8. Living village

What we learned from Rohde: "Our little town of Harambe has gotten bigger over the years. Now it’s nearly the size of a real African town. It has a few neighborhoods. Over by the theater in the old fort is kind of the Arts district. Then there the Main Street. Then there’s the market street over by the train tracks. The vibes are pretty distinct. It’s not like we had this plan at the beginning. But as challenges or opportunities arise you have to engage them using what you have. The Market street was really just a way to add dining.

The Festival of the Lion King show used to be in a land we totally got rid off, Camp Minnie-Mickey. It was still super popular and it went better in Africa anyway, so we added it. Any of these assignments could be done to the letter of the law with no deeper consideration and the same functions would exist without any added cache, but why do that? It’s going to take the same amount of time and cost the same amount of money. So why not line up and organize your thinking before you begin work, so that the end result is more powerful than just adding another thing.

None of our designs are as simple as the execution of some ancient plan from 1991. They are a blend of creative intention and practical realities. Intentionally not change, but reality changes every day… As we see right now."

9. Thoughtful tourism

In broaching the sensative subjects of conversation and culture, even Animal Kingdom's "ficiton, but not fantasy" recreations like Harambe still must contend with the real geopolitical happenings of the real world. Colonialism – the practice of occupying, controlling, and exploiting other countries – isn't just a historical menace... it's a very real practice in the world today. How can we – visitors to Central Florida – see ourselves in Africa or Asia with a positive, productive role to play in aligning with the park's theme?

What we learned from Rohde: "We are going on Safari. We are not going into the wilds of Africa (colonialist concept [by the way]) but into Harambe Wildlife Reserve, a presumptive government entity. We are clients of a commercial entity Kilimanjaro Safaris...I mean, the attraction marquee is just a billboard at the edge of town.

Now, here’s why that’s all relevant. In such a palpably commercial place, where people are clearly striving to get ahead, what is the value of elephants vs elephant ivory and rhinos vs rhino horn? This is what wildlife conservation is… A value equation. And the value at Disney’s Animal Kingdom is The Intrinsic Value of Nature as supreme and untradeable. However subtle and nuanced, that is conflict, which drives narrative."

10. Staggering Safari

There's not just a hefty conceptual lean to Kilimajaro Safaris; there's a logistical one, too. In fact, in creating the park's opening day anchor attraction, Kilimanjaro Safaris, Imagineers balanced immense scale, realism, pacing, efficiency, and experience...

What we learned from Rohde: "The Safari alone is bigger than the guest circulation area of the park. This may be obvious, but Kilimanjaro Safaris is laid out just like any theme park ride, just on a bigger scale. The ride path curves back and forth not unlike the ride path of Pirates of the Caribbean, and the land rises and falls gently but enough to block the view of how many vehicles are really out there. So there are scenes, just like in a ride.

The vehicles we use are reminiscent of South African vehicles serving the lodges at Krueger National Park. A real Safari is so much more than we can offer, in time and scale. This, like the rest, is a fictional representation. But it’s a pretty good visual approximation.

There are real Safaris you can take where it’s just you and your private driver. But the middle class version of Safari in Africa can involve pretty big crowds...and unlike a theme park...nobody manages throughput. There could be upwards of fifty cars surrounding a cheetah and her cubs. So, after our first trip we knew we could beat that kind of crowding just by having a dispatch interval."

11. Stop and see

What we learned from Rohde: "Gorilla Falls Nature Trail is a pedestrian experience into the jungles adjacent to our wildlife reserve. On a real safari in Africa [...] you have the opportunity to stop and look as long as you want. We can’t offer that to thousands of guests on a safari that is actually a theme park ride. So we have a nature walk which allows you to see small creatures, and allows you to take your time.

It features a family of lowland gorillas, which are sexy and impressive, yes, but I don’t know how often you’re ever going to get a chance to see an African Weaverbird make a nest, or ever see a naked mole rat, or a jacana. Because there is no ride system, people often undervalue these experiences… But, at a place like Disney’s Animal Kingdom, where the best rewards come from slowing down and observing closely, the nature walks are some of the highest value for the investment that you can get.

Data from zoos suggest that people spend an average of 30 seconds looking at an animal exhibit. That’s really not enough time. If you wait for mother nature, she will put on a show. But you have to wait."

12. Harmonious cohabitation

Crossing another bridge to the park's Asia, guests encounter a very different world. And though you may not have recognized it before, there's a brilliant thematic differentiation between the relationship of people and animals in Asia compared to Africa...

What we learned from Rohde: "Africa is meant to show a strong contrast between where the humans are and where the animals are. In Asia there is no such place. Animals are everywhere and humans are everywhere and they have lived together in some kind of not-always-harmonious balance for a very long time.

Some of this is due to spiritual and religious ideas about non-violence, and so our Asia features a lot of representation of shrines and ritual structures. We also try to keep these from being overly specific...A bit like the real country of Nepal where it’s sometimes very hard to tell if something is Hindu or Buddhist. As with Africa, we are not depicting famous places, nor particularly urban places. These are more rural traditional places, out at the edge, where the world of animals and people come together most vividly."

13. Cultivated kingdom

What we learned from Rohde: "At Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Asia really means South Asia and Southeast Asia… Where are you find tigers. We try not to use geopolitical boundaries because those aren’t relevant to animals. So our Asia is where you might go if you expected to see Tigers.

We have styled the entire thing as The Kingdom of Anandapur. It’s something like India something like Nepal and something like parts of Indonesia. As with Africa, we want everyone to have a sense of going on an adventure, so even if you were from India, you walk around here going “I haven’t been to this part of the country”…"

14. Native narrative

What we learned from Rohde: "It’s important to remember that all of these lands are fictional. And because they are fictional, they have been edited and focused in an artificial way. Our Africa is deliberately hyper-commercial. Our Asia is focused on the harmony and disharmony of use of space. Habitat competition vs accommodation.

The tigers live in an abandoned hunting lodge. The white water raft trip goes through an illegally logged Forest. The train in Expedition Everest cuts through a forbidden part of the mountains. The Gibbons and Siamangs live right in the middle of town amidst ruins under restoration. This is a bit of design hyperbole, but it’s meant to indicate this idea of humans and animals living cheek by jowl in the same spaces. In the real south and Southeast Asia, leopards live under your porch, monkeys steal food out of your kitchen, swallows make nests in the ceiling of your shop."

15. Shrine of the bronze yeti

What we learned from Rohde: "I think most fans of the park are aware of the other peculiarity in this area, which is the shrine associated with Expedition Everest. This shrine, which is also a composite of styles mimics the silhouette of the mountains and holds a statue of the yeti as a protector spirit. This protector spirit motif is pretty consistent across a huge area. It’s usually a fierce looking being striding sideways, with one arm raised and one extended downwards, sometime holding ritual items or with an open palm. In our case the upraised arm of the yeti is holding the mountain itself.

We adopted this motif for the yeti statues because the yeti is perceived in some oral traditions as exactly this kind of protector spirit. There are no real yeti in this pose because of the concept of an avatar. When the yeti is acting as a defender of sacred places it is an avatar of one of the divine protectors of the four directions. They look human. So we worked with Nepalese artists to create a fusion of the two ideas, the actual yeti and the yeti as divine protector. Bronze casters in Kathmandu made the statues."