Kimosabe
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2012
If you don't go to WDW two or three times per year, then the Animal Kingdom is for sure a full day park, and will be even with extended hours once Avatar is complete.
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I think most people would be hard-pressed to fit the above list into one day, along with a QS meal and TS meal and a couple of meet and greets.
I thoroughly agree. We treated AK like a half-day park for a few years and then last summer decided we wanted to make sure we did everything there was to do there. When you stop and realize all the different options within AK, it is indeed rather difficult to fit it all into one day. We completely filled a day and still managed to miss Kali River Rapids, Primeval Whirl and Triceratops Spin, but upon realizing all the things we had been missing, it pretty quickly moved near the top of our favorite WDW park list. Once Avatar, a night safari and Rivers of Light are added, it will only get better.
No doubt there are people who don't enjoy AK as much as the other parks, which is the nice thing about having four WDW theme parks, two WDW water parks, and Universal and SeaWorld down the street. We enjoy the educational aspects of AK and don't mind the extra walking required on the trails, as the gorillas, tigers, bats and other animals are definitely worth it in our minds. My wife and a daughter could spend a couple of hours out at Rafiki's, just watching the vets do their thing through the "operating room" window. We see Festival of the Lion King at least once on every trip (sometimes twice), and the Nemo show is also great, both for just being a great show in general and also as a nice retreat from the heat in the afternoon. To us, the whole park is a great mix.
Would I love AK even more if they added a Pterodactyl flying coaster in DinoLand and a Jungle Book-themed dark ride in Asia? (Neither is any sort of rumor, but just things I'd love to see that would add some depth to both areas). Of course, I would. But I think I'd rather see them give some love to Epcot, which, to me, is not faring much better than DHS these days. There is obviously a plan in place for DHS (even if nobody out here in DISBoard Land truly knows the legitimate details yet), so in a few years, it will hopefully not even resemble its current self...but Epcot needs a serious plan, too, especially in Future World. At this point in time, I basically go to Epcot to eat.