Did you know that for $35 per person, you can participate in an amazing backstage tour at Animal Kingdom called “Caring for Giants?” With this tour, guests can take a closer look at the African elephants at Disney’s Animal Kingdom theme park—and learn what it takes to care for them.
Caring For Giants Tour
This 60-minute tour lets you explore the backstage areas of Animal Kingdom as you travel via a passenger van out to an area on the reserve that’s usually only open to Animal Kingdom employees. No cameras are allowed on this journey, but you’ll drive by many of the homes of those same animals you often see on Kilimanjaro Safaris – giraffes, rhinos, ostriches. Keep in mind, that most of the residents aren’t home, because your tour will take place while the park is open and the animals are out on the safari.
Your guide will drive you to an area that’s behind where most of the guests on safari see the elephants. Once you arrive at your destination, it’ll be time to bring those cameras back out of hiding, as photos are allowed again. While there’s no guarantee which elephants you’ll see or how close they will be to you, the odds are good that you’ll have a great view of them from 80-100 feet away. You’ll be able to hear them snorting and huffing and maybe even roaring! You can also see the safari vehicles traveling along the roads on the other side of the elephants.
Animal Kingdom lets its elephants (and other animals) determine where they’ll go and what they’ll do so there’s no telling which elephant herd you’ll see or what they’ll be up to. On my visit, our tour group had the bachelors with the oldest elephant, Mack, who’s about 40 years old, hanging out with two younger bachelors – Jabali and Tsabo. The younger ones did a lot of sparring and goofing around while eating while Mack either corrected them or ignored them.
Our tour guide provided lots of information on our tour, and there are a few props around the tour site to generate conversations but nothing is scripted. As our guide put it, she lets the guests determine the direction of the conversations and you can either participate or simply stand in awe of the elephants and spend your tour soaking in their awesomeness.
Here are a few reasons I recommend this tour:
- It’s inexpensive. For basically the price of a lower-priced sit-down meal, you can have an experience of a lifetime – because admit it, you can get sushi anywhere, but can you get this close to elephants for this price anywhere?
- It’s short. Long tours are great, but with little ones or even those who still want to have most of the day to themselves, they can be a bit overwhelming. Plan this tour for the start of your Animal Kingdom park day. You can enjoy it and then still have almost all day at a park.
- It benefits elephants worldwide. The proceeds from this tour go directly to the elephant conservation fund.
Would you enjoy going backstage and learning more about Disney Animal Kingdom’s elephants?