Inside Disney's Animal Kingdom

From the moment you step into the park at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida, you and your family will feel like you've traveled thousands of miles away to another world, where animals are the first citizens. Five hundred acres of Florida pastures and other land have been transformed into green savannas, where elephants and rhino look for snacks, and glistening primeval forests with hidden waterfalls and grottoes, where you may find a hyacinth blue macaw preening or a flirtatious lemur playing peekaboo.

Animals and nature are the stars at this park, and its icon is the 14-story Tree of Life carved with images of over 300 different animals. Grown-ups tend to stare at the engineered tree in awe of the work that went into it. Kids automatically try to scramble up to one of the animals or climb around the thick roots at the tree's base.

There are places for kids to play and learn and for adults to be charmed and educated throughout the park--from Africa, where a colonial East African town has been re-created along with an old-fashioned train called Wildlife Express, which looks straight out of Africa, to DinoLand U.S.A., where you can eat smoked turkey legs at the Dino Diner or Chicken McNuggets at the Restaurantosaurus, slither and slide around prehistoric "artifacts" in the Boneyard, or ride 65 million bumpy years back in time on the Time Rover time traveler.

Everything in the park has to do with animals: real, extinct or imaginary. Simba, for instance, is doing eight shows a day at the Broadway-caliber stage show FESTIVAL OF THE LION KING in Camp Minnie-Mickey. Nearby, Mickey and his other Disney friends (Pluto's pretty cute in safari garb, too) will sign autographs for their admirers. Rafiki, from THE LION KING, gives lectures on endangered animals at the Conservation Station.

Mickey, Simba, the dinos and the 1,000 animals (acquired mostly from zoos), as well as the 4 million trees, plants and shrubs are all telling the same story at Animal Kingdom--we all need each other in order to survive on this planet.

In truth, you may hear the message too often, especially if you've put in a full day and you begin to feel preached at. But the park has more than a message. Like every Disney theme park there are thrills and chills, lots of fun, learning activities and the usual amenities, including great restaurants, clean rest rooms and plenty of shopping.