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Park News - (5/6/08) According to the latest news Disney is in the process of removing McDonalds food from the Restaurantosaurus, starting with the friest and Chicken Nuggets that will be replaced with Disney’s standard chicken nuggets as seen elsewhere in the resort.
  (4/30/08) MouseSteps has posted well over 100 photos taken during Animal Kingdom‘s 10th Anniversary day.
  (2/12/08) According to the Orlando Sentinel an engine on one of the Kilamanjaro Safari trucks caught on fire Sunday. Guests were safely evacuated from the truck, though one guest was taken in for medical treatment after complaining of knee pain after jumping down. The fire was fairly minor and was mostly out by the time fire crews arrived on the scene. Disney shut down the ride for the rest of the day to inspect the rest of the fleet and reopened it the next morning.
  (2/6/08) Screamscape sources tell us that in the future the Timon character at Festival of the Lion King will be upgraded to use the new “talking head” technology that we’ve seen Disney put to use on Mickey and pals over at the Magic Kingdom’s castle stage show. Look for the new version of Timon to be in show sometime before the start of Summer.
  (1/31/08) The first ever Expedition Everest Challenge is now set to take place on Saturday, September 27th. I’m a little unclear on what this event really is, but they describe it as a “Race through the dark, exotic terrain of Disney's Animal Kingdom® Theme Park on a thrilling 5K trek in the shadows of the Forbidden Mountain.” The official page mentions that surprises along the way may become obstacles on your team’s trek and a search for clues to lead you on your journey. So it’s a Everest themed triathlon of sorts mixing a 5K Run, an obstacle course and a scavenger hunt in the land of the Yeti. The event will be followed up with an exclusive after-hours party at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. I’m very intrigued by this and the timing is also good with that weekend usually being the opening of Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Orlando the night before as well as usually being the kick-off weekend for Epcot’s popular Food & Wine event. Registration is $195 per couple and includes admission to the park, after party and more.
  (1/22/08) I’ve got a few minor notes about Animal Kingdom to share this morning. First up, it seems there are some minor renovations taking place over at Rafiki’s Planet Watch inside Conservation Station around the central podium area where vets show off smaller animals. Some new graphic and signage has also been said to have gone up in the area.
  (1/9/08) According to the latest Eyes & Ears (CM Newsletter) Animal Kingdom will celebrate its 10th Anniversary on April 22nd. While nothing specific was mentioned, our source believes that will likely be some kind of official ceremony taking place in the park that day.
  However on the unofficial side of thing, a new website has launched called WDWCelebrations. According to their press release, WDWCelebrations is a new fan based organization created by the team who put on the unofficial Celebration 25 event at Epcot this past October. Their first event is called A Wild Decade to honor the Animal Kingdom park on April 22nd. Keep an eye on their site for future details.
  While we’re talking about Animal Kingdom, check out this new video showing off a rare treat… Animal Kingdom at Night.

Ride Rehabs - The following information is not guaranteed to be 100% accurate.
Nothing is known to be schedule at this time.

2007/2008 - Yak & Yeti - (12/18/07) Westcoaster has posted several Animal Kingdom photos showing off the new of the new Yak & Yeti restaurant as well as the Nemo musical show.
  (11/19/07) MouseSteps has a report from the opening day of the new Yak & Yeti restaurant.
  (11/8/07) MouseSteps has posted new construction photos of the nearly finished Yak & Yeti restaurant along with a report that claims the new eatery will open on November 14th. Apparently you can now smell them test cooking the new food already from the outside.

2008 - Kilimanjaro Safari Upgrades - (1/22/08) We’ve heard that more of the trucks with the new 9th row are now in circulation, though officially they are still not loading the 9th row yet it seems. (Though we have heard of a few people sneaking into them…)
  (10/16/07) At this point in time I don’t believe the Safari is running with any of the 9 row jeeps yet… just a first batch has been pulled from service for conversion. From what I’m told they did convert one test jeep over the summer to see how it would run the course (without guests) and discovered that they would need to retrain all the drivers to handle the bigger vehicles. All said and done, the conversion is going to be a long process rolled out over a period of months.
  (8/7/06) It seems Disney has been testing a new wider 9th row added to the back of Safari #43. Unlike the 5-6 riders per row, this extra row is said to hold 6-7 riders, including some kind of “jumper seat” that sticks out on the drivers side. This is just a test right now, but if it works out, a 9th row could be added to all of the cars.

2009/2010 - New C or D-Ticket - Rumor - (4/25/08) The status of this attraction may now be up in the air due to new developments with Beastly Kingdom that could push this project out of development.
  (3/27/08) The latest rumors for Animal Kingdom seem to indicate that there is a good chance that one of the proposals for a new C or D ticket ride may now be pushed up to fill in the gap left when Rivers of Light was pushed back. 
  (1/14/08) Screamscape sources tell us that while most of Animal Kingdom’s focus right now is on the new Rivers of Light night show, there is a chance that they could approve a C or D-Ticket level attraction for late 2009 or 2010. While historically C-Ticket rides were typically your standard outdoor flat rides (Tea Cups, Dumbo) and small Fantasyland dark rides (Peter Pan, Snow White) while D-Tickets were your bigger outdoor rides (Rocket Jets, PeopleMover) and major transportation rides (Monorail, Railroad), I believe the definations are a bit different in today’s DisneySpeak.
  By today’s standards things like the Triceratops Spin would still be a C-Ticket, but Primevel Whirl would likely be considered a D-Ticket along with attractions like Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin or the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Perhaps the biggest problem with Animal Kingdom right now is that it’s a park that consists mostly of major E-Ticket attractions, animal exhibits and shows, with only a couple of C and D-Ticket attractions these days, so adding another to the mix would definitely be a good move. Lets just find a way to stick this one somewhere other than Asia or Dinoland USA this time, okay, unless it’s time to bring back that idea of the kid friendly Chester & Hester’s Big Bang dark ride, one thought of as a possible way to reuse the old Mr. Toad ride system with a new theme. Think of it as a kid friendly, cartoon version of Countdown to Extinction… errr… Dinosaur. (God, I still hate that name, bring back CTX too while your at it!).

2010/2011 - Rivers of Light parade - In Redesign - (3/26/08) In response to yesterday’s report about the demise of Rivers of Light, our own sources tell us that the project is not actually dead. While the pathways are an issue, the current plan is to scale things down a bit and look to re-launch the concept sometime between 2010 and 2011.
  (3/25/08) According to the latest article at Jim Hill Media, the plans for the park’s Rivers of Light nighttime parade have been canceled. It seems this was done primarily because the current pathways are too narrow and the work needed to widen them to accommodate space for people to watch as well as leave pathway space for the guests who don’t want to watch would have been a bit destructive of the atmosphere of the park.
  (9/27/07) I’ve got a follow up to the rumor about a new parade for Animal Kingdom today. MiceAge reported that a new night parade was in development for the park called Rivers of Light. Despite the name, it’s not a water based parade, and would likely use the same route along the park’s main pathway that the current parade uses. From the sound of things this will finally give the park a reason to stay open after dark.
  (9/26/07) Screamscape has heard a rumor about a new parade being designed for Animal Kingdom.

2011 or 2013 - Beastly Kingdom - In Redesign - (4/25/08) Screamscape sources tell us Beastly Kingdom may very well be back on the five-year planning track and if all goes as planned, we could see it open by either 2011 or 2013, depending on just how quickly they want it. Unfortunately it seems Disney has move away from any plans involving the Dragon’s Tower roller coaster concepts. In fact, they’re said to be shying away from Dragons entirely since Universal already took the basic idea for Dueling Dragons, which will get refreshed with an all-new story when it becomes part of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter late next year. Instead Disney will focus the land on “other” imaginary creatures.
  There is some good news however as the long rumored next generation water ride concept Disney has been working on does look to be the front-runner for the land’s big Super E-Ticket concept. I don’t know much about it except that the basic idea is to take the EMV style motion-based action you get from the Indiana Jones Adventure (DL) and Dinosaur (AK) rides and then apply it to a boat ride. I’ve got two ideas in my head… one invoving large Jungle Cruise sized boats with a huge motion base (sinking ship action?) or on the smaller scale of things… something more Splash Mountain log sized but with bouncy seating to create a real-world version of the Virtual Jungle Cruise attraction at DisneyQuest.
  (3/27/08) From what we’ve been told, Beastly Kingdom is still alive and well… but like a Vegas buffet, the actual contents are constantly shifting in and out of rotation as new ideas come up as well as to reflect the possible budget numbers that may allow the project to finally get off the ground. This means that they have an assortment of attraction concepts ranging from kid friendly up to Super E-Ticket thrill machines all filed away in a variety of possible option packages for the day when the Walt Disney World checkbook finally comes out. Like many have said… it’s not a matter of “IF” Beastly Kingdom happens, only a matter of “WHEN” it will eventually happen.
  (3/25/08) According to the latest Jim Hill article, a new re-imagined concept for Beastly Kingdom is being drawn up to fill the gap left behind by the cancellation of Rivers of Light. According to the story the new version of Beastly Kingdom will try to have close ties with established Disney characters and perhaps be more family friendly. Characters I can deal with… but I still want to see an evil castle that is home to an angry dragon and some kind of wild thrill ride.
  (7/26/07) It’s just a wild rumor at this point, but we’ve heard rumbling that Disney may be looking into some kind of new water flume attraction for Animal Kingdom. It’s nothing serious yet, just an idea they’re kicking around apparently for the next big follow up to Everest. Unfortunately, this also means that they are not working on Beastly Kingdom either, unless this is part of it.
  (4/9/07) While we had hoped that the success of Everest at Animal Kingdom would have inspired Disney to finally build Beastly Kingdom it seems that things don’t work that way in the Disney empire. Instead they seem to be stuck in fire-fighting mode where they only want to add major new capital to fix problem areas and right now the main problem in AK is said to be the over crowding of Africa. So for now… Beastly Kingdom is on hold again.
  (10/30/06) New rumors for Beastly Kingdom don’t come often, but our sources say that apparently Imagineering is still working on the concept and ideas for attractions. The big problem standing in the way of Beastly Kingdom getting the final green light is the huge amount of money Disney just spent on Expedition Everest and balancing out when they are exactly ready to put that kind of money back into the park again. From all indications Disney still plans on eventually adding Beastly Kingdom... it’s just a matter of when.