Asia (Disney's Animal Kingdom)
Asia is a themed land at Disney's Animal Kingdom in the Walt Disney World Resort, Florida. Set in the fictional kingdom of Anandapur, it opened in stages: a first phase in 1999, the year after the park itself, and a major expansion in 2006 built around Expedition Everest, the roller coaster through the Forbidden Mountain that remains the land's defining landmark. Asia occupies the park's northeastern side, along the Discovery River.
Setting and design
Anandapur — a name drawn from Sanskrit and often glossed as "place of delight" — is an invented kingdom, and the land deliberately blends influences from India, Nepal, Tibet, Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia and Mongolia rather than representing any single real country. Its older quarter is a riverside village of plastered buildings, prayer flags, shrines and carved stone, supposedly grown up around a royal hunting reserve. Royal Anandapur Tea Company signs and decrees from the fictional maharaja appear throughout, giving the land a light administrative fiction of its own.
The wildlife areas follow the same conceit. The Maharajah Jungle Trek is presented as the former hunting grounds and palace ruins of Anandapur's rulers, now given over to the animals, while the Kali River Rapids runs through a jungle scarred by illegal logging — the land's clearest statement of the park's conservation theme.
History
Asia was still under construction when Animal Kingdom opened on April 22, 1998, and was the last of the original lands to be completed. It opened in spring 1999 with three offerings: the Kali River Rapids raft ride, the Maharajah Jungle Trek walking trail and the Flights of Wonder bird show. The raft ride had begun life in design as Tiger River Run, a combined safari and rapids attraction; the animal and thrill elements were eventually separated into the Trek and the Rapids respectively.
Asia grew substantially on April 7, 2006, when Expedition Everest opened together with the new village of Serka Zong, a staging post in the Himalayan foothills at the mountain's base. The expansion also completed the walking route around the Discovery River. The bird show closed at the end of 2017 and returned in 2018 in a new form themed to the film Up (2009), subsequently retitled Feathered Friends in Flight.
Attractions
- Expedition Everest – Legend of the Forbidden Mountain — a steel roller coaster that climbs through the Forbidden Mountain, stalls at a section of torn-up track and reverses into the mountain's interior, where riders encounter the yeti, guardian of the mountain in the attraction's story. At 199.5 feet, the mountain is the tallest structure at Walt Disney World, kept deliberately just below the height at which aviation warning lights would be required.
- Kali River Rapids — a raft ride on the Chakranadi River in which twelve-person rafts pass temples and jungle before descending through a logging concession, where felled trees and a burning clearing carry the ride's anti-deforestation message. Riders can expect to get wet.
- Maharajah Jungle Trek — a self-guided trail through ruins and forest enclosures home to Asian tigers, Komodo dragons, Malayan flying foxes, Eld's deer, water buffalo and an aviary of Asian birds.
- Feathered Friends in Flight — a free-flight bird demonstration in the Anandapur Theatre, in which macaws, hornbills, eagles and other trained birds fly over and around the audience while their handlers discuss natural behaviours.
Dining and shopping
The land's best-known restaurant is Yak & Yeti, a table-service location presented as a Nepalese inn, with a quick-service annex beside it. Serka Zong Bazaar serves the Everest area, and drink and snack stands line the riverside path. Across the water, the Discovery River amphitheatre faces the village from the opposite bank.