It’s Animal Kingdoms 20th anniversary so I wanted to share some fun facts and things you may not know about this less popular theme park.

1. The park opened on Earth Day 1998.
2. It was the last of the 6 parks to open at Disney World.
3. It’s the largest of the parks at 500 acres for comparison Epcot is 300 acres.
4. The parks icon is the Tree of Life which stands over 145 feet tall and has over 300 animals carved into it.
5. The tree of life is not alive, it’s base is actually an oil rig and was built to endure Florida’s hurricane winds.
6. The park is broken into lands similar to Magic Kingdom. The lands are Oasis,Discovery Island, Dinoland U.S.A, Pandora, Africa and Asia.
7. The Discovery river contains 27 million gallons of water.
8. Until 2016 the park closed in the early evenings but now the park stays open late and offers night shows and rides through the safari.
9. You wont find any normal plastic straws instead all the restaurants have papers straws for the safety of the animals nor do they have plastic cup lids. They also do not sell balloons in the park for the same reason.
10. Kids (and kids at heart) can become Wilderness Explorers like Russell in Up. You are given a field guide and awarded “badges” when you complete challenges.
11. Some of the plants in the park were chosen by an elephant who would hand plants she like to her rider which was a landscape artist for the park.
12. The Kilimanjaro safari ride is almost as big as the Magic Kingdom at over 110 acres.
13. The big rocks in the safari ride are climate controlled to encourage the lions to rest on them so riders can get better views.
14. There are approximately 2,000 animals in the park.
15. The first animal to be born in the park was an African antelope.
16. There are trees and plants from every part of the world except Antarctica planted throughout.
17. Expedition Everest is the most expensive roller coaster ever built costing $100 million to create.
18. The park offers musical shows; Finding Nemo and Festival of the lion king.
19. There was plans to have a section with dragons and unicorns called Beastly Kingdom but was later scrapped.
20. The newest land Pandora-the world of Avatar opened May 2014 to huge crowds. On opening day there was up to a 6 hour wait just to get into the new land.