Disney’s Animal Kingdom Was a Mistake

[UNCgolf]

While I firmly believe Disney needed a 4th park I absolutely agree that AK wasn’t the answer. Personally, I believe the 4th park should have been more of a Worlds Fair type atmosphere with continual rotation of everything new and exciting in entertainment and attractions. This would give Disney an edge of always having a reason to be on the forefront of innovation.

You're describing EPCOT as originally built.

 

[CLEtoWDW]

You're describing EPCOT as originally built.

I’m describing the original plan for EPCOT. I think we can all agree that EPCOT today is a far cry from its original intentions. And that ok.. I love EPCOT. It’s my favorite park actually.

 

[UNCgolf]

I’m describing the original plan for EPCOT. I think we can all agree that EPCOT today is a far cry from its original intentions. And that ok.. I love EPCOT. It’s my favorite park actually.

Indeed. It's my favorite park too, or at least it was -- it was far and away the best theme park to ever exist in its original incarnation.

I just meant they obviously weren't going to build another park like EPCOT after they gave up on the first one.

 

[TokyoMiki]

I believe the 4th park should have been more of a Worlds Fair type atmosphere with continual rotation

I hate it. Such approach effectively guarantees low budget throw away temporary offerings.

I don't want a tent or makeshift covering; I want an elaborate permanent structure appropriate for the immediate environment in which it sits.

I don't want carnival grade rides that can readily dismantle to make room for the next one in 6 months. I want groundbreaking, backed with sufficient budget, permanent(or semi permanent) rides that are done so well they can pull us into the parks

 

[Raineman]

Gave us a grand lagoon entrance by monorail or boat, the only running peoplemover, COP, Astro Orbitor on top, CBJ, hall of presidents, Swiss family treehouse, etc.

It's OK, it was just a joke-MK is my favourite park by far.

 

[GrumpyDude]

AK is my least favorite park but I do enjoy visiting it. Even with the addition of Pandora, I still treat it as a half day park. We know the attractions that we want to ride and we take our time getting to them. All of our dinner reservations are in other parks, so we are ready to leave in the afternoon to take a load off for a few hours before going to other parks.

I think that AK was needed at the time to take some of the pressure off of the other parks. I disagree with the concept of azuh because of the quantity of animals that are available for viewing can be seen in an hour at a real zoo. That being said, I like the mix of ride attractions along with the sections of the park dedicated to animals. We would still go at least once a trip but one visit covers everything for us.

 

[Giss Neric]

AK is the perfect park if you love exploring (well aside from Wilderness Explorers). I love all the nooks and crannies all over the park. There is always something interesting in them and you can tell every detail was thought off.

I am the type who looks for hidden mickeys all the time so...

 

[NickMaio]

I recently posted an article on my blog explaining why I think Disney's 4th park was a mistake:

"Disney opened its fourth theme park in Florida in 1998 to mixed reviews and confusion regarding what the heck Animal Kingdom was supposed to be. Marketing for the newest addition to Walt Disney World insisted that whatever it was, the park was “nahtazu”. What’s that? It’s an attempt to make the phrase “not a zoo” seem like an African word. (Yeah, it hasn’t aged well.) But here’s the thing. When it opened, Animal Kingdom was totally a zoo. It was a beautifully themed zoo with two Disney-caliber rides, but the primary draw was the animal exhibits making Animal Kingdom “azu”, I mean, a zoo.

Few would argue that mistakes were made with the opening of Animal Kingdom. For at least a decade, it was stuck with the dreaded label of a “half day park”. Since the park opened, Disney has slowly addressed those concerns. As it exists today, Animal Kingdom is arguably a full day experience and worthy of being included in Walt Disney World Resort. Even so, I think it was a mistake."



At a high level, I argue the following points

1. WDW didn't really need a 4th park
2. If you were going to build a 4th park, a zoo wasn't the way to go

I also discuss some of the more common "mistakes" like opening the park with only two rides and miscalculating the expense and difficulty of dealing with live animals.

I can't imagine anyone here will feel otherwise.

Many Disney Parks have opened with 2-3 rides.
Quite interesting that people still packed the places once opened.......and paid top dollar to do so.
MGM studios anyone?

 

[lebeau]

Looks like some people have already not bothered to read or understand your points. Consider me shocked.

I don't think AK was a mistake or bad idea on paper. The problem was that everything they did for the park was done with about 70-80% effort and not going that extra mile to deliver on ideas like the Rapids, or only having 1 AA each on Everest and Navi River Journey really hurt the park because of it's limited attraction menu.

Someone gets it!

The point was never "Animal Kingdom bad". I like Animal Kingdom. I wouldn't wish it away.

The point (which is obscured by the admittedly click-baity title) is that at the time AK was built, mistakes were made. Was a fourth park the best use of resources? Probably not. In retrospect, the zoologicial elements haven't worked out as successfully as intended. If you are going to add another gate, maybe pick a different theme. For decades, it was haunted by cuts because budgets ran over and/or were cut.

I am actually pleasantly surprised to see several pages of what looks like polite conversation though. I was expecting to be put on blast for this.

 

[lebeau]

I did you the courtesy of reading your full thoughts on your blog so I quoted that here.

Nice piece, btw. You hit the mark about WDW taking two decades to turn their park into a full day park. (Longer than it took permanently cash strapped Walt to go from Snow White to Disneyland!) And also about the general mess WDW turned itself into. Its sprawl is an unforgivable error that will never be corrected anymore.

1 Was DAK to blame? Currently. DAK feels like the last retreat from stressful WDW. It would be ironic if DAK, which feels like a temporary breath of fresh air, were indeed a very cause of the stressful, ugly, sprawling WDW. But I think that argument is thinly stretched. Bad planning would not have been prevented with a tighter build WDW built out over three parks.

2 I love DAK as a zoo. My animal experiences are the heart of my DAK days. I am proud to say that I have yet to spend a day at DAK without doing the safari! I would visit this park with E:E, Dinosaur, FoP closed, but not with a closed Trek, Trail and Oasis.
Well animals, and DAK's design, which endlessly enthralls me. The one park that does not address me as a five year old, and a dumb one at that.

Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts! Excellent points and I find myself largely in agreement with you.

 

[lebeau]

I've just read the OP's full blog post (which I highly recommend doing), and I think it's correct about quite a lot.

I agree that it would've been better to spend more on transportation infrastructure before building a fourth park, so WDW wouldn't end up with such a disorganized "urban sprawl" problem.

However: DAK's use of space to spread out the different lands and walkways is something extraordinary that Disney could not have accomplished by simply adding to the existing three parks. DAK also has consistently detailed/immersive theming, as a result of the commitment thereto since its inception.

On the other hand, most important issue that the blog post brought up is: Was a park with live animals the way to go? I don't think it was. (a) The money the spent on live animals could have allowed for multiple spectacular e-tickets that would have made it a full-day park even with the initially-allotted budged. (b) The issue of keeping wild animals in captivity is contentious, and will continue to grow more so. (c) The animals themselves might be the least special part of DAK; that is, you can see animals at your local zoo, while the immersion that makes DAK special is actually what they didn't do enough of because of the cost of the animals.

In sum, I think: The addition of a park with DAK's design/quality was a great decision, but the inclusion of live animals was probably a net negative.

Thanks for the read and recommendation. You are definitely right that Animal Kingdom could not have been squeezed into an existing park. On my first visit, DAK was my favorite park due to the level of immersion. They needed a big footprint to achieve that.

 

[lebeau]

Mgm studios only had 2 rides when it opened......
Seems to be the wdw way.

In a future article (if I get around to writing it) I plan to argue that MGM was a mistake too. That case is admittedly a little harder to make.

 

[lebeau]

correct, a 4th was not needed provided that mk, epcot, studios would have been expanded to the same level as if there were 4 parks.

as for your 2nd point if not animals then what theme would have been more appropriate? exploration(like disney sea)?

In retrospect, park themes have kind of lost their meaning in the 21st century haven't they? It's all just squeezing IP in everywhere. It could still be animals with less of a focus on live animals/zoological exhibits. Or it could be something completely different. Point being that Disney bought off more than they could chew with their ambitious plans for showcasing live animals. In the intervening years, the balance has skewed towards traditional theme park attractions as rides have been added and animals if anything have been removed or de-emphasized.

 

[lebeau]

The great thing about mistakes is that they can often be corrected. In this case, your "mistake" has, over the decades, been turned into millions of people's favorite theme park in the world, and ranks high on the list for millions of others.

I don't fault you for your controversial stance and blog entry, though. On the contrary, I love to read differing perspectives and opinions. A little heated debate and controversy is healthy for a community as large and diverse as the Disney Parks one.

Yes, I'm guilty of courting controversy for clicks on this one. I do think I made the point that many of the park's initial mistakes have been corrected over time. This is less about DAK as it exists today than the decisions that were made at the time of its development.

 

[lebeau]

I think this ignores that having animals was a way to beat back Busch Gardens Tampa and Seaworld. A vacationer with an animal crazy family member could give them a taste of that at AKL. Honestly Disney made something that was very unique and has not been replicated. Only thing I will agree with is it needed more ride when it first opened and it still should have done something on the river.

That's specifically addressed within the article.

 

[lebeau]

Am I the only one who noticed that this thread was started on April Fool’s Day???

Well done, OP!

I honestly can't remember if that was intentional or not but I will take credit anyway.

 

[lebeau]

Well I'm sure he got a lot of clicks for his blog and website that he linked. Click-baited everyone since there was already a thread talking about the same thing.

Not really. I get a lot more traffic for my coverage of movies and entertainers.

Sorry if I missed a similar thread. Consider me chastened.

 

[Wendy Pleakley]

At the end of the day, Disney wanted a fourth park because it makes people stay longer.

They could imitate California and pack all of WDWs attractions into two parks. The number of attractions across WDWs 4 parks are comparable to DLRs 2.

Indiana Jones Adventure in the MK won't make people add a fourth day to their visit, but Dinosaur in AK will.

 

[lebeau]

I love the way you end your post by acknowledging that there will be some strong opinions on this subject. This thread, like all the others, doesn't need another opinion (see what I did there?) but here's mine anyway. Great blog post, BTW. You should link to it in the OP. I had to dig through the thread to find it.

I agree with most of your arguments. DAK was undeniably a half-day park, at least until Pandora was completed. And that's based purely on what I've heard from others, as I haven't even been since then. Putting it another way: on my last trip, a 7-day trip, we hit each of the parks twice -- except DAK. So if the other 3 parks are 2-day parks, DAK was a 1-day park.

A mistake? At the time, yeah. I think they definitely could have spent that money in 100 much better ways. Pumping it into existing parks (EPCOT anyone?) for one thing. Keeping those parks up to date and clean would have made us old-timers happy, but it wouldn't have done much to keep fickle guests from veering off to Tampa or Universal.

But let's be honest: it's just one of a thousand mistakes that have been made by the bean counters and execs since the Eisner days. However, in the end, I think it's endeared itself to me and many others, and earned its place. It has a charm and a vibe that you don't get at the other parks. I am always impressed by the cast members there who work in the animal exhibits. It's very clear they really know their stuff and really care about the work they do.

I'll finish with a hypothetical: Imagine if that Bengal tiger went berserk and ripped the flesh from the bigwigs at Joe Rhode's meeting. Where would we be now?
Would EPCOT not be a demolition site from a 1980s shopping mall?

Thanks for reading and for pointing out I forgot to post a link! That was an oversight!

Here I am accused of trolling for clicks and I forgot to commit the actual crime.

 

[lebeau]

View attachment 548309

I have an idea for that although it's a stretch...