Word: safaried
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Visitors board Simba One, an oversize tram (seats 32) that will take you on a safari through "the Serengeti grassland system," and as one fellow steps into the open-air vehicle, he asks, "Is it air-conditioned?" No, mate, this is reality. Real crocodiles lazing primordially below that rickety bridge. Actual cheetahs motoring their stretch-limo bodies across the savanna. Genuine loamy smell over there near the warthog. (Hakuna matata, guys--it's only nature's perfume...
...magic of numbers, the illusion of intimacy. More exotic creatures are on display in the 20-min. safari ride than would likely be seen on a week's trek through Africa: okapis, nyalas, zebras, giraffes, ostriches, Thompson gazelles, hippos and a quintet of eland that your driver must stop for as they cross the bumpy road. And thanks to feeding stations hidden in tree bogs, the animals will usually be grazing in view. Thus Animal Kingdom solves the dilemma of the modern zoo: how to keep animals out of cages but still on more or less predictable display...
...park is the ride. If the wait time is too long for the big attractions, you can have a blast just glomming the architecture and atmosphere. That is truest in Animal Kingdom. The backrests of park benches are carved as turtles, eagles, crocodiles. Harambe, the African "village" near the safari ride, is not idealized in Magic Kingdom fashion. It is stylized: worn, with cracked pavements below buildings of a Moorish-Disney design that might be called "mosqueteer." For visitors with an antic mind and a free year or two, Dinoland offers a trove of comic minutiae, including "Chester and Hester...
...being adjusted. A parade of cast-member "creatures," expected to run twice daily, was still not ambulatory a fortnight ago. The Jungle Book and Lion King shows were getting final tweaks. Dinos in Countdown to Extinction were to be given scarier lighting and infusions of bad breath. The safari ride's story line, about a baby elephant separated from its mother, is lame drama--no match for the amazing beasts on display...
...contract. "Animals will be born and, unfortunately, animals will die," Wolff says. "That's part of the natural process." Some local fauna have already squatted in these fabulous digs. And the park itself will grow. Next year the Asia section opens, with a flume thrill ride and a second safari. A still more remote realm, a kind of beastly kingdom, will feature creatures from fantasy. Eisner also hopes to devote an area to domesticated animals...