Caring for Giants Elephant Tour
Yesterday, we went over to Animal Kingdom and decided to take the one hour behind the scenes tour called Caring for Giants.
We did not book the tour in advance though we could have done so. We arrived at the tour desk, which is located in the Africa section of Animal Kingdom and sits on the left just before you enter the standby line for the Safari ride, and inquired about tour availability. The next tour was slated to occur at within the next half hour and had room available for us to participate. As annual passholders, we were provided with a discount on the cost so it was approximately $52 for the two of us (both adults) to take the tour.
Before returning to the tour desk, we headed off to use the restroom (There are no restrooms available on the tour) and to get bottles of water as it was a very hot day. Once back at the tour desk, we were provided with waivers to sign which essentially says we would be unable to hold Disney responsible for anything that might happen to us during the course of the tour. Once they had our signatures, we were handed lanyards which contained our first names on small pieces of paper with an elephant head depicted on the face along with the title of the tour.
Promptly at 10 am, the ten members of our tour group (all adults) were led "backstage". We were told we could not take any pictures in this area. After about a 5 minutes walk, we approached a van. The driver waiting there would bring us to the area where we could see the elephants. We were told we would be observing the male elephants on this day. The van that drove us to the observation area took us past the barns where the elephants reside when they are not out on the savanna. However, we really couldn't see anything through the van windows as they were opaque which are driver said was to help keep the van cooler (In my opinion, it really is to keep folks from surreptitiously taking pictures or film along the travel route). After about a 5 minute drive, we entered another area through a gate and were let out of the van where we were met by a Disney cast member.
We walked up a very easy to traverse set of steps which led to the viewing area. When we first arrived, I was a bit concerned that we would not be happy with our tour as we had only a view of the top of a head of an elephant off around a corner. Apparently, there are three male elephants altogether. One is an adult male and the other two are younger - I guess they would be considered teenagers. We were told that the adult male will often keep the younger ones in line if they get a bit too rambunctious and, when he has had enough of them, he will often go off on his own to have a little break. We were told that the two younger males sometimes needed space away from each other when they seemed to tire of each other but, when they would get back together, they always seem quite happy to see each other. It wasn't long before these two younger males came into view. They were quite active and it appeared they were playing together. At times, they threw dirt and mud at each other. One of them lay down in the water for a bit but that was a distance away so we really didn't get a good view of that. They sometimes charged at each other. For some period of time, one of them lay his trunk along the back of the other and they walked around for a bit together. It was really fun to watch them. While we observed the elephants, the Disney cast member spoke to their eating habits and their social habits. She would also answer any questions anyone in the group might have. After a bit, we were introduced t another cast member who is from Africa. He spoke to conservation efforts for elephants in the wild as well as the challenges faced by elephants in the wild and answered questions from the group. He passed around a piece of elephant dung that had been dried out and coated so it could be handled by the group. It was surprisingly heavy. He also noted that the name tags we were wearing were made primarily out of elephant poop fibers. He also told us that all proceeds from the tour are provided to conservation efforts.
Soon our driver appeared and we reboarded the van for the short ride back to where we started.
The elephant poop name tags (though not the lanyards they were in - we had to return those) were our "gift" for taking the tour.
I'm glad we did the tour!
