Avoiding the residents

Many riders on Kilimanjaro Safaris will have experienced pauses in the experience, during which the truck comes to a halt. Amy remembers: "When animals stand directly in the ride path, drivers simply have to stop and wait them out. Obviously, these types of delays can cause a disappointing back up for guests stuck in trucks without an exciting view." "All the vehicles stay a certain distance from one another, so when you can see the truck ahead of you stopped, you'll stop as well at a good distance. You never stack up right on top of each other. You'd usually stop because you visually saw another vehicle stopped before you'd hear a call on the radio because all kinds of things can slow you down for a few minutes." "We'd usually just wait out an animal that was in the way. The exception was an animal that was just parked right in the way and refusing to move. If it didn't get out of the way after several minutes you could call for animal services to come take care of it and they would lure it away." "We could drive pretty close to the animals so long as they didn't sit directly in the path. So most of the time we would just scoot on by and speed up or slow down a little bit here and there to avoid them."

Spotting the animals

How do Kilimanjaro Safaris drivers make sure the animals are visible in the vast landscape? "Sometimes you can't," says Amy. "The lions are notoriously difficult to spot. Transplants from a cooler environment, the big cats had a difficult time transitioning to Florida. The spot where the lions now lay is the location of an air conditioning vent."

The pros

Amy's favorite aspect of the role was commentating on the safari for guests: "I love spieling, so talking about the animals was my favorite part of working at KSR. After I memorized the basic spiel, my trainer gave me some extra fact cards that I would memorize as well so I could insert interesting little tidbits into the spiel when appropriate. Every safari is different and you never know what animals you’ll see or what they’ll be doing, so you have lots of opportunities to customize the experience for the guests."

"If you happen to hear someone close behind you talking about their favorite animal, you can try and toss in a few extra facts about it to give them a better experience. It's also great to have the opportunity to really see all the animals at their best at one point or another. Many guests have to suffer through a poor view of the lions because they like to lounge around in the cooler spots. When you make enough rounds of the safari, though, you’ll have the opportunity to see them when they’re sitting up, moving around, and looking really spectacular."

The cons

Not all aspects of the role were quite so enjoyable, however: "Animal Kingdom is probably the hottest park on property. It tends to feel much warmer there than it will in other parks because of all the lush foliage. There’s a lot of humidity down there among the dense plant life and you can really feel it. Working through a sweltering day was probably one of the least enjoyable parts of being at KSR, particularly because the attraction doesn’t have any indoor positions."

The less glamorous animals

Guests aren't only interested in spotting lions or elephants while they are on their safari: "One of the funniest things I experienced working at KSR was the particular animals that guests would react to. Many times you would be looking at a pool of hippos and hear all the guests shouting 'Look! A duck! There’s a DUCK!' We couldn’t keep them out, of course, so native wildlife like that would get in, but it was amazing to me that people would look right past the amazing creatures we have from across the world and lose their minds over the same birds you’ll see wandering absolutely everywhere in the parks." Thanks to Amy for sharing her memories with us. If you'd like to learn more about Cast Members' roles and experiences at Walt Disney World, sign up now to be notified when Creating the Magic: Life as a Disney Cast Member is released.