Hi all, I am curious about the lion exhibit at Disney's Animal Kingdom. Due to the "magic," visitors only see a limited view over a short time. So I assume the truck ride is separated from the lions by a standard size moat, but I am curious about the rest. Does anyone know the size of the lion exhibit? Is there a building to the back of the exhibit for night housing? Any other outdoor areas in case they need to separate lions or if there is mother and cubs that need to be isolated from the others. I tried to find the exhibit on the satellite view on Google Maps and failed miserably.
I twenty visited years ago (and had a bad experience) but here is what I recall from memory. I don't have any details about size, though it appears to be good sized by zoo standards, though not huge. As a wild guess maybe half an acre? Maybe less? There are no support buildings visible from the tram, though I am sure there has to be one hidden by sight lines. If I remember there was one very large tree - maybe fake or maybe real - but I remember the base was quite large. Yes there was a moat of some kind separating the exhibit from the tram, but like all things on Kilminjaro Safari it is designed to look as natural as possible. The fact you can only see it from the tram and not from the walking area is inexcusable in my opinion.
Not sure on the answers re off exhibit holding but i read in an interesting titbit in a guidebook to Florida (not DAK specific) years ago that the large rock in the exhibit has air conditioning vents on it to entice the lions to lay there à la Pride Rock and to ensure they are visible more often than not from the drive by.
I remember hot wire also being used to keep the lions in a good position for sightings. Isn't this the exhibit? Dropped pin Google Maps
THANKS ALL!! and very impressive to find it on Google Maps! I am the type of person who tries to find out where I am from a plane window, and tend to be about 100 miles off....
