8) Establishing a wild trek
Not only is Animal Kingdom by far the largest of all four Disney World Parks, but Kilimanjaro Safaris is the largest of all its attractions. In fact, the entire Magic Kingdom could fit inside the 110 acres making up the premises. Mirroring all the authenticities of a natural African savanna required groundbreaking work. This meant moving more than 1.5 million cubic yards of dirt and planting over 2 million plants, trees, grasses, and other native flora. The rugged route the safari vehicles travel along was created by matching concrete with surrounding soil and then rolling tires through the concrete and mixing in stones for added bumps. Disney also trimmed some of Florida’s own native oak trees on the property to resemble Acacia trees. On a side note, it’s even been said that some of the seeds chosen for plants located throughout Animal Kingdom were handpicked, or in this case “trunk-picked,” by an elephant in Nepal!
Photo Credit: Disney
