On a recent trip to Walt Disney World to celebrate my son Jonny’s 16th birthday, we wanted to do something a little different. After researching tours at Walt Disney World, we decided on the Backstage Tales Tour at Animal Kingdom. This tour was pretty reasonable, costing $96.85 per person, including tax. With a 15% discount is available for Disney Visa card holders, Disney Vacation Club owners & Annual Passholders, this would be $81.48, including tax. This tour is offered every day at Disney’s Animal Kingdom and runs about 3 hours and 45 minutes. Park admission is also required. Children as young as 12 can attend but must be accompanied by an adult.
This tour is an early one! We needed to be at the park entrance 15 minutes before the start of the tour, which was 7:30 am. We didn’t have our own car on this trip, so we took an Uber to be sure we were there in plenty of time. This worked out great; it was very easy to do and got us there early. For the 3 of us, it was a total of $7.04 from Disney’s Pop Century Resort to Animal Kingdom.
We checked in at the front of the park to the right by guest relations. We got our name tags & headsets so we could hear the tour guides. Quick tip- you can use your earbud, which may be more comfortable! At this point, they also took drink orders for our break time- coffee, tea, hot chocolate, or water and gave us a chance to use the restroom if needed.
Our first stop was the aviary on the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail. We met up with an animal specialist in the aviary, and he gave us all kinds of information about the birds. We also got to feed them mealy worms. We were given rubber gloves, so we didn’t actually have to touch the worms. If you were uncomfortable touching the worms, you could watch. A great tip the specialist gave us was never to have your mouth open when looking up in an aviary ;)!
We went behind the Festival of the Lion King building to catch a bus to our next stop. We were allowed to take pictures in the aviary, but once we went backstage, the cameras needed to be put away. We took the bus to the Elephant & Rhino barns. We were lucky to get to meet Frankie, the white rhino. While his handler fed him alfalfa in different forms, we learned all about the white rhino. Although there were huge steel bars separating us from the rhino, we were about 5 feet away from him. It was an unbelievable experience, but since we were backstage, I couldn’t take any pictures.
Near the nutrition center, we took a break in a backstage education building. We had a rice crispy treat & our beverage. We were also given a really nice metal water bottle for a souvenir. We listened to a conservation specialist speak about the purple martin bird. Ever notice those round white birdhouses in groups around Disney property? They are purple martin houses.
Our next stop was the conservation station at Rafiki’s Planet Watch. We walked through the area where they prepared all the food and ended up in one of the operating rooms. Through a window, we could see a crane getting his beak trimmed. We were also given the opportunity to hold an Ankole cattle horn.
Our last stop was a visit with the Tigers. There were two tigers sleeping, and we learned all about their training & medical treatments. We were then escorted back to the onstage area and were able to ask questions of our tour guides.
This tour was a great experience for my family as we are animal lovers, as well as big Disney fans. If you want more information on this tour, please contact me at Terri.scheer@themagicforless.com.
