>A Short Train Ride

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Before you get to the Unknown Magic that is the Conservation Station, you get to enjoy an informational and relaxing train ride. Enjoy.

>A Petting Zoo Disney Style

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A History lesson today with your Unknown Magic. In 1989, President George H. W. Bush started officially pardoning Turkeys as part of the White House Thanksgiving Tradition. Before that, other presidents had “pardoned” the turkeys, presented to them, but unofficially. In 2005, when President George W. Bush pardoned a Turkey named Yam and another named Marshmallow, the birds were sent to Disneyland to live out their days. The reason for this is because animal activists were upset that the pardoned turkeys were not living very long after their pardons.

Marshmallow became the grand marshall of Disneyland’s Thanksgiving parade, and the sign above his float read “The Happiest Turkey on Earth.” The turkeys then retired to a coop at the park’s Big Thunder Ranch, where three of the other pardoned birds — “Courage” and “Carolina” from 2009 and 2008’s “Pecan” — still live. Florida’s Disney World got the birds from 2007, when they arrived on a United Airlines flight that was renamed “Turkey One.”*

This year however, the turkeys that are to be pardoned are not going to a Disney Theme Park they are going to Mount Vernon, the former home of our first President George Washington. But that doesn’t mean you still can’t see a domesticated animals in Walt Disney World. In Disney’s Animal Kingdom, there is an Unknown Magic that is fun and can create Magical Experiences, especially for the kids. This Unknown Magic is found at the Conservation Station.

The Unknown Magic known as the Affection Section is the Animal Kingdom’s version of a petting zoo. It is located out the back of the Conservation Station’s main building. It is a fenced in area where the animals roam. What is very different in this area than most petting zoos is that the animals do not rush toward you when you first enter the pen. This usually happens in other parks, because the goats and sheep are rushing to you to see if you have food. Here they don’t do this, because you cannot feed the goats and sheep. This is a wonderful thing, especially if you have very small ones, because the children don’t get spooked or even knocked down and hurt by the animals. Disney does however provide you with brushes, so that the kids, or anyone for that matter, can brush the sheep and goats. It is kind of a neat experience, in that you actually have to follow the goats around until they stop moving to brush them. The goats are very tame also and allow you to walk over to them and pet them. They just lay there and let you pet them. Besides the goats and sheep, there are pig, llamas, chickens, and other animals that you can pet and feed.

Compared to the rest of the Animal Kingdom, this is a very small area, but it can create many Magical Experiences. Along with the Conservation Station, this area could help children and even adults to enjoy and understand more about the animal life on our planet.

So, now you know, the Affection Section is the place in the Animal Kingdom to get up-close and personal with some animals, The kids will enjoy themselves and you can too, because although it is a petting zoo, it is a Disney styled petting zoo, making it nicer than most and more enjoyable, too.

Information on the turkeys was taken from Wikipedia article: National Thanksgiving Turkey Present


And the ABCnews article: *George’s House, Not Mickey’s, for Pardoned Turkey

Picture of President Bush from the White House Archive website.

>Why Did I Take this Picture?

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Yesterday, I mentioned taking pictures in Disney and I also wrote about it in a Great Shot.   As I was looking through my pictures this morning, deciding what to write about today, I noticed something.  Not only do I take a lot of pictures, 509 from our trip last year alone, but some of them are things that make no sense or would make no sense if someone was looking at them without narration. Which got me to thinking, people do this all the time.  They take pictures of things that they find neat or interesting and then whenever they look back on the pictures, they are reminded of something that meant something to them.  But if your pictures are being viewed by others, they don’t make a whole lot of sense. So I decided today to post some pictures from Walt Disney World to see if you can figure out why I took them. At the end of the article, I will explain each picture. So enjoy the Unknown Magic of Pictures from Disney, (even if you can’t figure out why I took them).

A.

B.

C.

D.

E.

F.

G1

G2

H.

So, what did you think? Did you try to guess why I took them? Do you think you know why?

Well, here are the reasons why I took them:

A. This was our room at the Boardwalk on our first trip as a family; I wanted to remember the whole trip.

B. This plaque is on the ground in Epcot. At the time I took it, my wife was teaching 5th grade and she mentioned Copernicus in class one day along with the quote from Isaac Newton about “Standing on the shoulders of giants.” One of her kids was a shorter boy and he thought that was the coolest thing, “Standing on the shoulders of giants.” So, we had to take the picture for him.

C. and D. These are in the men’s room at Conservation Station. I took these so my wife could use them in her fourth grade class, because after we saw that you could adopt a turtle, she was using conservation and ecology as her classroom theme. I thought they were neat facts.

E. Of course as you look at this picture you think, oh a nice picture of Eeyore with your kid, but I don’t know who these people are. When my son got Eeyore’s autograph something happened with my camera, so I took this shot after he had already walked away.

F. These hands are on in the fitting room in the World of Disney store in Downtown Disney. I just thought this was a neat thing to have instead of hooks to hang your close on when you were trying things on.

G1. and G2. I know this is a banner that is seen all over Walt Disney World; so, now big deal right. Well look at the second picture I used this close-up to try and help explain why I took it. At the top right under the opening for the light, there is a bird. Actually there are two birds in this picture. There were three at one point I think the last one is still in the light itself. They caught my eye as we were walking by. I made my wife stop and watch them. I got a kick out of them dancing in and out of the light and all over the banner.

H. There is nothing in this booth, it serves no real purpose and I have no reason for taking this picture except that it was something I saw as we walked through Disney Hollywood Studios.

So, now you know, there are some pictures that people take in Walt Disney World that they take to create a memory. Some that are taken for something unrelated to their trip. And others are taken, because the subject of the picture is something that the taker found neat. And others are taken for no real reason at all; they are just part of a Magical Experience.

>Learning in Natazu

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In March of 2010, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums renewed the accreditation of Disney’s Animal Kingdom through 2015. This means they are on par with places like the Central Park Zoo in New York, the Smithsonian National Zoological Park in DC, the San Diego Zoo and the National Aquarium in Baltimore, for providing animals the best possible care from highly qualified staff, in modern facilities that represent the state-of-the art in the industry. This is a big deal. When Disney first announce they were going to start the Animal Kingdom, many people came forward and asked why Disney believed they had the right to try and get into the Zoo business. Disney Responded by stating the Theme of the Animal Kingdom was going to be “NATAZU” pronounced “Not a Zoo”. They decided to make the “zoo” more visitor friendly and at the same time educational. And with shows like Flights of Wonder, you can see that have succeeded. But Flights of Wonder is not the only place to learn about the animals. If you catch the Wildlife Express

 run of the Eastern Star Railway in Harambe, you will find an Unknown Magic when you disembark. The area where you arrive is called Rafiki’s Planet Watch. Rafiki’s Planet Watch is really 4 different sections.

The first section is the Train Station. Here not only will you leave the train and re-board it later, but you get the feeling when you first pull into the station that this is a special place. The next area is Habitat Habit. This is actually a walkway with many exhibits on how to help animals around your home to build and maintain a good habitat. There are sections for inviting Birds, Bats, frogs and Butterfly to your backyard, how to keep them there and how to protect them when they are there. As you keep walking, you come to a building.

This Building is the next section. This building houses the main part of Rafiki’s Planet Watch and is called the Conservation Station. There are eleven different areas in the Conservation Station; Eco-Web, Song of the Rainforest, Eco Heroes, Caring for the Wild, Animal Encounters, Self Guided Backstage Tour, Wildlife Tracking Center, Veterinary Treatment Room, Hatchery, Nursery, and the Food Preparation Room. All of these different areas help you to learn what Disney is doing to protect not only their animals, but also animals from around the world. A lot of the viewing areas here are based on Disney’s Veterinarians and how they do their job, but there are also presentations by The Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund which “was established in 1995 on Earth Day as a global awards program for the study and protection of the world’s wildlife and ecosystems.”

The displays by the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund are an Unknown Magic of their own. They have one section that is about their Adopt a Nest program, which has its home at Disney’s Vero Beach Resort. The program is one in which you can Adopt a Sea Turtle Nest. We actually did this when we were down last year and we put my wife’s 4th grade class as the adopted parents. They received updates and could check in on their nest throughout the school year. The kids

 loved the program and were all excited when they received the e-mail telling them their nest had hatched. Our trip to Rafiki’s Planet Watch last summer created a Magical Experience for twenty-one different kids that weren’t even with us in Disney, that’s the kind of Magic Disney provides.

Outside of the Conservation Station is the last section of Rafiki’s Planet Watch. This area is called Affection Section. This is the only place in the Animal Kingdom, where it is okay to make contact with the Animals. It is a little petting zoo area that you can visit to feed and pet different domesticated animals. The kids always seem to love petting yards, and this one is no different. Spending some time here may be the highlight of your little one’s day and can lead to a Magical Experience for them.

Rafiki’s Planet Watch is definitely an educational place to visit. They want you to learn about the earth and how to help it, but in true Disney fashion, they make the trip a fun one and they make sure you enjoy the ride.

So, now you know, when in Africa in the Animal Kingdom, jump the Wildlife Express, in Harambe and take a ride to Rafiki’s Planet Watch. This Unknown Magic will provide you with some knowledge, some insight and maybe even a Magical Experience, too.

Click here for More information on Disney’s Commitment to Conservation

And here for More information on the Adopt-A-Nest Program