Up Close With Rhinos is a 1-hour rhino encounter experience at Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom theme park. It’s a paid experience, and one you will probably want to book in advance if you’re interested. In this post, we’ll review Up Close With Rhinos and give you information on booking it, including deciding whether it’s worth it for your family!
Up Close With Rhinos Basics
Up Close With Rhinos is a 1-hour rhino encounter experience at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. It is offered once a day most days, but you should always confirm the latest schedule at the website. The official Up Close With Rhinos page from Disney is here.
The price is $49 per person. When we visited pre-closure we received a 15% annual pass discount, but that doesn’t appear to still be available when we visited post-closure. You might also be able to get a discount if you have the Chase Disney Visa Credit Card. Separate park admission is required.
Guests for Up Close With Rhinos must be at least 4 years old (under 18 must be accompanied by adult). If you have younger kids, read about visiting Animal Kingdom with toddlers.
Booking Up Close With Rhinos
You can book Up Close With Rhinos online about 9 weeks (63 days) in advance, but it’s common that availability doesn’t actually open until closer to 30-45 days. We of course recommend checking as soon as your date opens and then continually thereafter.
You can also call (407) 939-7529 to book, and you can book at several spots around Walt Disney World Resort, including the Animal Kingdom’s Curiosity Animal Tours Kiosk near the Kilimanjaro Safaris attraction.
Currently, Up Close With Rhinos is offered once per day most days. If you’re planning to do both it and another experience (like the Caring For Giants tour, for example) note that you have only the one time option for the Up Close With Rhino tour.
Before booking, you’ll want to have a few dates in mind in case your date isn’t available. Check the Disney Website for the current schedule. Separate admission to Animal Kingdom is required.
Lauren provided me a confirmation number via email, and the experience showed up on my My Disney Experience account and in the My Disney Experience app.
A week before the tour I received an email basically reiterating the information already on the website (this is outdoors, check in at least 15 minutes early, etc.).
Importantly, this information is highlighted a few times: “No cameras, video equipment or cell phones may be used while participating in this tour.” Because the tour is backstage, photos are not allowed.
Up Close With Rhinos Check In
Check In for Up Close With Rhinos is at the Curiosity Animal Tours Kiosk just in front of Kilimanjaro Safaris, to the left if you’re looking at the entrance to that attraction.
After a successful rope drop at Animal Kingdom, we checked in the recommended 15 minutes early.
Between check in and the start of the tour you just stand around, but once the tour departs you cannot join, and since this is a once-per-day tour, being late means you definitely won’t take the tour today.
Fitting the tours into your day can be a little complicated. You want to arrive 15 minutes early, which means you’ll probably need to be off a ride or exiting a show at least 30 minutes early. Add in the tour maybe running a few minutes long and even though the tour is an hour long, it might take out up to 2 hours of your day.
Keep in mind you don’t want your Animal Kingdom Lightning Lane reservations to conflict with the tour. Flight of Passage and Kilimanjaro Safaris can both easily take 30 minutes with a Lightning Lane, so don’t get on those too close to your tour.
There is plenty of entertainment in Harambe (near check-in) that we think is worth watching, so you might see if there’s anything going on before your check-in. Festival of the Lion King is also nearby, and a 30-minute 10AM show would allow you to catch check in by 10:45AM (if by some tragedy it didn’t, just leave the show early).
Kora Tinga Tinga performance in Harambe
Up Close With Rhinos Tour Experience
We were given name tags in lanyards, and right about 11AM, the scheduled start time, our group. assembled near the kiosk. Our guide for the hour introduced herself to us and told us a little about the tour, which was backstage (no photos allowed).
In explaining the tour, she explicitly said we’d “hopefully get to pet a rhino.” It’s important to know that all animal experiences at Animal Kingdom park—whether it’s a paid tour, animals on an attraction, or just the animals living around the park—are not guaranteed.
If the rhino they have backstage today isn’t up for interacting, that’s all there is to it. It sounds like this rarely happens, but they won’t force the rhinos to interact with you if they don’t want to.
After the few minutes introduction, we went backstage and took a mini bus to the area where the rhinos are cared for. The drive was 5-10 minutes long, and along the way the guide explained what we were driving past.
If you’ve never been backstage at a Disney park, this is neat, but the tour isn’t really even partially about backstage. You pass through it, get some commentary, get to see Cast Members backstage, and that’s really it for that part.
The rhinos are cared for near the elephants, so we got to see one of them backstage as we pulled up. That’s when the main part of the tour began.
Up Close With rhinos focuses on the white rhinos of Animal Kingdom. There are black rhinos at Animal Kingdom, but they’re not a part of the tour.
For about 30 minutes, we heard from the white rhinos’ animal care experts. Two of them (mostly one of them) explained to us the lineage of the rhinos, how they’re taken care of, rhino conservation, their status throughout the world, and so on.
This part of the tour was very informational (the Cast Members will answer all your questions), but it was even more heartwarming. The most touching part of the the animal tours at Animal Kingdom is hearing how much the experts care for the animals.
They tell you about the personality of the rhinos, and it really brings them into a whole new light. It’s amazing to learn about this whole life the rhinos lead.
When you pass them on Kilimanjaro Safaris, it’s easy to sort of just think “Cool! Rhino! Picture! Look at it eat that grass!” and move on. But hearing about them backstage changes your entire perspective on the animals, the Cast Members, and really the park.
For the latter part of the visit, we lined up to pet the rhino. We were able to meet Kendi. If you’re concerned about safety, you can probably worry a bit less. The rhinos are kept inside the rhino barn and kept by the side with treats so you can reach through and pet.
Yes, petting the rhino is a cool part of the tour, but I really think the highlight was just seeing the Cast Members interact with her and tell us about her. I imagine if she didn’t even want to come near them it might lose a little of the emotional resonance.
In any case, there was no problem with shyness today, and as we pet the rhino the Cast Members answered any remaining questions we had.
We left about 15-10 minutes before the hour was up, arriving back onstage right as the hour finished. There were two small photo ops available with the Up Close With Rhinos sign and a sign featuring Kendi’s name (don’t mind Emily’s out of control hair).
Is Up Close With Rhinos Worth It?
Definitely. There are a lot of factors at play here, but any way you cut it, this is a tour worth doing.
Let’s start with price. For $49, you’re getting to visit backstage, hear about animal caretaking at Animal Kingdom, hear directly about the white rhinos from the experts, and (probably) get to pet a white rhino.
The tour is only an hour, but it’s a great hour. Meeting the rhinos was our favorite part of Backstage Tales when we did that years ago. Now that tour has been discontinued and replaced by shorter tours, like Up Close With Rhinos.
And this brings us to the next question, is it worth that hour?
As much as I love Animal Kingdom, the park doesn’t require a full day for most guests (to be clear, Animal Kingdom can fill a full day if you’d like). Adults visiting Animal Kingdom may in particular have more time on their hands, as they might be less inclined to ride a few rides (looking at you, TriceraTop Spin) and meet characters.
But, since the addition of Pandora—The World of Avatar years ago, the park easily takes more than a half day for all guests.
In this middle-ground, an hour-long tour is the perfect addition. The timing—currently 11AM—is also good, as it will allow you a few hours for rope drop at Animal Kingdom and maybe a show or streetmosphere, before taking the tour at peak waits for the day set in.
Those notes aside, the tour is a good use of time and money, and honestly I’m looking forward to the next time I can find an excuse to do it!
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