Review: Dine With an Animal Specialist at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge Kidani Village

Hi everyone!

We spent 5 nights staying at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge Kidani Village last month! I’ve been wanting to try the Dine With an Animal Specialist lunch since it began in 2011 – it is just $49 per adult, $29 per child (ages 3-9) including tax and gratuity at Sanaa with a small group that includes an animal specialist. A $5.00 contribution is also made for each meal to Disney’s Wildlife Conservation Fund. This lunch is held on Wednesday and Saturday each week.

Reservations are highly recommended. We were able to snag a couple of spots one day prior, but I can’t imagine that is always the case with only 12 spots available. Before I get into our experience, I will say that this is the best value for a dining event on Walt Disney World property that I can remember attending.

It has been at least a few years since Jeff and I visited Sanaa. It is downstairs at Kidani Village (the DVC building of Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge).

I have read reviews where the event wasn’t full, but ours was. I think we were very fortunate to get in! Everyone sat down, and we were immediately immersed into the dining experience.

Our first course was the Traditional Bread Service, which included naan bread and pappadum (the latter made with lentils and chickpea flour with cumin and cracked pepper). Surrounding the bread were accompaniments that ranged from hot to mild, including mango chutney, cucumber raita, and tamarind chutney. Until now I’ve always eaten naan bread plain – I’m suprised I don’t remember trying mango chutney before as one side of my family is from India. I love it! Chef David told us that the cucumber raita was the accompaniment he considered the most important, as it will help cool down the heat if guests find food too spicy.

Some guests ordered Jungle Juice as their non-alcoholic beverage.

I topped each piece of bread with something different. I would definitely recommend the bread service whether dining at this experience or at the restaurant for a standard meal. My favorite addition to the bread was the mango chutney, but each accompaniment brought something new to the bread.

As we were enjoying our bread service, we were told how the decor in the restaurant is authentic.

Chef David spent nearly 10 minutes with us, talking about the different cuisines we’d be enjoying, and said that “we view food as an extension of the art”. He said that Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge has the largest display of authentic African art on display in Northern America (the Smithsonian has more art, but the items rotate while some is kept in storage).

It would have never occurred to me to ever order the Salad Sampler, yet it was absolutely delicious. Included here was the watermelon salad, cous cous salad and a something I wrote down as a “hot” salad. The first one here had a kick to it. But…nothing had so much of a kick that I couldn’t eat it, and I like spicy foods, but not too hot. When I first had the salad sampler set in front of me, I wasn’t sure how much I’d eat of it. There wasn’t much left by the time I finished! While the salad on the left was spicy, the watermelon salad in the middle was cooling. The cous cous salad was flavorful but not at all hot.

Eddie was our Animal Care Specialist. He asked everyone to introduce themselves and to say what their favorite animal was (I love cats for being both loving and so independent). Eddie originally worked in the pharmaceutical industry, but joined the Disney College Program and fell in love with the animals at Disney’s Animal Kingdom park. He moved to Florida and eventually started working at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge. He said that the animals got first dibs on produce (they eat as well as the guests do!). 

I learned quite a bit during the lunch, even after visiting Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge since just before it officially opened. I hadn’t realized that some of the animals are endangered, including the Somali wild asses. Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge (Jambo House) has 3 of the 700 or so left in the world. These equines that look like donkeys with striped legs are critically endangered and likely face extinction in the wild. Definitely stop and see them! One guest did ask him why there were no elephants at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge, and he said “it would be like Jumanji”. Everyone laughed at that. Eddie talked for a couple of hours, barely stopping to occasionally have a bite to eat.

From where we sat, we could see some of the animals on the savannah off in the distance.

When we booked Dine with an Animal Specialist, both Jeff and I figured it’d be a relatively small meal for the price charged. It wasn’t. Adults were served Butter Chicken (a mild to moderate curry) and Goan Seafood Curry. I asked if I could substitute the Short Rib (which is what the children were dining on) for the seafood, and that was “not a challenge” for the chef.

The butter chicken with rice is what I ended up eating at the table, the short rib came back to the room with us. The first time I ever tried butter chicken was at Landscape of Flavors at Disney’s Art of Animation, but it is much tastier here at Sanaa.

We have dined on the short rib at Sanaa before, and it is tender and full of flavor.

Jeff enjoyed the Goan Seafood Curry with his chicken.

Dessert was still to come, and it was a little different than I’d read even in the most recent reviews. I was most looking forward to the Chai Cream, but that wasn’t part of the trio (though I probably could have asked for it). Looking at the menu, it still mentions Chai Cream. Tanzanian Chocolate Mousse is on the left side. We were told that the desserts here often have a European influence (like the mousse), but African ingredients are used. The Tanzanian mousse is a combination of bitter and sweet. Next is the Banana Cheesecake, which I don’t remember too much. But the dessert on the right hand side tasted like a strawberry ice cream, and is called Kulfi. It is made with condensed milk, and was topped with a strawberry sauce.

After our meal, we went outside to meet Chappy the radiated tortoise. There are two tortoises that live right outside the Kidani Village windows (you can see them near Sanaa). They don’t get along and are kept separate! Radiated tortoises are also endangered.

I’m in a walking boot, and the stones were a bit too much to easily walk on. I appreciated the help of several guests at the lunch to get me to Chappy!

Jeff took a turn with the tortoise.

It was moments from raining, so we didn’t have much of a chance to look out on the savannah at that point (but we had a room overlooking it, and headed back there).

This is what Chappy’s pen looks like from inside Kidani Village.

We stopped to take a few photos of Sanaa, but the restaurant was pretty busy when we left. We highly recommend Dine with an Animal Specialist! It was an excellent value for what we received (just take a look at the menu prices on the Disney website!) We enjoyed getting the chance to ask questions of both the chef and Eddie. I hope to enjoy this experience again in the future.

Guests can book Dine with an Animal Specialist up to 180 days in advance at 407-WDW-DINE.

Full disclosure: We paid for our own meal at Dine with an Animal Specialist. As always, all views are ours.