Up Close with Rhinos Review
“If you’re here for the tour, you should have played the lottery the day you booked because you were truly one of the lucky ones that day!”
That is how the cast member for our most recent tour at Disney welcome us. Yes, this tour can be quite difficult to book seeing as it has limited spots and is only offered once a day. But why is it so popular? Well, probably the biggest selling point is that you get to touch an actual living breathing rhino! You have to admit that is pretty cool. Also, the price you pay for the tour completely goes to conservation, so that is also pretty awesome.
Up Close with Rhinos, similar to the Caring for Giants tour, is a shorter one, only an hour in length, but it packs a lot into that time!
We arrived at the check-in a bit early on our tour day, the tour starts at 11:00am and we got there about 10:45. It was a quick check-in, we had to sign waivers, and then we got our name tags and stood off to the side to wait for the rest of our group to arrive.
Right at 11:00 the cast member leading the tour came over and made the announcement that we should have played the lottery. She then went over what to expect with the tour and the rules. Soon after we were escorted backstage to the bus. Since this tour is completely backstage, pictures are not allowed, so I do apologize for the lack of pictures!
We took a short bus ride to the rhino barn where we got off to meet with some of the animal care team. Here we got to check out the inside of the barn and learn a lot about rhinos, the different kinds, and a lot about the training that they are doing with them. We also got to ask questions, which I feel like this part is really dependent on the group you’re with, we had guests who had a lot of questions so it was great to get that additional information.
After our Q&A, it was time to go meet a rhino! We were brought behind the barn to where the outdoor pens were and another member of the animal care team was feeding a rhino! The day we went, the rhino that was out was Kiama!
They had everyone stand behind a rhino stencil on the ground a bit away from the enclosure to talk about this individual rhino and to go over the rules again. There were specific areas we could reach through the structure to touch the rhino, mostly so if the rhino moved we would get our hands squished between it and the steel!
Then it was finally time to touch a rhino! The cast member called each group up one at a time. They didn’t limit anyone in our tour on time touching/petting the rhino, but everyone on our tour seemed to be very mindful of the others waiting so only took a few minutes each. We even had time after everyone had gotten a chance to pet the rhino for people to go up for a second round!
It was so amazing to be able to pet the rhino, I said she felt kind of like hairy leather. Later in the tour a cast member said a lot of people think they feel like hairy cantaloupes, which I think is an even better description!
They do have a sink right next to the enclosure so we could wash our hands after touching the rhino, while she didn’t feel super dirty, she was a bit dusty!
After everyone in the group got a chance to pet the rhino, they asked if we had any additional questions, and then brought us back to the bus.
At the end of the tour, after we were brought back onstage, they did have prop signs for the tour to get pictures with if desired.
Overall it was a fantastic tour that I would 100% recommend. We learned a lot, and it was just such an awesome experience being able to actually touch a rhino!
