So, on my last trip to Disney I was lucky enough to stay at Animal Kingdom Lodge. It just is a favorite for me with the theme and the food and the animals. I also found some hidden gems such as the nighttime safari. It is a VIP Tour exclusive to guests of the Animal Kingdom Lodge. Sorry to other folks that think AKL is too far to stay because you are missing out on one of my Top 5 best Disney things ever.

So, we scheduled our nighttime safari (it is an extra fee) for the first night we were there. We had no idea what was in store for us but we were so excited to meet our group and guides at Sanaa at 9:45 pm. The tour is limited to about 10 people (and my group made up 5 of them) so you do need advanced reservations. We all boarded an open-sided safari vehicle with a guide in back with us and a guide driving. It is definitely pitch black by 10 p.m. so as I wondered how would I see the animals well we entered one of the three savannahs we would be exploring.

So, the best part was the night goggles. I am not a techy person but even I was uber impressed with how cool they were and how well you could see. We each had our own pair and were shown how to use them and how to take awesome pictures with them.

The guide was amazing and answered all our questions and offered a ton of info about all the animals at AKL and the specific ones we encountered. We got all the gossip about who liked who and who did not play nicely with others. The animals were so kind and gave us awesome poses and were so close to us the whole time that we were all enthralled.

When we returned back we all agreed it was the BEST tour at Disney and one of the best things we had done in our many, many trips.

Have you done the night safari or a special event? Let me know if you loved it as much as I did?