Disney tours are something that I am trying to do a lot of this year and in years to come. They are so interesting and usually pretty fun. The most appealing aspect of the tours to me is being able to go backstage and see how everything is created. For me it doesn’t ruin the magic, I just want to see how a place so massive like Disney operates.
The latest tour I went on was the Caring for Giants Tour at Animal Kingdom. This is the first of a couple that I want to do there so hopefully I will get to check more off of my list soon.
During this tour you get to go backstage and get closer to the elephants on the Kilimanjaro Safari. To be honest, we both thought you would be able to get a lot closer. To be even more honest, we really didn’t know what to expect from this tour at all, but we thought we would get closer than we did.
When you first book, you get asked if you have any allergies to hay and peanuts, which made us believe that you would maybe feed an elephant, which heck yeah that would be amazing. We were incorrect.
I want to try and be as spoiler free as I can so I am really just going to outline the tour instead of giving you every detail. Hopefully you’re ok with that, if not, that’s ok too cause I am still writing it that way. 🤷🏻♀️
To start you need to check in at the Animal Tours booth located right outside of the Kilimanjaro Safari entrance.
When you meet your tour guide they take you backstage where you get driven to your drop off location in the back of Kilimanjaro Safari by the Elephant habitat. At that point you meet your elephant experts who talk to and give you tons of information about their elephants.
Here is where you get your closer look at the safari and the gentle giants. We got lucky and were able to see all five elephants at one time which includes the little baby who was adorable. It was pretty awesome being maybe 50 yards from them and you can really see their size.
We then got to speak to a Cast Member from South Africa who told you so much information about the elephants and how they help sustain the environment in South Africa. You may even be able to hold elephant poop.. yup, you heard that right. See below!
From there, they take you back to the park. It’s an hour long tour and the proceeds from the tour go straight to their conservation fund to help save the elephants. I LOVED this and I think everyone should go on the tour for that reason alone.
Now, I don’t want to come down hard on this tour because we still had a great time, but I don’t think I will do it again, and I don’t think it’s for everyone. If you are looking for a really immersive behind the scenes tour, this is not for you. And it’s definitely not for those who have small attention spans or children that aren’t interested in learning about elephants.
My last note on this is that there is a chance you go on this tour and don’t see an elephant. I’d say it’s a small chance, but we didn’t see any when we were there for the first like 15 min. It really depends on where the elephants are on the safari. At one point they all walked towards the left and we couldn’t see them anymore. If they were there the whole time, we never would have seen an elephant on our tour.
This tour is $30 per person and lasts approximately 1 hour. You can find more information about how to book your tour here: Caring For Giants.
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