Disney's Animal Kingdom: The Dream Plan

And the end is here, the last post in this series of plans for the current Walt Disney World Resort parks, ending with a dream plan for the Animal Kingdom.

This follows up my plans for Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, and the first plan for Animal Kingdom posted over the last year. These are my for fun, hypothetical plans for how I would expand and improve the 4 parks of the Resort. I last published plans for these parks 3 years ago, and a lot has changed. New attractions have opened and are coming soon to the parks, and I think I have improved as a designer as well.

This is a big plan and maybe my favorite of all the ones I have done in this series because this is my favorite current park and I was able to fit in a lot of cool ideas. Animal Kingdom is a special park so I really felt the need to maintain its message and style through these additions. My goals were to add the rest of the continents if possible, add more live animal trails, make sure each land has a basis in a real setting and concept, and to fit logically fit in IP only when it serves the overall land.

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Let's start with a diagram of the new lands in the park. There are 5 new lands in this plan, doubling what is existing and now every continent (except Antarctica) is represented. As you can see, the plan maximizes the open land in the northeast of the park for most of this expansion.

And here's the plan with the labels. Definitely zoom in, there is a lot of detail.

There are only a couple elements from the previous plan that remain in this plan. We start at the front of the park, where there are less changes and work towards the all new back half.

The Discovery Island Riverboats return and now make a full one stop loop that loads at the Discovery Island dock. A large indoor section is added to the trip to add some unique sights.

A third attraction is added to Pandora, a trackless exploration dark ride through the forest in search of animals. The dark ride vehicles are ACE all-terrain jeeps that can go anywhere in the jungle to find even the most rare creatures. The queue leads into an indoor bioluminescent cave, like the one featured in Flight of Passage, where guests load and start to explore. The unique element of the trackless system is that guests can make choices along the way as to which direction they will actually go. A "nightvision" system on the jeep gives a look at what animals are ahead at a few splits in the path, and guests can chose which animals they would more like to see. The animals themselves would be a mix of practical figures and screen elements, and the climax of the attraction would be the discovery of a full size sleeping banshee in its cave, forcing us to make a quick escape before waking it up.


In this plan, Dinoland goes a different direction than the last plan. I decided to use the expansion space next to Dinoland for a brand new land, so the existing land was shrunk down to a minimum of the Boneyard, Restaurantosaurus, Dinosaur, and two small new attractions.

The first is a Dinosaur rehabilitation enclosure where guests can get up close with a couple real life dinosaurs, created as highly detailed animatronics that can interactively react to guests.

The other is a whip style spinner, the same as Alien Spinning Saucers, themed to excavation equipment. The rocky wall behind the spinner has exposed dinosaur bones forming an interesting backdrop.


The land that takes over the rest of Dinoland is Europe. This land is set in a Greek village adjacent to ancient ruins and serves as the mythical animal land of the park. The mythological history of Europe gives a lot of potential. The new land contains 3 attractions and a small counter service location. To make room for this land, the backstage dock is relocated to the space just behind Expedition Everest. That space is nearly unusable for public space because of the backside of the Everest showbuilding, so make sense to make it backstage space.

The land starts after guests take the path around Dinoland and enter the Greek village (Image 2). The left is a Mediterranean counter service restaurant with a seating courtyard, the right is retail, and straight ahead is a Greek artifact museum, which is another unique take on Mystic Manor (Image 4).

Instead of being set in a house, it is set in a museum with a huge and diverse collection of artifacts and art of Greek mythological animals. Similar to the original version of the ride, events cause the artifacts to come to life while we tour. Animals on the trip include Unicorns, Mermaids, Gryphons, a Dragon, and more.

Just past the village is the iconic sight of the land, a mountain side with a huge wrecked statue head perched near the top, with water falling from its mouth and flowing down the mountain to the river stream below (Image 3). Flume boats fall down the mountainside and splash down between a equally huge pair of crumbling statue feet. This is a Hercules themed flume dark ride along the animal based trials of Hercules, including the Hydra as the final climax before dropping down the flume. Like the use of Lion King in Africa, I think IP can work well in the lands of Animal Kingdom if the setting makes sense and if the exterior is treated with the same level of realism and detail as the rest of the park. So it is hyper-real on the exterior and animated on the inside.

The other attraction is a spinning coaster based on the story of the Ismenian Dragon which guarded a spring near Thebes and was defeated by Cadmus (Image 1). The coaster uses small cars that have controlled spin through segments of the ride. It starts with an outdoor segment but quickly moves into a substantial indoor segment of coaster track and showscenes featuring the dragon. Then there is a high speed launch that leads into a high banked turn up and over the rocky mountain side that is visible throughout the land and then concludes with a lot of banked turns through the landscape as the car is spinning.


The next change is in Asia and the space between Asia and Africa. This area is redeveloped to include a pathway north to the expansion plot and the new lands. The current Up bird show theater is removed and in its place is a Jungle Book omnimover dark ride with the classic animated characters.

The path leading north leads under a train trestle and then through a tunnel under the existing backstage road. Adjacent to this path is a new smaller theater space for animal shows that are not necessarily Asia or bird specific. The small theater could have hourly rotating shows with a closer look at various types of animals.

Also of note is that the train is expanded from being just a two stop loop with not much to see into a large 3 stop loop that winds through these new lands. It includes a unique showscene out behind the new lands that is half outside, looking into a canyon, and half inside a cave. The train seats are reconfigured to face forward like a normal train instead of facing out so guests can see both sides of the track.


The first new land to the north is North America. After passing through the tunnel, the path opens up into a Redwood Forest style setting with a large wooden National Park style lodge ahead and the train running along an elevated trestle to the right through the woods. The path first goes past a log cabin counter service location and along a stream.

Just past that is the entrance to the animal trail for the land. I am unsure if in reality there will ever be any more animal trails built, but I felt the need to include it. The Red Creek Trail winds through the forest, first passing a raccoon habitat, then going through a bird enclosure, followed by environments for elk, beavers, and foxes. The feature animal of the trail are bears, who have a very large habitat to look into (Image 1). The trail then concludes with otters before exiting back to the land.

Inside the main Lodge building is the majority of the retail for the land and the main attraction, a balloon simulator that flies guests through the wonders of many National Parks (Image 3). Guests fly over a variety of settings including canyons, deserts, forests, and mountain ranges (Image 2). Native animals are featured elements in many of the settings. This is a ride system that I detailed in a post earlier this year.

The last attraction of this land is a Pocohantas boat dark ride. Guests ride in 8 person canoe boats down the river and around the bend into the story of the movie. Animals and our connection with nature are featured elements of the story.


Past that last attraction and through a section of transition forest is a split to two more lands, South America to the left and Australia to the right. Straight ahead is a transition attraction, a large treehouse, that in a way occupies all 3 of these lands. The treehouse looks over this northern expansion and is themed to the Society of Explorers and Adventurers who have explored all these locations.


Australia is the smallest of the new lands and also does not have an IP tie in. Finding Nemo would have been the only real choice but this is meant to exists at the same time as the dream plan with IP from EPCOT and Finding Nemo is already well represented there. Through the transition jungle, we enter into a rustic Village with a train station that is the second stop on the enlarged loop (Image 1 and 4).

The animal trail is entered through the village and leads under the railroad to the forest on the other side of the tracks. It starts with Koalas and then Emus before entering a large reptile and bug house, showing many of the exotic and dangerous animals of the continent. The main animal of the trail is kangaroos, which have a large habitat that takes up most of this trail. It concludes with Sugargliders and Tiger Quolls, then leading back to the village.

At the end of the village street is small gorge with a stream running down from it and forming a small river that runs through the land (Image 2). A dock and a large boat sit next to this stream, marking the entrance to the main attraction for the land, a submersible boat trip down the river and to the great barrier reef (Image 3). This is a dry for wet suspended dark ride, like 20,000 Leagues in Tokyo Disney Sea, that simulates a trip underwater. The queue takes us through a research aquarium before we load into our boats. On the trip, we start by seeing freshwater fish before exploring the open ocean, created with a mix of real coral reef sets, animatronic fish, and projections.


The third and largest land of this expansion is South America and has two areas, a village on the west side of the land and an abandoned factory city on the east side, based on Fordlandia, a real abandoned rubber processing city in Brazil.

From the split in the path by the treehouse and North America, the first attraction on the left is marked by Carl Fredricksen's house sitting in the jungle. The attraction is a "trackless" suspended dark ride that tours guests through the jungle, led by the Wildernes Explorers. Next to the area with the house is a huge waterfall and lagoon that connects into the small river. The village area is nearby and includes retail and a table service Brazilian restaurant. 

Across the river is the animal trail for the land, the third and final new one for the park. This includes the most amount of animals in any of the new trails. It starts with Holwer Monkeys and Capybaras before entering a frog and reptile house. After that is a bird enclosure that also features owls. Then guests pass Llamas and Sloths before the main animal habitat for Jaguars. 

A path through the jungle leads to the other half of the land with a tall rusting water tower leading guests towards it. The factory town has been reclaimed by an environmental group that tracks endangered animals in the region. This area includes a counter service restaurant that overlooks the river and one large attraction that begins in the abandoned factory building. 

The ride uses the Radiator Springs/Test Track ride system to create a high speed jeep exploration through the jungle, searching for an animal that has gone missing. The first half is indoors with a lot of showscenes and animatronic animals, and the second half is a outdoors, starting with a launch and then running through the jungle below the path above. 

The last changed area in this plan is a reimagining of Rafiki's Planet Watch as the city of Zootopia. The path from South America leads into Bunny Burrow, a suburb area of Zootopia where there is also a train station. The path leads past a couple local produce stands and a Bunny Burrow themed carousel on the way to the main city. Guests enter the Zootopia central Train Station, where there is a large retail space and then pass into the central plaza of the city. Straight ahead is the Zootopia Police Department where the main attraction is, to the left is a counter service restaurant, and to the right is the Hospital, which is the existing animal care building, rethemed to be in story for the city.

The attraction is an indoor family coaster dark ride where guests join a ride along with ZPD for a trip through the different districts of Zootopia.

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And that completes my ideas for this dream plan for Animal Kingdom. I really love this park a lot, so I was really excited to put some ideas together to add to it. I hope that the additions would be able to expand the style and message of the park while increasing the diversity of animals and experiences.

Like I said, this concludes the series of new plans for the Walt Disney World parks. I am not sure what is next, but I'll be sticking with the one post a month plan, so come back in July to see what I end up making. Before then, I will probably do a wrap up summary post of this series to look at the overall plan, but that will be a bonus post in the next few weeks. 

Thanks for reading!

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Image Credits

Europe
1. https://akhsmonsters2b.wikispaces.com/Drakon+Shrishail
2. https://www.flickr.com/photos/mmm-yoso/16654103659/
3. Hercules
4. https://www.flickr.com/photos/andyhay/28226806320/

North America
1. https://www.flickr.com/photos/blacktigersdream/26126991224/
2. https://www.flickr.com/photos/anitagould/8433712377/
3. https://www.flickr.com/photos/mike_miley/5943734608/
4. https://www.flickr.com/photos/kjmagnuson/35003863925/

Australia
1. https://www.flickr.com/photos/gouldy/5384257558/
2. https://www.flickr.com/photos/28127145@N06/2901147552/
3. https://www.flickr.com/photos/farbenfrohewunderwelt/8030811530/
4. https://www.flickr.com/photos/paulcarmona/13689150105/

South America
1. https://www.flickr.com/photos/duda_arraes/8237251935/
2. https://www.flickr.com/photos/dagget2/11595715453/
3. https://www.flickr.com/photos/guido_otero/3960059797/
4. https://www.flickr.com/photos/tucotuti/34373719685/