We took the Backstage Tales Tour Tuesday 3/3/2015. Our experience was very similar to Jennab113. We met out front and were given our headsets and name tags. We had a bottle of water with us, I did put it in my bag so that my hands were free. Our guides Debbi and Tonya were very good.
We also went to the Aviary in Africa, we were able to feed the birds and the gentleman talked about how they count them twice a day. We watched the weaver birds weave some material into the nest they were building.
From there we went backstage and got in the new, new to them, van that was decorated like the safari trucks, but enclosed with air conditioning. Plenty of room and bucket seats. There were only 8 on our tour we had plenty of room to spread out.
We drove to the Elephant house where they talked about the elephant enrichment activities and had displays about the food and poo. There were two elephants in the enclosure one of which was the baby.
We then drove to the rhino enclosure and saw the white rhino male, the hyena's were being shy and didn't come out while we were there. They did let use know that they would be putting a baby and mom white rhino out in the play yard. We did catch a peek as we went by later on.
We also toured the kitchen and feed area. Our classroom time we learned about GRACE Center for Rescued Gorillas. It was fascinating and sounds like they offer different presentations to each group. Learning about the storks would have been interesting as well.
We toured the vet hospital and they were getting ready to remove the dewclaws of the older female lion. We didn't get to see the lioness, but they were prepping for the surgery.
Next stop was the Komodo Dragon and we watched as the keeper was training him to go up and get used to having his nails touched so the feeling would be normal when it came time to clip his nails.
Goodies were the Backstage Tales Water bottle, Rice Crispy Elephant and the Green Conservation pin.
I liked the tour and would like to do the WAT next time. Backstage tales tour was interesting and I felt we got our money's worth, but we were able to ask a ton of questions in our small group so the group dynamic might make a difference.
I would be interested in the comparison to the Backstage Safari as we were never able to take that tour. So if someone has done both, I would love to know the differences.