Attractions & Entertainment Travel

Walt Disney World Wild Africa Trek

Part of my Disney trip to Florida, included an expedition on the Wild Africa Trek, at Animal Kingdom. First of all, Animal Kingdom is just beautiful. The picture above, is of me in the park after our trek. The mountain in the background is Mount Everest (a fun ride I will tell you about in another post). What an incredible experience all of this was! From what I have heard, reserving your spot on the Wild Africa trek can be very difficult, because it’s so popular. Just a warning that this post is very photo heavy, because I want to share some of the amazing sights I got to see.

The Wild Africa Trek takes you deep into Pangani Forest, which is in Animal Kingdom, but it feels like you are in a different place. On the trek, you don’t see any of the park, and really feel like you are out in the wilderness, with the animals. The trek is a privately guided expedition featuring close encounters with exotic wildlife species.

Our group of 22, was divided in half, to keep our groups small and intimate. We had two tour guides, who were phenomenal. They had great sense of humors, and were such a joy to listen to. One of the guides was actually named Emily, so I was particularly fond of her – great name . 😉

We began our trek by getting fitted with an expedition harness. The harness was only worn for the first part of the trek, to attach to an overhead track, while peering over the edge of wildlife, to get great views of the hippos and crocodiles. We had to make our way across rope bridges, which had some amazing views. I believe that this expedition was the closest that I will ever get to a Nile crocodile or hippo!

After we finished our harnessed trek, we removed our gear and began a safari through the savannah. Our safari included fabulous views of  lions, cheetahs, elephants, flamingos, giraffes and more.

I have been fairly close to giraffes before, but these giraffes were simply stunning! There were two different types of giraffes, and their spots were just beautiful. I love the picture I got of the one giraffe, who is making a funny face! Such amazing and precious creatures we have roaming this earth.

 

Toward the end of our trek we stopped at a cabana type area, where we were treated like royalty. It was approaching sunset, and the weather was perfect. I sat down to a fabulous snack (which was more like a meal), with proscuitto, fruit, chicken salad, shrimp,  hummis, and tasty juice. Even the beautiful orchid was edible! The savannah was so peaceful, and we were sitting right in the middle of it, with great company, great food, and great views.

This Wild Africa Trek was a once in a lifetime experience for me, I’m sure. If you head to Disney World, and have a little extra cash, then this trek is an absolutely amazing experience. You get to appreciate nature, and many of God’s beautiful creations.

I just looked up the trek, and found that if you book your trek between May 29th and August 25th, you can save $50!

Disney sent me to Florida for the red carpet premiere of “Chimpanzee”. Part of my trip included the Wild Africa Trek at Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

About the author

Emily Buys

11 Comments

  • That looks like so much fun! We don’t live in Florida (good old Pennsylvanians!) but we do travel down there every so often to visit my brother who lives close to Orlando. This is definitely going on my “to do” list for next time!

  • This would be awesome for me and my son, he loves animals in the wild and what fun this would be for us

  • i love animal kingdom…unfortunately we didn’t do any safaris…and it looks you did more stuff that I haven’t seen..looking forward to go back soon 🙂

  • My son just enjoyed sitting in my lap and looking at all the pictures! I can’t wait until he is a little older and can enjoy a trip like this!

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