African plains in a park

When you put a theme park in a safari, you get Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Or is it the other way around – putting a safari in a theme park?

While most Animal Kingdom fans are loath to label the park a zoo, that is perhaps the best description for it, especially for us Singaporean folks. A large portion of the park is made up of animal enclosures that look exactly like our zoo/night safari, which we decided to bypass almost entirely. We’re very efficient that way.

What I really liked was walking through the streets of Africa (a replica of course) feeling like I just stepped into the set of Blood Diamond. Now I’ve never been to Africa and everything I know about the place is derived from movies and pictures. But still, it looks pretty close to the photos I’ve seen. I even found a real African dude who could converse in mouth-clicking sounds. Ok, it could have been me who was making the clicking noises while he threw weird looks my way.

There are two super headliners at Animal Kingdom, the first one being the Kilimanjaro Safaris. We got on a safari open-air 4wd thing that took us around the African savannah. It’s kind of like the Night Safari tram ride, except better because it’s in the day and you get real close to the animals in a savannah setting.

For the roller coaster buffs, there’s a ride called Expedition Everest, which is supposed to be right up there next to Rock ‘N’ Roller Coaster in terms of the scare factor. I say supposed to be because I never got on the ride. The husband went on and he was all “it’s not scary at all, you should try it” and but I was paying more attention to the screams of terror from all those unfortunate souls stuck on the ride.

I only have one rule in selecting my rides – I don’t do drops. Speed, upside-side down turns and twists, I can handle but drops are a no go. I still have not recovered from that one time I took the Maliboomer at Anaheim Disney’s California Adventure. I did however pose for a picture in front of Everest, which was good enough for me.