Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Disney's Animal Kingdom - part 2


Like, Africa, Asia is represented by a fictitious town, "Anandapur" Sanskrit for "place of all delight" a mix of Nepal, Indonesia, India, Tibet  and Thailand set at the base of the Himalayas. I was really impressed with Anandapur and it quickly became one of my favorite places in the various Disney parks. You could tell that the Imagineers really had a great time putting it together as well. The attention to detail was quite incredible here.

The only part of Asia that I thought could use some work was at the Kali River Rapids. The ride itself is quite a bit of fun with a bit of a safe Russian Roulette aspect to it.  The raft that carries you through the rapids turns as it goes, so that no matter where you choose to sit in the raft there's a chance that as the raft turns, you'll be the one ending up getting most soaked at the drops. this was one of my son's favorite rides in all the parks. What I found lacking was the environment surrounding the river. There was quite a bit of beautiful theming arranged for the queue, but except for a bit of unnecessary forced "story" involving deforestation, there wasn't really anything to see beyond surrounding foliage. Some ruins, and even animatronic animals would have been welcome, and far more interesting than "burning" logs and a truck about to fall into the river.

Much of the theming around Animal Kingdom's Mt. Everest included Yeti motifs which will be featured in a separate post this coming weekend. Details of the signs seen throughout Asia can be viewed in this prior post and one of the trash cans can be found here.

Here are some photos taken throughout Asia at Disney's Animal Kingdom. Click on any image to make it larger.




































   

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