The Mysterious Dragon Part 1

I'd like to welcome Amanda Acree to our family here at Disney Dispatch. She brings a vibrant and exciting point of view about things that she's noticed at Walt Disney World that you might have missed. This is part 1 of her dragon discovery at Disney's newest theme park, Animal Kingdom. Welcome Amanda!

- by Amanda Acree, April 20, 2012

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The magical wonder that is Disney World never ceases to amaze me even after all these years. Being a Disney World enthusiast I’ve learned that if you take your time and look closely at the details of Disney you will often find something much more magical than the whole itself.  The last addition to Disney World, the Animal Kingdom, is without a doubt my favorite within the four Disney theme parks. My godmother works for Disney so during the summers that I would spend with her I would squander my days away wandering around Disney until she got off work because hey let’s admit it if you had the choice of sitting home alone or letting Disney babysit you for the day you would pick Disney too. Some days I would ride the rides some days I would just walk around and find a place to eat but one thing is for sure as I got older I started to notice things I didn’t notice the first 100 times I had been there. As you walk around Animal Kingdom you there are plenty of things you probably saw and never thought about. Let’s start at the beginning of a mystery I solved a few years ago. The first thing that you see after getting off the bus to animal kingdom is the logo; it’s everywhere the benches on the walk in and of course over the entrance but have you ever noticed that smack dab in the middle of the logo is a dragon? Weird right, because I know I’ve been all over that park and I have never once seen a dragon anywhere in this park.        

Let’s go over the rest of the logo. There’s a lion.. well that makes sense there are whole sections dedicated to the lions. Elephants sure yeah I’ve seen those on the safari ride. An antelope.. yep check. A dinosaur well yes of course there is a whole themed area for them but a dragon… nope never seen one. Doesn’t seem odd that a dragon would be on the logo when not one is in the park? Let’s say you didn’t take the bus to the park and you actually paid the ridiculous price for parking to walk from the parking lot or take the tram to the park entrance. You would in this case get to see something else interesting. As you are leaving your parking space and you look down to see the section you parked in you may find that you have parked in the unicorn section. Unicorn? That also seems off. The other ones are all animals found in the park.. But unicorn? That’s not in the park. As you approach the ticket booth (if you are an idiot and are paying full prices for the tickets) you will notice the three ticket booths all have large stone carvings over them. One is a triceratops, next is elephant, and the third is a dragon head. Yes, once again this large beast found nowhere in the park has raised his powerful head begging for recognition.

                  For several years this is all I noticed in the park of the dragon. One year I was exceptionally bored as I had done all the rides several days in a row so I was just walking around talking on my phone when I went to grab something to drink. Over next to camp Minnie-Mickey where I was so I went to grab some water from the water fountain. Starring right into my eyes carved into the water fountain I found him again! The dragon, on a fountain, right outside Minnie-Mickey.  I excitedly looked all around but found nothing else in the section to lead on that he had a purpose here. As I had mentioned I was exceptionally bored and decided to go walk around Camp Minnie-Mickey and maybe watch the Lion King show (because it is breathtakingly beautiful) as I walked over the bridge I noticed something; fire coming from a cave.

I walked down to the Discovery River Boats when I noticed that there were two knights outside the entrance looking charred. Excitedly I jumped on the ride which I never paid attention to knowing I was about to meet this famous dragon I had been missing out on all these years.  As we passed the cave fire came billowing out of the entrance and the boat captain said it was from a fire breathing dragon inside. Really, that’s it, that is all he said. I asked him, “Can you see the dragon?” He said, “No, he never comes out of the cave.” I whispered to the man, “Is there even a statue of a dragon?” I got back one word, “No.” I was heartbroken I thought for sure I had figured this whole thing out but apparently everything is based upon this one stupid dragon you can’t even see. Then I started thinking about it and it didn’t make sense to me because the Unicorn was still unexplained.  After investing 30 minutes into an extremely boring boat ride I left. My godmother called and said she had a meeting and wouldn’t be done until 7 so to grab some dinner in the park. I grabbed a McDonald’s Kids meal because I’m cheap like that and when I opened up my kids toy I knew they were mocking me. A purple dragon. That was the toy I got, a purple dragon with some wings just looking at me.

Enough was enough. I am a woman with too much pride to normally turn to anyone for help or ask anyone for information. I would rather figure it out on my own but this dragon had got the best of me and after years of mystery I couldn’t get it off my mind. That night I asked my godmother about the purple dragon and it turned out to be way more than I ever thought it would be.

Come back next time for another Disney DIZcovery!