Park / Jappy's Wildland Adventure Kingdom

20 Comments

  • ][ntamin22%s's Photo

    One of the things i really love about this park is the areas that are just there to be pleasant walking experiences.  

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    This is the sort of little scenic area I'm talking about that I think is almost a zoo-specific thing, at least from the zoos I've been to in the US.  They try to build out the viewing areas with some sense of cultural context and rather than rides you'll have these little dioramas or tableaus or walkthrough experiential learning exhibits.  I imagine these are dioramas with little exhibit tags explaining the type of handicrafts made or the cultural relationship of these mud-flat villagers with the nearby hippos.

     

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    Same sort of thing - I think it's really a focal point for zoos to just have pleasant walking areas, pavilions, little garden side paths.  Probably coming from the "zoological gardens" history.  Maybe this is cultural nuance, but in my experience when you go to a theme park you don't see a gazebo or a nice outdoor seating area and think "I want to just sit here and enjoy this nice scenic area" unless it's something along the lines of Epcot or Animal Kingdom... but you do when you go to a zoo.  Maybe Americans have lost widespread access to the Tivoli-archetype park experience in our sea of concrete chain megacoaster parks.

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    This is, again, the level of scenic decoration that sets a park apart from being an amusement park and puts it more in the "total leisure experience resort" category - it reminds me of the bus dropoff loops for Animal Kingdom Lodge or Coronado Springs.  Totally mundane environment but it has the cues and the care taken to making you feel like you're already somewhere special.