How would you improve Animal Kingdom?

[GhostHost2]

Animal Kingdom has the potential to be the best WDW park. Unfortenately, there are not enough rides. There are four major E-Tickets- Kilamanjaro Safari, Dinosaur, Everest (which I haven't riden yet), and Kali River Rapids. Safari lacks the reridability factor of some other rides. Sure you see different animals at different times, but do you really want to marathon it? Kali River Rapids should not be an E-Ticket as it isn't that special. It is well themed, but it is incredibly short. Dinosaur pales in comparaion to Indiana Jones, but is a good ride in it's own right. Everest (I assume) and Dinosaur are the only highly rerdideable (i.e. several times a day) attractions at DAK. Primeval Whirl and Triceratops Spin could be taken down for all I care. If DAK built a few more highly rerideable E-Tickets, than it would be the best WDW park. Sadly, with the rate Disney works, it will be ten years before DAK sees another E-Ticket.
Anyone else agree, that the main area DAK is lacking in, is in highly rerideable rides?

[FrumiousBoojum]

Personally, I don't think rides are lacking. Rides are a bonus, not the main attraction for me.

I find Kilamanjaro Safaris to be one of the most reridable rides. Even moreso than its cousin, Jungle Cruise.

Dinosaur could be a great ride if they tweaked it a bit, adding a little more element of surprise and not making the ride like riding a golf cart on a road with a couple of pot holes and mild speed bumps.

To improve Animal Kingdom, this is what I'd do: Beastlie Kingdomme. It's about time that dragon in the logo had a reason to be there.

Another thing I'd do: Try to one-up Jurassic Park over at Islands of Adventure. That's one thing I prefer over Animal Kingdom. Bones vs. Live Dinos -- what do you think people would prefer? Sure, there's not much to Jurassic Park, but the Triceratops Encounter has always been my favorite thing to do there. I've always loved dinos and that's probably the closest we'll come to seeing a real live Dinosaur. Sure, Lucky was a step in the right direction, but he was still a little on the cartoony side. Jurassic Park's trike was the real thing. And they didn't stop at the Trike. The hatching of the baby velociraptor is about like reliving that moment in the movie where the velociraptor hatches -- pure magical. That's the kind of stuff I want to see in Dinoland -- a population of dinos. Maybe -- well, Asia and Africa have their nature/animal trails, so why can't Dinoland, USA have its own nature trail? It's a bit hard for Disney to do anything now without coming off as a ripoff, but maybe they could at least go for a bigger and better if nothing else.

[wishesjake]

Animal Kingdom is a fantastic park and (IMHO) the only weakness is Dino-rama.
I think the only thing I would change is to add Beastlie Kingdomme complete with Fire Mountain (or Dragon's Lair) and other medieval stuff.

[JiminyCricketFan]

Dinorama needs to go. Yes, AK needs an area that is exciting and interesting to kids. Animal fantasies is the natural way to go. But not in a dark way, but just animatronic animals that kids fantasize exist, dragons, unicorns, scimitars and alike. There should be dark rides that are charming and just adventuresome for this theme.

Next I would add a land themed to the great North Pole. Penguins are needed here, maybe a polar bear. AK tends to be a "hot" park. Having an area that is air conditioned that allows for Arctic animals would be great for a cool down spot for the park.

[Scorchio]

I think dinorama should be replaced with a little dinosaur water raft ride, rather like pirates of the caribbean, but in daylight. There would be loads of AA dinosaurs, and would stisfy the need for a kiddie ride in AK.

Also, a land of fantasy animals is needed, with loads of kiddie rides with unicorns, dragons etc. This land shoudl also feature another rollercoaster through the Dragon's lair (e.g. Dragon Mountain). Unlike Everest this ride would be a combination of Dueling Dragons and Big Thunder Mountain, a high thrill ride.

[CUatDL]

Get rid of the stupid story on Kilamanjaro Safaris and make the ride smoother. This ride has entirely too much "bump and jerk". The animals (which ae fantastic) should be the feature here, not the stupid story, not the "bump and jerk" of the ride.

Just MHO, YMMV

CU@DL

Andy

[Speedway]

I honestly do think there is nothing to improve at AK other then add a night time extravaganza (which they are doing), and just continue adding highly immersive, excellently themed Disney-style rides.

I truly believe that Walt Disney World picked the longest straw out of the four expansive parks (DCA, WDS, DAK and TDS), well apart from TDS. It really does look like even Eisner wasn't so bothered about budget. Maybe it was the park's failure (due to not enough attractions and various other reasons) that lead to the major budget cuts at DCA and WDS.

[Ringu]

Just my 2 cents:

I would suggest DAK focuses more on real animals than animatronic ones. If Disney wants to make DAK distinctive from other Disney park, they should leave rides/shows to MK and MGM. DAK is a very beautiful place to watch animals, but other than that it is not much different to your local zoo. If they could have more exhibits of animals, such as aviary or panda, DAK would be way more popular than having another roller coaster. People go to seaworld to see Orca, not the silly/corny show seaworld put into.

[VeganPrincess]

Animal Kingdom is a fantastic park and (IMHO) the only weakness is Dino-rama.

Yep, I completely agree. Chester and Hester just break the theme of the park. Tacky, tacky, tacky.

[FrumiousBoojum]

Get rid of the stupid story on Kilamanjaro Safaris and make the ride smoother. This ride has entirely too much "bump and jerk". The animals (which ae fantastic) should be the feature here, not the stupid story, not the "bump and jerk" of the ride.

Just MHO, YMMV

CU@DL

Andy

While the story can go, I don't think it should get smoother. The fact is, Kilamanjaro Safaris is the closest many of us will ever come to a real African safari. The bumps and jerks add to that.

I think dinorama should be replaced with a little dinosaur water raft ride, rather like pirates of the caribbean, but in daylight. There would be loads of AA dinosaurs, and would stisfy the need for a kiddie ride in AK.

Also, a land of fantasy animals is needed, with loads of kiddie rides with unicorns, dragons etc. This land shoudl also feature another rollercoaster through the Dragon's lair (e.g. Dragon Mountain). Unlike Everest this ride would be a combination of Dueling Dragons and Big Thunder Mountain, a high thrill ride.

A dino water raft ride will pull too many comparisons to Jurassic Park... it's best that the major dino ride be something different for now.

As for kiddie rides: NO. No Disney park has any room for kiddie rides. Family rides, yes. Kiddie rides, no. That's been a successful formula for over 50 years. We don't need to mess it up.

Just my 2 cents:

I would suggest DAK focuses more on real animals than animatronic ones. If Disney wants to make DAK distinctive from other Disney park, they should leave rides/shows to MK and MGM. DAK is a very beautiful place to watch animals, but other than that it is not much different to your local zoo. If they could have more exhibits of animals, such as aviary or panda, DAK would be way more popular than having another roller coaster. People go to seaworld to see Orca, not the silly/corny show seaworld put into.

I'm confused about this... DAK has no animatronic animals, other than the Dinosaurs, larger than life insects, and Lion King characters. They have tons of animal exhibits, including aviaries, how many more do you want?

[Coheteboy]

DAK is great but the earlier close times are kinda disappointing. So the suggestion of more rides is a good suggestion, but here lies another problem: DAK is just so dang big! Even if all the attractions run late into the evening, it'll take a lot of time just to get to each one!



But back to rides in general, DAK has plenty of e-tickets (for now), what it needs are more family attractions. Where's the Jungle Book dark ride? I could easily see a Pirates sized river darkride for that film, following the travels of Mowgli.

Lion King too could easily have a fun attraction.

Pixar's A Bug's Land doesn't fit so much in DCA but it would be great in DAK. And also include bug exhibits and stuff like that too. Think of it as a Finding Nemo Living Seas.. for bugs. (and no kiddie carnie rides please... only good quality fully themed attractions).

Dinoland can do with a lot more. I see programs on Discovery Channel all the time that fascinate the hell out of me, but nothing at Dinoland even eludes to those discoveries. I'd love a dark ride like Primeval World but just...... amped to the max.

[DonaldDuckFan]

Next I would add a land themed to the great North Pole. Penguins are needed here, maybe a polar bear. AK tends to be a "hot" park. Having an area that is air conditioned that allows for Arctic animals would be great for a cool down spot for the park.

I agree with this. A cold climate theme would be sweeeeet!

I sweat my butt off there more than any other park.

But then again, I live in Phoenix, where it was 110 degrees yesterday, which would make the AK seem mighty refreshing right now.

[TDR_Fan]

I agree with this. A cold climate theme would be sweeeeet!

I sweat my butt off there more than any other park.

But then again, I live in Phoenix, where it was 110 degrees yesterday, which would make the AK seem mighty refreshing right now.

I think Animal Kingdom feels like the hottest park because of all the foliage. The heat has a hard time escaping, almost like a greenhouse effect. Epcot, on the other hand, feels like the coolest to me. I'm guessing it's because there's not much vegetation and because of the huge lagoon in World Showcase.

[Ringu]

I'm confused about this... DAK has no animatronic animals, other than the Dinosaurs, larger than life insects, and Lion King characters. They have tons of animal exhibits, including aviaries, how many more do you want?

Dinosaurs, insects, yeti, there are way more than "no animatronic animals". As for animal numbers...if you been to some better zoo, you'll know, or you could keep being confused. There are too many other zoo out there better than DAK in terms of animal variety.

[horizonsfan92]

Hmmm what would I do?....

1. Move Festival of The Lion King - Build a new theater venue to the west of the Africa section. Pretty much, just make it exactly like HKDL's version (i.e. better)
2. Demolish Camp Minnie-Mickey - Land could be used for many new "theme". Of course the main one is Beastly Kingdom but, there's also the possibility of having aquatic, North American, South American, or Australian themed areas.
3. Change the storyline of Safari (Again!) - This time have it be that we (the guests) need to hurry out of the reserve because something "remarkable" is happening just outside its gates. It could be a natural phenomenon, animal congregation, etc. There's no need to have another ride where something goes wrong. It's insanely old.
4. Bring life to the river - They could re-use the same boats from AK's opening or build entirely new ones. Also, there should be a dock for each of the lands. There just needs to be some kind of activity going on along the river. I don't think just having characters float around cuts it. There nice but, not enough.
5. Have new Dark ride in Asia - Built to the East of EE. The entrance for this ride could be close to the existing path, sort of like IJA at DL where the entrance is far from the actual ride itself. Once again, not sure entirely what the ride could be about. Possibly, and I'm sure this is going to sound slightly ridiculous, it could be about a quest to find dragons. It would fit in with the land (Asia) and ever since EE, we all knew BK was never coming.
6. Retheme Primeval Whirl - This could possibly be like the Dinosaur version of Crush's Coaster. AK could, in theory, remove one of the tracks and expand the other to include dark ride sections. Of course, this would be pretty labor intensive as the only thing really being saved is one of the track but think about it.
7. Removal of the rest of Dinorama - Everything except the aforementioned area would go the way of 20K. Of course all this new land could be used for new family rides. By family rides, I don't mean kiddie rides. I'm talking about attraction on par with, say, Star Tours, BLAB, ETR, CBJ, etc.
8. Improve Dinosaur - Don't get me wrong, I love Dinosaur the way it is. I just think, like anything else, there's room for improvement. For example, how about getting that pterodactyl AA to finally move? Or maybe, getting some intense lightning effects in there (ala JTCOE)? The list could go on and on but, just little thing like I mentioned could greatly help this ride.
9. New Animal Behavior Shows - This really doesn't pertain to any area in particular. I just wish there were more shows like Flights of Wonder in the park. I like the theatrical shows they've got (FOTLK, Nemo) but, it wouldn't hurt to have some more shows like FOW. I mean, this is an animal park as well as a theme park.
10. Shade in the Parking Lot - This definately doesn't have to do with the park itself but, I felt it was worth throwing in. Ak's parking lot has the worst shade problem of any of WDW's parks. I remember reading, in the new IFG: AK, that the parking lot is so barren so that there is a contrast between modern civilization and the lush jungles (the oasis). While I (now) get what they're going for, it doesn't work. They need something in there. Throwing a few trees in the bare areas of the PL won't kill the parks theme. At least, not for me.

Well, that's all I could think of. As you can tell, I've thought about this before.