AuroraRose22
Figment of my Imagination
- Joined
- Apr 27, 2005
Disney Day Two: Thursday, September 14, 2017, Part Two
My trek back to Animal Kingdom was uneventful. I left the room at about 3:30 and made it to the park by about 4:00. This left about forty five minutes to wander around and check out the stores and sights before heading to check in for the Savor the Savanna tour around 4:45.
I had known I wanted to do a tour this trip, and since most of my family and friends are more of the ‘I don’t want to have to see an animal unless it’s animatronic’ variety, I figured Animal Kingdom would be the way to go solo.
I had looked into the Wild Africa Trek, but I’m not a big fan of heights, or rickety rope bridges, or pits of crocodiles, whereas a nice, safe truck sounded like a much better idea, where the food at the end would be a treat and not a ‘congratulations on not falling in and injuring a hippo!’ consolation prize.
As it turns out, that tour ended up being one of my favorite experiences of any Disney trip, period.
They take you along a similar route that the Kilimanjaro Safaris travels, but in a smaller truck with bench seating on the sides. They provide binoculars and there’s a tour guide right in the back with you while someone else drives. The tour guide provides all sorts of interesting information as you go along.
(You have no idea how excited I was to get this picture of an okapi. I've been fascinated by them since the first time I saw one. I've bought a stuffed one. But I've never gotten a halfway decent photo of one. They always seem to be hiding when I've gone on the ride.)
Once we got to the area with the giraffes and antelope are, they stopped the truck and let us stand up and take photos and look around. Then a caretaker drove up in another truck and chatted with us for a while.
It was all fascinating, particularly since we could ask any questions we wanted. There was a lot of curiosity about how the hurricane was handled with all the animals. I was surprised to learn that a lot of the animals were allowed to stay outside if they wanted to. They all have buildings nearby hidden by Disney magic, but the trainer explained that they have a tendency to get nervous and skittish if they are trapped inside for too long. Even some of the birds stayed outside.
As we listened, we had a view of three baby giraffes. They were just getting tall enough to finally reach the feeders in the trees which meant they didn’t have to take them in as much to feed them. They couldn’t lower the feeders since the long horned antelope had figured out how to use his horns to knock over the feeders and some of the things in there for the giraffes would be harmful to him.
They explained how they train the animals to come in when it’s their time. Some of the animals share habitats, such as the wild dogs and hyenas. One is nocturnal and the other active during the day so they alternate them. The animals are trained to respond to a specific sound that is particular to their species so they know when they need to go inside.
One of my favorite little facts was that the trainers find the zebras to be much more difficult to work with than they generally expected to. They said they are ‘sassy’, and ‘a pain in the butt’, and like to give their caretakers a hard time. Somehow the idea that zebras cause trouble just for fun is kind of adorable to me. I have no idea why.
After we wrapped up with our guest, we continued on to the boma out in the middle of the savanna area. It’s a raised up, round, open-sided, roofed area, with a few tables, a couple restrooms, a bar, and a viewing area where you could see the giraffes and elephants, and if you walked down an extended walkway towards the back, the lions were visible.
Each group had their own table set up. I had a table all to myself. There were three other couples, so a comfortably small group of seven guests, our tour guide, and two other cast members.
I think this is the kind of tour where a lot of the success will depend on the other people involved. The cast members were all wonderful, friendly and chatty without being overbearing or distracting. The other guests were friendly but not overly invasive, and had interesting, thoughtful questions. I can see how one loud or obnoxious guest could made for a vastly difference experience in such close quarters, but in my experience, it was wonderful.
I’ll give you my impression of the food, which I very much enjoyed, but I need you to remember two things:
1. I’m not what you would consider a ‘foodie.’ My idea of exotic is putting sweet and sour sauce on my chicken instead of honey mustard or barbecue. So when I say I was impressed, I mean it tasted delicious to me, so I take no responsibility if someone tries it and complains that the chicken curry salad didn’t taste remotely authentic.
2. I didn’t take notes as well as I should have on what the individual items were. I’m sure there’s probably someone out there with a better explanation of the food, but hopefully at least the pictures will give you an idea of what is all was.
With that disclaimer out of the way: Behold!
The first course was bread and an oil based dipping sauce. It came in an adorable round tin container. The bread was nice and soft and light, even the flat bread. The oil, however, tasted like someone poured some olive oil over a bunch of twigs and grass and let it sit in the sun for a few hours. I stuck to the bread and figured I would save the oil in case the truck needed work on the way back to base.
There was also a container with different types of nuts. I don’t remember what they said they were but it was basically a glorified version of a honey roast. A delicious, sweet honey roast. I pulled out the peanuts and cashews and just ate those, because while I am not allergic to nuts, certain types such as walnuts do not always settle well for me.
Next up was another round tin, this one a double decker, with one level holding tandoori shrimp, a salmon roll on a sort of cucumber slaw, and hummus with bread.
The tandoori shrimp was good, they described it as the African version of barbecue. Not really an accurate representation of taste, but good nonetheless.
The cucumber slaw with the salmon roll was amazing, but I get unnaturally excited by any restaurant in Disney that has an option of cucumber salad for a side, so this was right up my alley.
The salmon roll itself was good, but it kept reminding me of something else that I couldn’t quite place and it was driving me mad. I’ve never actually had salmon before, and I wasn’t sure what it was supposed to taste like, so I had nothing to compare it to. (I know, I’m not a huge fish fan and usually stick to cod or haddock.)
It would take another couple days before I would figure out what that taste was, and to this day I’m not sure if it was me, the fish, or it actually does taste that way. You’ll have to wait to see what I thought it tasted like, and whatever you’re thinking, it probably isn’t that. (Or maybe it is. Maybe it really is supposed to taste that way? I’m so confused…)
The other level in the tin had another three dishes, chicken curry salad, a fruit salad, and some kind of meat that I’ve since forgotten what it was.
I didn’t really expect to like the chicken curry salad that much since I’m not huge on curry, but it had an added sweetness to it that really added to the taste.
The fruit salad was a perfect light addition.
The meat...eh.
I think it was just too fancy for me. It was too thick and too chewy.
Dessert was a ‘deconstructed smore’ dessert, again in it’s own tiny tin, which ended up being my least favorite part of the meal. The ‘marshmallow’ on top is actually meringue, the chocolate ganache in the middle was cold and dense, and the graham cracker crumble was fine but not outstanding.
The view was half the attraction. The giraffes could get relatively close, and we could watch the trucks from the Safari ride from a distance. The elephants were farther away, but there was an absolutely precious baby elephant in easy gazing distance. Heading down to the lion area, there were two lionesses and one male lion out.
I was excited to be able to take photos without having to fight a moving truck.
Once we finished there, we loaded back onto the truck and headed out to finish up the rest of the tour, making one more stop near the cheetah area. At this point, it started drizzling, and then absolutely pouring. Fortunately, our guide had ponchos for us.
Depending on your outlook, I either got a free poncho, or the most expensive poncho known to man out of that tour.
The tour finished right outside of Kilimanjaro Safaris. At this point, I figured there was no point in waiting to see Rivers of Light as I had intended initially. So I made my way out of the park in the heaviest rain I’ve seen in Disney in a while. I don’t know if it was remnants from the hurricane of a couple days ago, but considering the weather and the fact it had already been a full day, I decided to just head back to the room and call it a night.
My trek back to Animal Kingdom was uneventful. I left the room at about 3:30 and made it to the park by about 4:00. This left about forty five minutes to wander around and check out the stores and sights before heading to check in for the Savor the Savanna tour around 4:45.
I had known I wanted to do a tour this trip, and since most of my family and friends are more of the ‘I don’t want to have to see an animal unless it’s animatronic’ variety, I figured Animal Kingdom would be the way to go solo.
I had looked into the Wild Africa Trek, but I’m not a big fan of heights, or rickety rope bridges, or pits of crocodiles, whereas a nice, safe truck sounded like a much better idea, where the food at the end would be a treat and not a ‘congratulations on not falling in and injuring a hippo!’ consolation prize.
As it turns out, that tour ended up being one of my favorite experiences of any Disney trip, period.
They take you along a similar route that the Kilimanjaro Safaris travels, but in a smaller truck with bench seating on the sides. They provide binoculars and there’s a tour guide right in the back with you while someone else drives. The tour guide provides all sorts of interesting information as you go along.
(You have no idea how excited I was to get this picture of an okapi. I've been fascinated by them since the first time I saw one. I've bought a stuffed one. But I've never gotten a halfway decent photo of one. They always seem to be hiding when I've gone on the ride.)
Once we got to the area with the giraffes and antelope are, they stopped the truck and let us stand up and take photos and look around. Then a caretaker drove up in another truck and chatted with us for a while.
It was all fascinating, particularly since we could ask any questions we wanted. There was a lot of curiosity about how the hurricane was handled with all the animals. I was surprised to learn that a lot of the animals were allowed to stay outside if they wanted to. They all have buildings nearby hidden by Disney magic, but the trainer explained that they have a tendency to get nervous and skittish if they are trapped inside for too long. Even some of the birds stayed outside.
As we listened, we had a view of three baby giraffes. They were just getting tall enough to finally reach the feeders in the trees which meant they didn’t have to take them in as much to feed them. They couldn’t lower the feeders since the long horned antelope had figured out how to use his horns to knock over the feeders and some of the things in there for the giraffes would be harmful to him.
They explained how they train the animals to come in when it’s their time. Some of the animals share habitats, such as the wild dogs and hyenas. One is nocturnal and the other active during the day so they alternate them. The animals are trained to respond to a specific sound that is particular to their species so they know when they need to go inside.
One of my favorite little facts was that the trainers find the zebras to be much more difficult to work with than they generally expected to. They said they are ‘sassy’, and ‘a pain in the butt’, and like to give their caretakers a hard time. Somehow the idea that zebras cause trouble just for fun is kind of adorable to me. I have no idea why.
After we wrapped up with our guest, we continued on to the boma out in the middle of the savanna area. It’s a raised up, round, open-sided, roofed area, with a few tables, a couple restrooms, a bar, and a viewing area where you could see the giraffes and elephants, and if you walked down an extended walkway towards the back, the lions were visible.
Each group had their own table set up. I had a table all to myself. There were three other couples, so a comfortably small group of seven guests, our tour guide, and two other cast members.
I think this is the kind of tour where a lot of the success will depend on the other people involved. The cast members were all wonderful, friendly and chatty without being overbearing or distracting. The other guests were friendly but not overly invasive, and had interesting, thoughtful questions. I can see how one loud or obnoxious guest could made for a vastly difference experience in such close quarters, but in my experience, it was wonderful.
I’ll give you my impression of the food, which I very much enjoyed, but I need you to remember two things:
1. I’m not what you would consider a ‘foodie.’ My idea of exotic is putting sweet and sour sauce on my chicken instead of honey mustard or barbecue. So when I say I was impressed, I mean it tasted delicious to me, so I take no responsibility if someone tries it and complains that the chicken curry salad didn’t taste remotely authentic.
2. I didn’t take notes as well as I should have on what the individual items were. I’m sure there’s probably someone out there with a better explanation of the food, but hopefully at least the pictures will give you an idea of what is all was.
With that disclaimer out of the way: Behold!
The first course was bread and an oil based dipping sauce. It came in an adorable round tin container. The bread was nice and soft and light, even the flat bread. The oil, however, tasted like someone poured some olive oil over a bunch of twigs and grass and let it sit in the sun for a few hours. I stuck to the bread and figured I would save the oil in case the truck needed work on the way back to base.
There was also a container with different types of nuts. I don’t remember what they said they were but it was basically a glorified version of a honey roast. A delicious, sweet honey roast. I pulled out the peanuts and cashews and just ate those, because while I am not allergic to nuts, certain types such as walnuts do not always settle well for me.
Next up was another round tin, this one a double decker, with one level holding tandoori shrimp, a salmon roll on a sort of cucumber slaw, and hummus with bread.
The tandoori shrimp was good, they described it as the African version of barbecue. Not really an accurate representation of taste, but good nonetheless.
The cucumber slaw with the salmon roll was amazing, but I get unnaturally excited by any restaurant in Disney that has an option of cucumber salad for a side, so this was right up my alley.
The salmon roll itself was good, but it kept reminding me of something else that I couldn’t quite place and it was driving me mad. I’ve never actually had salmon before, and I wasn’t sure what it was supposed to taste like, so I had nothing to compare it to. (I know, I’m not a huge fish fan and usually stick to cod or haddock.)
It would take another couple days before I would figure out what that taste was, and to this day I’m not sure if it was me, the fish, or it actually does taste that way. You’ll have to wait to see what I thought it tasted like, and whatever you’re thinking, it probably isn’t that. (Or maybe it is. Maybe it really is supposed to taste that way? I’m so confused…)
The other level in the tin had another three dishes, chicken curry salad, a fruit salad, and some kind of meat that I’ve since forgotten what it was.
I didn’t really expect to like the chicken curry salad that much since I’m not huge on curry, but it had an added sweetness to it that really added to the taste.
The fruit salad was a perfect light addition.
The meat...eh.
I think it was just too fancy for me. It was too thick and too chewy.
Dessert was a ‘deconstructed smore’ dessert, again in it’s own tiny tin, which ended up being my least favorite part of the meal. The ‘marshmallow’ on top is actually meringue, the chocolate ganache in the middle was cold and dense, and the graham cracker crumble was fine but not outstanding.
The view was half the attraction. The giraffes could get relatively close, and we could watch the trucks from the Safari ride from a distance. The elephants were farther away, but there was an absolutely precious baby elephant in easy gazing distance. Heading down to the lion area, there were two lionesses and one male lion out.
I was excited to be able to take photos without having to fight a moving truck.
Once we finished there, we loaded back onto the truck and headed out to finish up the rest of the tour, making one more stop near the cheetah area. At this point, it started drizzling, and then absolutely pouring. Fortunately, our guide had ponchos for us.
Depending on your outlook, I either got a free poncho, or the most expensive poncho known to man out of that tour.
The tour finished right outside of Kilimanjaro Safaris. At this point, I figured there was no point in waiting to see Rivers of Light as I had intended initially. So I made my way out of the park in the heaviest rain I’ve seen in Disney in a while. I don’t know if it was remnants from the hurricane of a couple days ago, but considering the weather and the fact it had already been a full day, I decided to just head back to the room and call it a night.
