of them.
Discovery Island
Discovery Island is the heart of Disney’s Animal Kingdom, providing access to the other lands around the park. Situated under the massive Tree of Life, a man made baobab tree (on which the night time Awakenings projection show is displayed), Discovery Island is home to a few minor attractions as well as shopping and dining options. The land puts you in the mood to explore the rest of Animal Kingdom. You won’t spend the majority of your day in Discovery Island, but there’s a few things worth checking out here all the same.
Attractions in Discovery Island:
Its Tough to be a Bug
Its Tough to be a Bug is an immersive 3D film housed inside the Tree of Life and inspired by the Pixar film: A Bug’s Life. The show illustrates the importance of insects to our global ecosystems. The film is humorous, similar to Mickey’s PhilharMagic at the Magic Kingdom, however it does get a bit creepy for kids when Hopper and his gang of grasshoppers show up to cause some trouble. Without spoiling too much, lets just say the special effects go beyond what you’ll see on the screen. Overall, Its Tough to Be a Bug is an underrated attraction that I recommend seeing some time during the busy afternoon hours.
Discovery Island Trails
The Discovery Island nature trails wind around the base of the Tree of Life. Not only do they provide close-up views of the Tree’s animal carvings, you can also see various zoological exhibits including flamingos, tortoises and otters along the way. There’s larger nature trails throughout Animal Kingdom, but this is a good introduction to that aspect of Animal Kingdom.
Wilderness Explorers
Wilderness Explorers is the Animal Kingdom’s scavenger hunt style game that you can play while exploring the park. The idea here is that you sign up to Russell’s (from Up!) Boy Scout gang and earn a series of badges by attending various wildlife checkpoints around the park. Along the way, you’ll learn various facts about the animals you’ll see in your travels. Wilderness Explorers is great for families with young children, especially if they can’t ride the bigger rides throughout the park.
Dining in Discovery Island
While there’s a number of snack and counter service options in Discovery Island, the land is also home to three restaurants. Pizzafari, as the name suggests, is famous for some of the best pizza in Walt Disney World (at least outside of EPCOT), making it great for fussy eaters. Meanwhile Flame Tree Barbecue is where you can stock up on delicious BBQ ribs and other smoked specialties. The land is also home to the signature dining restaurant of Animal Kingdom – Tiffins, which serves diverse, exotic offerings with waterfront views.
Africa
Africa is the largest land in Animal Kingdom and where you’ll find the park’s original headliner attraction. Guests enter Africa through the fictional village of Harambe, themed as a modern east African town that operates tours on the great savannah. As you explore Africa, you’ll encounter various forms of street entertainment such as the Tam Tam Drummers and Harambe Village Acrobats who each participate in numerous performances throughout the day. While the safari itself is definitely Africa’s main attraction, there’s many other things to see here.
Rides in Africa:
Kilimanjaro Safaris
Kilimanjaro Safaris is the park’s original headliner, and its an experience like no other. Its essentially a mini-safari. Guests board large safari trucks and take a guided tour of the African savannah. Along the way, you’ll encounter all kinds of African animals wandering around – elephants, giraffes, lions, rhinos and more. It used to be open for night time safaris as well, although my understanding is that these now need to be booked in advance. Kilimanjaro Safaris, its a good choice for Genie+ reservations if you’re using it at Animal Kingdom, so that you can choose the time of your tour. Avoid the heat of the day as there’s less chance that the animals will be active. Personally, I’d try to do this right after rope dropping Pandora, as the animals will still be reasonably active at that early hour.
Other Attractions in Africa:
Gorilla Falls Exploration Trail
The Gorilla Falls Exploration Trail can get quite busy, probably owing to its entrance being right next to the queue for Kilimanjaro Safaris. The highlight here is obviously the gorilla exhibit (you won’t see them on the safari), but you’ll also visit a walk through aviary and get underwater views of the hippo pool along the way.
Festival of the Lion King
This mini-broadway show features the various characters of the Lion King and all the film’s classic songs. Numerous acrobats, puppets and performers put on a very exciting show that is well worth checking out. The shows runs just over 20 minutes, so check out the times throughout the day to ensure you set aside enough time to enjoy this one. The show is popular, so you might need to arrive early to get a good seat.
Rafiki’s Planet Watch
Broadly part of Africa, Rafiki’s Planet Watch is an area of Animal Kingdom that encompasses the Conservation and Affection Section, the park’s veterinary headquarters and petting zoo. You reach this section of the park by way of the Wildlife Express Train. While a visit to the conservation station is interesting, personally I think it eats up a bit too much time that could be spent experiencing the rest of the park. If you miss this part of the park, you’re not losing out. You’d get just as much out of watching the Animal Kingdom series on Disney+ if you’re interested in Disney World’s conservation efforts.
Dining in Africa
Africa is home to both a quick service restaurant, and a table service restaurant. The quick service option, Harambe Market, is a great choice for a snack at lunch time, with differing outdoor stations serving African inspired cuisine. Meanwhile Tusker House Restaurant hosts the park’s only character dining experience – Mickey, Donald and the gang meet guests in safari costumes, with countless African dishes available in an all you can eat buffet setting. Having dined at Tusker House in the past, its a really good dinner option if you’re wanting to try something different.
Asia
Like much of Animal Kingdom, Asia is an incredibly themed land, drawing from architectural styles found in South and South East Asian nations such as India, Indonesia, Thailand and Nepal. It’s centrepiece is the fictional village of Anandapur in the Himalayas. A facade of Mount Everest provides a great photo opportunity and also contains the park’s most thrilling ride, while numerous other attractions will also keep you busy in this part of the park.
Rides in Asia:
Expedition Everest
Expedition Everest, without question, is one of the best rollercoasters in all of Walt Disney World. Definitely more thrilling than the rides that you’ll find at the Magic Kingdom, this epic coaster takes you up into the mountains on a quest to come face to face with the resident Yeti himself. Without spoiling too much, expect to reach great speeds and travel in both directions (forwards and backwards), but there’s no loops or inversions to worry about. You’ll save time at Expedition Everest using Genie+, but an even better tactic is to use the Single Rider line to dramatically cut down on your wait (chances are you’ll be ushered right on up). Its definitely an attraction you’ll want to ride more than once as well, and the single rider line is very handy at ensuring you can do this.
Kali River Rapids
As the name suggests, Kali River Rapids is a whitewater rafting ride that takes guests downstream to witness the impacts of deforestation and environmental exploitation. You’re bound to get soaked when riding this one, and for that reason it gets swamped with crowds during the heat of the day. While its a lot of fun, the ride is surprisingly short, especially compared to Disney’s river rapid ride over in California. Its still a decent choice for a Genie+ if you’re travelling during the summer months (Florida heat = popular water rides!). As a heads up, just make sure you keep your feet up when riding – you don’t want to walk around Animal Kingdom with wet shoes for the rest of the day.
Other Attractions in Asia
Maharajah Jungle Trek
The Maharajah Jungle Trek is another mini-zoo experience at Animal Kingdom. As you make your way along the path, you’ll pass through the ruins of an elaborate temple, said to be the old palace of a Maharajah. As you move through, you’ll see species such as Komodo Dragons, flying foxes, and of course, the Bengal tigers. This trail is well worth taking the time to experience, though again, avoid visiting in the heat of the day if you want to see active animals.
Feathered Friends in Flight
This wildlife show takes place in an open air amphitheatre numerous times throughout the day and is all about the winged species of Animal Kingdom. Throughout the half hour you’ll witness various birds swooping throughout the theatre, including the majestic bald eagle. I actually haven’t seen the latest addition of this show – I didn’t watch it on my latest Disney trip, and on my last visit, I saw the precursor to its precursor (its changed a lot over the years!). If you’ve watched a bird show at a zoo though, chances are you know what you’re getting into with this one.
Dining in Asia
Asia contains numerous snack stands that offer incredibly diverse dishes, but only one restaurant. That restaurant is the Yak & Yeti Restaurant and is a great choice for dinner at Animal Kingdom. Yak & Yeti serves numerous Asian fusion dishes in a beautiful Nepalese stylised restaurant. While there’s a counter-service window attached that serves many of the same dishes if you’re in a hurry, I highly recommend taking the time to properly dine here. I did on my latest Disney trip and LOVED it.
DinoLand USA
While Animal Kingdom is full of excellently themed environments, DinoLand USA is the exception to that rule. Its actually a fairly tacky looking section of an otherwise brilliant theme park. The heart of that tackiness comes from the Dino-Rama Carnival area, which contains a few basic midway rides. Meanwhile, the land’s headline attraction is actually a great thrill ride, tucked away towards a back corner of the land. The land of dinosaurs is also home to Animal Kingdom’s second broadway show.
Rides in DinoLand USA:
DINOSAUR
The main reason to check out DinoLand USA, Dinosaur is a thrill ride in the dark loosely based on the Disney animated feature of the same name. Basically, you board a ride vehicle and are taken through a mixture of a track and motion simulator, similar to the vein of the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland. Along the way, your ride vehicle bucks about the track on your journey back in time to capture a living dinosaur, with dangerous carnivores providing countless scares in the process. Dinosaur is a great thrill ride that really gets the heart pumping. Because its tucked away it often takes a while for queues to form here. Its definitely an underrated attraction at Animal Kingdom.
TriceraTop Spin
TriceraTop Spin is just another spinner ride like Dumbo at the Magic Kingdom. Here the ride vehicles are flying triceratops dinosaurs. This just fills space among the midway games in the DinoLand carnival area and gives kids something to do. You can skip it.
Other Attractions in DinoLand USA:
Finding Nemo: The Big Blue…and Beyond – Live on Stage
While not necessarily fitting the theming of DinoLand, this excellent 40 minute Broadway show takes place multiple times throughout the day and is of Broadway quality. The show involves stunning puppetry, special effects and choreography to tell the story of Finding Nemo through musical numbers. Make sure you factor this show into your schedule when touring Animal Kingdom if you haven’t seen it before. The theatre is huge, so you shouldn’t have any problem making it into your chosen session.
The Boneyard
The Boneyard is an immersive playground for children with the theming being that of a dig site. In addition to running around on slides and swings, kids can also search for dinosaur bones in a sandpit.
Dining in DinoLand USA
DinoLand USA isn’t the place to come in Animal Kingdom for exotic food options. There’s a few food stalls throughout the land, but the only proper dining option is Restaurantosaurus, a counter-service restaurant that serves basic theme park foods like burgers and fries. Unless you’re a really fussy eater, I recommend being more adventurous and eating in the other lands at Animal Kingdom.
Pandora – the World of Avatar
The World of Avatar, which first opened in 2017, is the newest land in Disney’s Animal Kingdom. It is absolutely beautiful, being a recreation of the planet Pandora. Set a generation after the events of the original James Cameron film, the World of Avatar brings the floating mountains of the Valley of the Moa’ra to life. Fitting the land into the overarching theme of Animal Kingdom, the story sees Pandora since becoming an ecotourist destination for humans, relations with the Na’vi people having improved significantly since the events of the film.
Pandora is impressive by day, but even more gorgeous at night, when numerous bioluminescent plants light up in vibrant colours. The land is home to two major attractions that develop the longest lines in Animal Kingdom, making Pandora a no-brainer to hit up first thing in the day. Throughout the day, a Na’vi drum ceremony takes place in the land, while Pandoran Conservation Initiative scientists can also be found roaming the land. Overall, Pandora is unlike anything you’ll experience elsewhere in the Animal Kingdom. In many ways, the scope of the land was a precursor to Galaxy’s Edge in Hollywood Studios.
Rides in Pandora
Avatar Flight of Passage
Without question the most popular ride in Animal Kingdom, lines for Flight of Passage can easily reach a few hours during busy times of the year. Overall, the ride is an advanced motion simulator that takes you on the back of a banshee for an aerial tour of Pandora (think Soarin’ but far more breathtaking). The ride vehicle even mimics the feeling of the banshee inhaling and exhaling under your legs throughout your flight. Flight of Passage is a technological breakthrough and remains one of the most awe inspiring rides in all of Walt Disney World. Getting off the ride, I was lost for words. Its that good.
Na’vi River Journey
Pandora’s other attraction, the Na’vi River Journey, isn’t quite as exciting, but its no less beautiful. On this ride you take a boat trip through the Pandora jungle at night, giving you the opportunity to see the bioluminescent plant life while its still sunny outside. Along the way you’ll also encounter incredibly sleek projections of Pandoran fauna and a hyper-realistic audio-animatronic of the Shaman of Songs, a Na’vi witch of some sort. Na’vi River Journey isn’t as popular as its neighbouring ride, but can still develop lengthy lines. I personally recommend securing a Lightning Lane through Genie+ so you can ride this one after rope dropping Flight of Passage.
Dining in Pandora
Aside from a few snack stands, Pandora only has one dining option, the Satu’li Canteen. Its an excellent choice for either lunch or dinner. Set in an old mess hall from Pandora’s military past, Satu’li Canteen serves customisable bowls where you can mix and match a number of ingredients to create your ideal meal, along with unique and colourful beverages and desserts. I ate here a recent trip to Animal Kingdom and loved it.
Animal Kingdom is a beautiful theme park. I really enjoy the mix between doing rides and taking some time to watch the animals in its various trails and exhibits. I think the park hits a nice balance between the two. Hopefully this post has been helpful if you’ve not been to Animal Kingdom (or its been a while) in showing all the experiences you can enjoy on a day at the park. What is your favourite part of Animal Kingdom?