We finally did one of the behind the scenes tours. I've always been conflicted with those tours because I never wanted to risk "ruining the magic". I bet the Keys to the Kingdom tour is amazing, but I haven't had the heart to do it yet!
I really love Disney's Animal Kingdom and thought the Savor the Savanna tour would be perfect!
The Savor the Savanna tour is a separately priced event. You do have to purchase a park ticket in addition. However, it is one of the more moderately priced tours and will only take 2 hours of your time so you still have time to get your monies worth out of your park ticket.
There are several afternoon tours for Savor the Savanna. I chose the last tour of the day which was at 4:30 pm. I chose this time because from what I remember, the animals are usually more active in the evening opposed to the afternoon when it is the hottest part of the day.
We checked in 15 minutes prior and received our personalized name tags for the tour. The tour only takes 12 guests at a time and our tour only had 11.
Once we had all 11 guests, we met our wonderful tour guide Christina, and she lead us to a secret entrance along side Kilimanjaro Safaris ride where we boarded are own Safari truck.
We got a similar safari ride as those who were riding the Kilimanjaro Safaris attraction, but our safari truck stopped and spent more time on the savanna. It was close to dinner time and there was a handler out on the savanna that stopped to talk to us.
From our wonderful tour guide we learned all about how Disney keeps each species of animal in it's own section without us seeing the "barriers" they have in place. We learned about rules that are in place for accredited zoos. and how they control and maintain the animal population.
We saw giraffes, rhinos, a family of zebras and the newest baby zebra, leopards, hippos, wildebeest, elephants, ostriches, the lion and lioness and a few other animals I don't remember!
We were out on the Savanna for a half hour before our safari truck took us to a bungalow called the Boma, where our mini feast was set up!
We had a spread of African inspired foods. There wasn't anything too odd.
We had some shrimp and chicken dishes that had special seasonings on them, hummus and pitas, lots of fruits, cheese, salads, and dips.
They offered us wine, beers from local breweries, and for those of us who don't drink they offered the famous POG juice!
After that great spread, they even brought out a variety of desserts.
My sister and I shared this plate.
The bungalow was an open air building that had wonderful views of the Savanna all around and had a boardwalk in the back. ( FYI: There are restrooms in this bungalow) When we walked out back, we had a view of the Lion and Lioness up on their rock.
They had binoculars there available for our use which was nice.
We stayed at the bungalow for a little over an hour before getting in the safari truck and making our way back. Along the way we were able to stop and view even more animals.
When we got off the truck, the tour guide pulled us all together to thank us for taking the tour and gave us a souvenir gift.
We got these cool wooden coasters.
This was a really enjoyable tour and a great way to spend time at the park. However, I wouldn't say it was a "Must Do". We saw the same exact animals that you would see on the Kilimanjaro Safaris, but our truck stopped for longer periods of time so we could watch the animals. Having the personal tour guide was nice and it was great having the lunch ( or early dinner) on the Savanna. That is probably the selling point right there.
Additional info about the tour.
You will get an e-mail the day of your tour for info on where and when to check in so be sure to check your email.
After booking this tour I was looking for info on any dress code we had to abide by, like wearing only closed toed shoes or something like that. There is no dress code so where what you'd like. Also, there is not a lot of walking.
Annual Passholders can get a discount on this tour, so if you have an AP, take advantage of that!
Have you ever done a private tour at Disney? -M
You may also like these posts:
Our Time at Animal Kingdom Lodge
Behind the scenes at Disney's Animal Care Center
A Perfect Day at Animal Kingdom
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Fairytales and Fitness is a personal blog authored and edited by us, Meranda and Lacey. The thoughts expressed here represent only our own and are not meant to be taken as professional advice. Please note that our thoughts and opinions change from time to time. We consider this a necessary consequence of having an open mind in an ever changing society. Any thoughts and opinions expressed within our out-of-date posts may not be the same, nor even similar, to those we may express today. Some links may contain affiliate links. Some links are just to pages we'd like to share.