Animal Kingdom Tour - Is it worth it?

[amy2313]

Hi Everyone,

We are leaving for WDW in just under a month and while this is our 30th annual trip to WDW we are thinking about reserving one of the "back stage tours" this time around. We've done the back stage at the Magic Kingdom with access to the tunnels and we were thinking of trying the Animal Kingdom tour.

Has anyone done this tour?? What did you think? Does it really get you up close and personal with the animals?? And I read that it brings you into the vet hospital area - but what are the chances anything, even routine, would be going on?

Any words of advice is gladly accepted.

Thanks so much.

 

[corey154]

I've never done any tours but when i was at Animal Kingdom in the vet area (not the backstage part) the CM said to come in the morning b/c that's when they normally do their stuff.

 

[Prof. Aronnax]

We did this tour about 5 years ago. I would say it was definitely worth it, and no doubt about it you definitely get up close and personal with the animals. Here is just a short list of what we saw.

1. At the time a new baby rhino had just been born. "Harley" I believe its name was. At any rate, they had taken us back to the rhino pens to show us, and Harley and his mother happened to be leaning up against the fence. The tour guide offered for each of us to feel what a rhino felt like. (Heavy rubber stretched over concrete, BTW.)

2. We also entered the elephant house where they we're washing down and feeding an elephant.

3. They took us back to the holding pens where they quarantine animals coming into and leaving the Animal Kingdom. Apparantly they will loan animals to other zoos at different periods, or hold animals for other zoos as well. At the time we were there, they were holding a large male giraffe for I believe the NYC zoo. He was standing in a pen with his head over the wall. The allowed some of us to hold browse up for him to eat, at which point he dipped his head over the wall and was looking at us eye to eye from point blank range. I couldn't believe how large his features were up close.

There was a number of other things they did with us, but being as close to some of the bigger animals as we were, I was pleasantly surprised. That's certainly not to garauntee that everyone well get that close, but we certainly enjoyed our opportunity to.

BTW I have also done the AquaSeas tour at the Living Seas, 3 or 4 times. And have finally attained my PADI Open Water Diver Cert so that I can do the Dive Quest, scheduled it for next week already.

If your not afraid of water and can swim, the AquaSeas tour is definitely a better behind the scenes tour than the AK one, you do not have to be certified only be able to snorkel. Backstage you see all the prep and research facilities, the manatees and the dolphins. The final 40 minutes of the tour end with a surface only (scuba assisted) snorkel in the main aquarium. I liked it so much I did over and over again, and it was what made me decide to get my scuba cert.

 

[Spinky]

We did the Backstage Safari tour at the Animal Kingdom Last year, I have to say if your an animal lover then you should do it just for the fact you get to go back stage and see the animal closer up. We saw a Big White Rhino and it was amazing and we got to see loads to the elephants the Safari with out the story was also great because they stopped the vehicle so we could get better pictures.

I think its a great experience.

 

[amy2313]

Thank you so much for your replies. I think my only concern now is whether or not how much you see has to do with timing. When you go on the safari ride, it's all about timing; you could go around and see the lions or every great while the baboon, and the next time around you don't. I'm just afraid we reserve this and there might be very little going on back stage when we go. Like the fact you got to see "Harley" that just sounded amazing and you were so lucky there was a new born, but could it just turn out that we see many of the animals from the safari just up a little closer?