This is least favorite area of Disney's Animal
Kingdom. The carnival atmosphere of the Hester & Chesters Din-o-rama
area really gets on my nerves and seems to play right into most
critics opinions of Disney over the past few years. For those of
you West geeks, thing the takcyness of Paradise Pier without Screamin'.
If you want a great hot dog I recommend Restaurantosaurus, yes
serves McDonalds food, but its a great place and eat dinning room
is a little different, feel free to explore.
Everyone says to ride Countdown to Extinction early in the day.
With FastPass and with the park emptying out by mid-afternoon most days I think
its fairly easy to get on this ride without a long wait.
In 2006 the Theater in the Wild was completely renovated and
enclosed. So now the show has air conditioning and control over the lighting. This was a great inmprovement in the venu. In December 2006 we were able to visit and see one of the early shows of the Finding Nemo Musical. Here were my initial thoughts from the show (taken from my trip report from 12/06):
- The Finding Nemo Musical at Animal Kingdom appears to be another crowd attractor for the park. We showed up over an half hour before the show and the line stretched from the theater, down into Dinoland. I would think most of those people got in but the line was long and probably god longer. We went to the second showing and lined up about half an hour before show time and were at the very entrance to Dinoland, we got in with no problem. So if you see the long line don't be too scared, the theater does hold quite a few guests, but as word spread the line may grow even longer faster...
- I found the this show to be pretty good by Theme park standards. I thought the sets, lighting, puppets, actors/actresses all were great and did a first class job. I even thought the use of puppets and live actors worked amazingly well. But something with the show did not sit well with me. After pondering it most of the day I think it boils down to the music just was not engaging. The Festival of the Lion King is so energetic and compelling that you are immersed and energized. Here you are immersed in the undersea world but not really compelled to stay or have fun, or at least I was not. Also I think the repeatability of this show is really limited. If you are like me and do not find the music too inspiring there is little purpose to watch it again and again. Where as the Lion King always has such great performances and even Aladdin at Disney's California Adventure has the Genie's adlibs to bring you back.
|
disneygeek.com
