Tag: Disney's Animal Kingdom

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10 Gasps-and-Goosebumps-Inducing BIG Scenic Reveals in Disney Parks

What makes Disney Parks different? While our list of answers may go on for days, one of the key elements we always return to is that unlike carnivals, boardwalks, and amusement parks that predated Disneyland (and unlike the Six Flags and Cedar Fair parks of today), Disneyland and its successors were built by filmmakers and artists.

And like any good film, almost every successful Disney ride has at least one moment where sets, sounds, lighting, and music crescendo to create an epic, emotional reveal that leaves audiences breathless. Here, we’ve collected 10 of the most awe-inspiring, breath-taking, gasp-worthy, jaw-dropping, tear-jerking, goosebumps-inducing scenic reveals in Disney Parks; moments that are so cinematic in their reveal, it could only be filmmakers that imagined, storyboarded, and constructed them. 

Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.



This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!

If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.


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Think You Know These 16 Extra Iconic On-Ride Quotes By Heart?

Earlier this year, we gave you a challenge: to see if you could recognize and identify 16 Iconic Ride Dialogue Lines We Bet You Know By Heart… and whaddaya know? You did! From unforgettable safety spiels to bilingual announcements; classic narration to beloved pre-shows, it turned out that lots of Imagineering super-fans have tried-and-true lines down pat. Naturally,…

Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.

This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!

If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.

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We Bet You Know ALL of These Iconic On-Ride Quotes by Heart…

The sights! The sounds! The smells! The snacks! If there’s one thing Disney and Universal’s parks do well, it’s to engrain themselves in your mind; to act as the backdrop to timeless memories. It’s no accident that Disney and Universal’s best attractions are the ones that become evergreen classics; the kinds of rides you can’t to get back to and…

Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.

This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!

If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.

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“That’s Not Dory” and 8 Other BAD Voice-Acting Moments at Disney and Universal Parks

What would the Haunted Mansion be without a Ghost Host?

The Enchanted Tiki Room without Jose, Michael, Pierre, and Fritz?

Carousel of Progress without John and Martha?

Voice acting is a major piece of great theme park attractions, lending life to Audio Animatronics, characters on-screen, and even ever-present narration! In fact, the delivery of lines can become so iconic, we created a two-part list of ride voiceover lines we bet you know by heart, from “This here’s the wildest ride in the wilderness!” to “Thank the Phoenicians!”

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Some Assembly Required: 10 Memorable Moments when Disney Animatronics Froze, Burned, and Lost Their Heads

Like all Disney Parks fans, we love Audio-Animatronics.

That’s why we created a must-read list of the 25 Best Audio-Animatronics on Earth, celebrating the essential role that Disney’s greatest invention plays in the parks today. Make no mistake – these complex, dynamic, sensational figures have been cutting-edge since their debut in 1963. And like all technological marvels, they don’t always work the way they’re supposed to…

For Imagineering fans, the only thing more amazing than watching one of Disney’s Animatronic marvels work is catching one when it doesn’t. Thanks to the age of the Internet, fans’ cameras are ready at every moment to capture the slightest crack in Disney’s shell of immersive show. That’s why we’re able to curate this countdown of 10 misfiring, malfunctioning Audio-Animatronics across Disney Parks, offering a fascinating glimpse into Disney’s rare failures and flubs… 

Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.



This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!

If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.


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Mini to Massive: How Disney’s BIGGEST (and Smallest) Parks Measure Up

Discerning Disney Parks fans are known to critique and analyze all aspects of the parks they love: their style, their stories, their smarts… But what about their size? From miniscule to massive, Disney Parks come in all shapes and sizes… but does size matter?

On our cross-continental tour today, we’ll stop by each of the 12 Disney Parks on Earth to take their measurements. Sometimes, Disney’s official numbers don’t quite add up… That’s why we’ve used simple acreage calculator maps when we need to to get closer to the real figures about just how big (or not) these parks are. Our ultimate agreement? We measure the simplest shape of a park – including its showbuildings and behind-the-scenes facilities – but excluding parking lots and empty expansion pads (which you’d think Disney would exclude, too, but they don’t always). 

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From Big to GARGANTUAN, These are the Enormous Showbuildings You Never See

What do an off-roading ride through the last minutes of the Cretaceous and “the happiest cruise that ever set sail” have in common? Not a whole lot. But like so many of Disney and Universal’s E-Ticket adventures, one thing they do share is the kind of building in which they take place. Most of the industry’s leading, anchoring, epic attractions take place in enormous soundstage-style warehouses – called “showbuildings” in Disney-speak – that are (to varying degrees of success) completely hidden from the view of Guests.

Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.



This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!

If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.


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13 Abandoned, Broken, and Canceled Special Effects at Disney Parks

Since the earliest days of Disneyland, Walt and his designers set out to wow guests by making the unimaginable real. From singing birds to zooming through the stars; haunted ballrooms to the depths of the jungle, Disney Parks are all about dazzling guests with inexplicable effects. That’s why we took an in-depth look at 10 “How’d They Do That?” Special Effects that STILL Amaze Us to celebrate how Imagineering’s tricks – from simple to astounding – make all the difference.

But for fans of Imagineering, there’s only one thing more interesting than a special effect that works: a special effect that doesn’t. So today, we’ve created a special list to explore a “lucky” 13 special effects that just didn’t work. Broken, malfunctioning, abandoned, or removed, these almost-amazing moments simply didn’t work out the way designers had hoped… And since Disney’s designers tend to have smart solutions, you may not have even noticed when these effects simply disappeared, were replaced, or were left broken in plain sight! 

Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.



This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!

If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.


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Park Perspective: Seeing Animal Kingdom Through Joe Rohde’s Eyes

Since 1970 – fueled by the Clean Water Act and the movement toward environmental education – April 22 has been celebrated as Earth Day: a borderless celebration of the power of environmental protection and our one planet. But for Imagineering fans, there’s perhaps been no bigger celebration of this international holiday than the opening of Disney’s Animal Kingdom in 1998. 

Considered a masterwork of Imagineering, this magnum opus of themed entertainment design was made possible by a team of dedicated researchers, designers, engineers, animal care experts, and scientists often exemplified by Joe Rohde – the lead designer of the park (and, among others, the Lost Legend: The Adventurers Club). A scholar, a philosopher, an artist, and a true-life adventurer (literally serving as the inspiration for several members of S.E.A.), Rohde is an icon of modern Imagineering… and wonderfully, he’s often let fans in on his thought process…

Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.



This article and hundreds more are available for Gold and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!

If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Gold and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.


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The DINO-RAMA Dilemma: A Dig Into (and Defense of) Animal Kingdom’s Dinoland Fair

“Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. You understand it better, but the frog dies in the process.” – E.B. White

If you ask Imagineers or executives, story is what’s at the heart of Disney today, best embodied by its theme parks. And it’s true that the scale and scope of Imagineering in the 21st century – largely bolstered by story – had grown beyond imagination, yielding an era of “Living Lands” supported by massive mythologies and built-out worlds. Story directs the food, characters, and even souvenirs of Hogsmeade, Batuu, Pandora, and beyond…

Yet for all the deeply-rooted environmental-and-atmospheric stories unfolding in the “Living Lands” admired today, story is also the foundation of – and possibly, the fault in – a project often ranked among “the worst Disney Parks land ever“: Chester & Hester’s Dino-Rama. Today, we’ll dig deep into this cringe-worthy carnival to prove once and for all that there’s more than meets the eye to this primeval parking lot fair…

Image: Disney
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