Tuesday May 7th 2024

My plan was to go to Disney’s Animal Kingdom this morning, but I got a late start to the day. Animal Kingdom is always better early or late in the day. The animals are more active during those times of day. Today was also a very warm day. The temperature peaked just above ninety degrees. The weather pattern is still not a true summer pattern, so the coastal wind patterns were not available to keep the conditions mitigated.

Since the Animal Kingdom was scheduled to close at 6PM, a late afternoon visit wasn’t in the cards. I arrived at the park around 2PM. It wasn’t very busy. The wait for the Kilimanjaro Safari was listed at 5 minutes, but was essentially a walk on. They were only loading from on of the two truck loading platforms. Many of the animals were as expected sleeping in the shade. Others were probably back stage in their air conditioned enclosures. Still, plenty of animals were available to entertain including the baby elephant.

After riding the safari, I walked the Gorilla trail. The zebras and hippopotamus were all in view. The gorilla family had just returned outside from an afternoon nap in their air conditioned home. They were very energetic. The little ones were trying to harass their elders into playing without a lot of success.

I consider the safari and the gorilla trail the heart of the Animal Kingdom park. Once I completed touring those exhibits I considered my visit to the park a success. Today I walked around other areas of the park, but I started to feel the temperature. There aren’t a lot of air conditioned areas in the park that aren’t gift shops or restaurants. To get relief from the heat, people were huddling in the shade and in dark corners all over the park. I decided it wasn’t worth the heat to continue wandering around the park during the heat of the day and returned home a little earlier than planned.