@snowleopard: You have mentioned in some of your reviews that you aren't fond of exhibits that incorporate rides because they don't allow extensive viewing times of the animals. Did the Dallas African ecosystem monorail experience work for you? I have seen a video of it and it seemed like the monorail was timed so that there was enough time to look at the animals, but would be interested in knowing your thoughts.
Are the stars of this exhibit the different ecosystem types themselves? In the tour video that I saw it didn't look like there were any superstar African animal species on the monorail, but rather the different ecosystems and their interpretation were the main attraction. I guess chimps might be the star, but it looked like the main place to view them is the walking path around their exhibit.
I'll never be a huge fan of any kind of situation where I have a few seconds to view exotic wildlife in a captive environment. Plus on many hot days the monorail is shut down by 10:30 and so for the bulk of the day it is not even open to the public. What a waste!
An excerpt from my 2010 review:
Wilds of Africa - I rode the monorail twice at the zoo, and the second time I had Bret as my driver and he gave quite a theatrical performance while conducting his metallic vessel. The 20-minute adventure takes riders through forest, mountain, woodland, predator-prey (but the dik-dik “prey” was absent), river, desert and bush habitats and I enjoyed both of my rides. The river habitat is the most visually spectacular zone, the many hoofstock species are great to see throughout the tour (waterbuck, scimitar-horned oryx, addra gazelles, Grevy’s zebra, okapi, Nubian ibex, gerenuk, sand gazelle, gemsbok, addax, etc) and I loved the overhead viewing of the massive chimpanzee habitat.
However, many folks on ZooChat understand my views on rides in terms of animal viewing possibilities, and no matter how much fun I had or how interesting my driver was nothing can change the fact that I watched ibex for perhaps one minute or less, saw a gerenuk for maybe 40 seconds, etc. I won’t belittle the point here, but it is a pity that such rare and wonderful animals cannot be seen for more than seconds. The monorail ride is arguably better than Disney’s “Kilimanjaro Safari” ride in terms of animal appeal for folks like me, as while Disney pulls out all the stops on a spectacular journey at least if you were to skip the Dallas tour you’d only be missing out on a few birds and hoofstock while at Disney if an individual does not take the ride then they can never see the mandrills, lions, rhinos, elephants, giraffes and other marquee mammals at the zoo. What a crying shame!
An excerpt from my 2010 review of the walking portion of Wilds of Africa:
Wilds of Africa – “Nature Trail” is a fantastic walking trail that allows visitors to see some of the animals that were viewed from a higher elevation on the monorail. A forest habitat has okapis in a densely planted yard and a nearby saddle-billed stork enclosure; the “Kopje” has a small aviary, meerkats and klipspringers in separate exhibits; a walk-through aviary is small but pleasant; the chimpanzee habitat is one of the best of its kind as it is over a half-acre in size and full of steep inclines; Nile crocs are always great to see; Aldabra tortoises have a large yard; lesser flamingos have a scenic lagoon; mandrills have a huge, beautiful exhibit; black-footed penguins have a small but well-designed enclosure; gorillas have two enclosures and massive viewing windows into the combined 1.5 acres of jungle. The only flaw with those exhibits is the lack of apes, as there are only 4 gorillas in a lot of thick undergrowth. The research station/indoor viewing area has thick sofas and it is amazingly cool there on a scorching Texas day.
I recall that Dallas was in the middle of 40+ consecutive days of 100 degrees or hotter...yikes! What time would the monorail normally close during the summer months?
That is disappointing that the monorail is only open for about 3 hours a day in the summer months, so hopefully it is fully operational all day in the winter season. In the summer folks will have to arrive early and visit the African section first if they want a seat! On our road trip vacations my family always arrives at a zoo or an aquarium as soon as it opens, which is a bonus especially when it comes to aquariums as there is a major lack of space for containing large crowds at most of them.
