Visitors board Simba One, an oversize tram that will take you on a safari through “the Serengeti grassland system,” and as one fellow steps into the open-air vehicle, he asks, “Is it air-conditioned?” No, mate, this is reality. Real crocodiles lazing primordially below that rickety bridge. Actual cheetahs motoring their stretch-limo bodies across the savanna. Genuine loamy smell over there near the warthog. And real work for the travelers. The recorded voice at the start of the adventure encourages you to “Grow eyes!”; there are dozens of shy creatures–Waldo-beasts, if you will–waiting to be discovered by the visitor who is visually acute. Look hard for the gray elephant trying to tuck herself behind the grayish rock. Flick a peek to one side and catch a pair of two-ton white rhinos who seem to have sleepy-mean eyes to butt the tram . And don’t miss the gawky East African crowned cranes off to the right. The driver turns on a radio, a sweet Swahili tune wafts through the air, and the cranes turn into an impromptu chorus line, stepping gracefully to the music. Is it “real,” or is it that artful contradiction, Disney reality? For this is Disney’s Animal Kingdom, the spectacular, instructive, $800 million new species of theme park that will open next week, surrounded by the usual ballyhoo and, for Disney, the usual naysayers and pickets . “We’re in the magic business,” says chairman and CEO Michael Eisner, “and this park is all about magic and illusion.” The magic of numbers, the illusion of intimacy. More exotic creatures are on display in the 20-min. safari ride than would likely be seen on a week’s trek through Africa: okapis, nyalas, zebras, giraffes, ostriches, Thompson gazelles, hippos and a quintet of eland that your driver must stop for as they cross the bumpy road. And thanks to feeding stations hidden in tree bogs, the animals will usually be grazing in view. Thus Animal Kingdom solves the dilemma of the modern zoo: how to keep animals out of cages but still on more or less predictable display. The animals’ behavior is not so much altered as stage-managed. To the visitor, that lion and lioness sunbathing on Pride Rock look close enough…well, close enough to eat you. But they are separated from the tram by an unseen gulch too wide for the beasts to straddle. The savanna where they roam was once drab cow pasture, but every weed and rut has been meticulously contoured and art-directed to resemble an African plain. Disney’s Imagineers did a convincing makeover. When Franklin Sonn, the South African ambassador to the U.S., saw the place last month, he said, “This is the bush veldt. This is my home.” At 500 acres, Animal Kingdom, fourth of the Walt Disney World parks–after Magic Kingdom , EPCOT Center and Disney-MGM –is the biggest. The company hired 2,800 workers to build the park and 2,500 “cast members” to entertain and instruct all the visitors. As many as 10 million are expected the first year.
