Walkabout The World - A Disney Podcast - A Walkabout in Animal Kingdom For Holiday Vibes [ep 035]

Episode Date: November 14, 2021

Hello Travelers! This week, go on walkabout with us at Disney's Animal Kingdom where the holiday vibes are plentiful and most welcome. We start off in Discovery Island where we get to hang out while the Merry Menagerie is taking place. Hear the holiday music from the strolling violin and steel drum players. Heather was visited by a friendly bear (as you can see in the episode photo), and we saw the wonderful cast members puppeteering reindeer, penguins, and more.    We then journey over past DinoLand USA to the Serka Zong area of Asia to hunt down some park merch (spoiler alert - they were sold out), and we end back near the front of the park to listen into the newly debuted holiday park ambient tunes. As always, use some good listening devices as we record in 4 channel surround sound. We hope you enjoy, and thanks for listening!   Look us up at @WalkaboutWDW on Instagram and drop us a note to say hi! Find our producer Josh also on Instagram at @TheSteele.   NOTES:   Here is a post from BlogMickey describing the Merry Menagerie:   https://blogmickey.com/2021/10/merry-menagerie-animal-puppets-return-to-disneys-animal-kingdom-this-holiday-season/

Hello travelers, welcome back to Walkabout the World in Disney's Animal Kingdom. You know who we are. Your weekly audio walkabout in one of the parks and resorts of Walt Disney World here in Orlando, Florida. And today, Animal Kingdom is decked out in its holiday best. Heather's with me. Hi, Heather. Hi, everybody. And we are in Discovery Island where they once again have the Merry Menagerie. And if you don't remember what that is, that is a little holiday party they have with elaborate... I'm going to call them puppets. Would you call them puppets?

Yeah, it's wooden puppets. Yeah, they're wood puppets and the... Oh, I'm just listening. Because they also have a violinist and a steel drum player. A steel drummer? Is that a thing? Out here doing some cool holiday music. And all of the background ambience is an Animal Kingdom version of Christmas tunes,

and it's awesome. But we just saw a polar bear. He came over to us and was very friendly. We're just here to soak up some Christmas vibes. And also have a mission. We're going to go buy a thing. Maybe we'll talk to you about what the thing is and why. Just to hang out a little bit.

I'm going to be quiet and let you listen to the Christmas Discovery Island ambience Look at all the decorations! Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mama! There's also a pair of little penguins rolling around, and a large penguin. I'm assuming that's a penguin. Yes. Yes.

He's blue and white, though. Some penguins rolling around. This one is on a pole with little wheels, and they bob up and down. They look cool. I love you. One of the best things that Disney has done in years, honestly, and you can tell the cast members love it. Huge smiles. They like working these puppets. They're awesome The reindeer You got a heart in your mouth. I don't know. My mouth is so thin there. It's hard to get through. Oh, you can do it!

Yeah! Yeah, um, so it says, so if you walk around every area, you can just sit in the floor for a little bit. Um, you can get it out, and you can put it down.

You can put it down. It's beautiful. I'll be honest, it's about the most crowded I have seen Animal Kingdom in a long time. This is a holiday weekend, though. Pretty dense crowds. We're not going to do anything too ambitious because that's not what we do. So it doesn't bother me, but a lot of people here. We are going to press on and I'm going to hand you off to Heather, and we're going to walk through Discovery Island over towards Dinosaur, eventually over towards the Asia area for a specific goal. What are we trying to buy today?

I think we're going to try to buy some Christmas ornaments. And? And maybe a frozen Coke? Heather's forgotten why we're here, oh i forgot yes we're buying prayer flags today sorry guys and why are we buying prayer flags that seems like an odd thing to buy but why are we doing it we're decorating your office with some stuff from animal kingdom yeah i have a an anandapur wall in my office and we need some prayer flags to go above some of the doodads that we have in there. And could we get them on Amazon for way cheaper? Yes.

But knowing that, I don't know if you're like this, but knowing where I bought a thing is important. And so knowing that we bought the prayer flags at the store by Everest is important. So that's what we're going to do. So we're going to take off and just wander. Are you ready? Okay. And we are going to get some ornaments and some other stuff, too, on the way out. Here we go.

Here we go. I'm going to go ahead and get you a head. That is the best Bubba you've ever done. I'm telling you! Thank you. so I'm going to take a picture of the down pausing by the discovery trading company because all the little columns here are decked out in garland and ornaments and and it looks great in here Christmas time love it oh we haven't looked in either oh you're getting bubble. Are you ready? Okay. Oh, okay.

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All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. gates of dino Land are directly in front and Flametree BBQ to the left and it is packed. There is a a crap ton. A veritable crap ton of people at Flametree. Yeah. A lot of people here. Let's go to Dino Land. Dino Land Bridge. The bridge with no ambience.

Hey, Trilobites is open today. The The big dinosaur, okay, not the green one the dinosaur fossil it says Donald's dino bash has all of the Christmas lights all over it after dark is gonna look amazing you can hear the playing the Christmas music I'm so excited, I'm your side I'm your side, I'm your side I'm your side, I'm your side I'm your side, I'm your side I'm your side, I'm your side I'm your side, I'm your side I'm your side, I'm your side I'm your side, I'm your side I'm your side, I'm your side

I'm your side, I'm your side I'm your side, I'm your side I'm your side, I'm your side I'm your side, I'm your side I'm your side, I'm your side And you know that we notice the plant life here, and we've talked to you about a bougainvillea plant before, but there is a huge apricot bougainvillea right at the corner of the boneyard that I'm going to take a picture of and post it. It is gorgeous. Sorry about the mic transfer noise. Chester and Hester's Dinosaur Treasures is ahead.

And the... And the Dino-rama area directly ahead. And attraction is missing. What attraction is missing now? The Primeval Whirl. And I know a lot of people, including our producer Josh, are sad. I say Primeval Whirl, good riddance. Don't hate me, guys. Don't hate me.

It wasn't my favorite. I'm hopeful that they will put something in that will be better. I like Dinoland, and I like the Chester and Hester area, too. I know a lot of people don't. I like Dinoland, and I like the Chester and Hester area too. I know a lot of people don't. But I'm going to take a left here, and we're going to go over towards the Theater in the Wild and across over towards Circa Zong in Asia to the store near Everest,

where hopefully they will have our prayer flags. Here we go. Because they start at 8 o'clock. Okay, Heather, where are we? We are right beside Theater in the Wild. Is where the Nemo show used to play and it is coming back at some point we don't know when so yeah so it is gonna come back and we can't wait for that. Kite Tails theater now to the left right? Yes. Correct I mean? Yes. They can't hear me by the way. Looks like the Kite Tails

show is about to start. People are queuing up. Oh! Ow! That's so great! This is fair. Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!

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Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! So right across from Theater in the Wild, you're facing the Discovery River Lagoon, Asia across the way, where used to be the seating for Rivers of Light is now the seating for Kite Tales, which is the show that they have with the big kites of all the animals, Baloo and Simba and all those guys. Doesn't look like they're ready to start right now. I could check the times, but I'm a lazy, lazy man, Roger. Kudos if you know that reference by the way okay the mountain is in the foreground and we are going to walk

across the bridge into Asia here we go A gente vai ver o que acontece com a gente. What do we see here? Well, we're going across the bridge right beside Everest, and it looks like the start of the bridge is where the standby line starts for Expedition Everest. Yeah, sir. Looks like a pretty long line. The first thing I remember about this is that they contain music for the summer. okay all across the walkway here in circus Soleil is draped the prayer flags, which gives us our inspiration for what we're gonna do. Are you riding with me? I am. I love the sit-downs. I think that can make the world go big.

I think that can make the world go big. I think that can make the world go big. It's just so good. It's just so good. It's just so good. It's just so good. It's just so good. It's just so good.

It's just so good. It's just so good. It's just so good. It's just so good. Down and down and down. Okay. Down and down. We're going to see if we can navigate this enormous crowd and get into the store. We will rejoin you after. Okay, so we visited Circazong Bazaar, which is the Expedition Everest store, and sad trombone, they sold out of the prayer flags. Deep sigh. First world problems.

So we will buy some from World Market or somewhere else and realize that at least we trekked over here to try to get them but right now i'm going to set you the faithful listener by heather i'm going to go on another mission but we are literally at the bottom of the hill can you hear the water coming off the mountain literally at the bottom of the hill where uh the screaming people come and uh so like you can sit here and listen to their screams for a while The Over here. You see better there? It's so fast I can't even what he said. I didn't like the color of the giant blue one. Did you guys go on that? I didn't.

This year. I've been on it before. I haven't been on it. I didn't like it. A lot of that is really dark and I don't like it. What do you like? The blue one. The blue one. The blue one. The blue one. Breathe that in.

Well, travelers, we are back at the front of the park where the tap styles are covered in... Well, the tap styles aren't. The pergola over the tap styles is covered in gorgeous green garland with all kinds of amazing Animal Kingdom themed ornaments. And it is just entirely lovely. And also 75 degrees which, sing praise y'all, I'm telling you. So we're going to wrap it up today. I'll tell you what we did that I didn't record.

We went in Discovery Trading Company and Island Mercantile looking for our second goal of the day, which is light-up ornaments that look like the little puppets. And we found them. We thought we were going to fail on that one too but a lovely customer said oh no they're behind the counter here so we got those I'll take a picture and show you guys and then we headed back out it did we have a cold front coming

through rained on us for a minute so we took shelter there in the store for a while but now we're going to head out and hope you enjoyed this brief little foray into the park to hunt down a couple of items. And we're going to leave you with a few minutes of this music that just debuted. And I know it's early, but I don't know about you guys, but I am so ready for holiday anything right now.

In my opinion, it is high time for holiday season this year so look us up on instagram at walkabout wdw it is our one and only place where we interact with you guys the travelers drop us a line tell us how you're doing tell us when and how you listen and look up our producer and artist of our logo, an all-around good guy, Josh, at TheSteel, with an E, also on Instagram. And remember, there is a great, big, beautiful tomorrow and holiday season out there.

We will see you in another walk about the world. Bye, guys. Kampung Kampung Kampung I think we should get a picture of the Kampung Kampung I'm not sure if I can get it to work. I'll hold it. 372. Dan, do you want to hold these glasses? Sure, thank you. I'm Peter. Thank you.