Rating: * * * +
Type: Drive-through animal tour and water ride
Time: 7 minutes
Kelly says: Nifty idea that’s more clever than
thrilling
Rhino Rally artfully blends safari-style animal encounters with a tame water ride. The ride is carved out of a 22-acre patch of the Serengeti Plain near the border between Nairobi and Timbuktu. But, unlike rides at other parks that use animated robotic figures, Rhino Rally calls on its cast of exotic African water buffalo, zebras, antelope, elephants, and rhinos to play themselves in a real-life action adventure.
The adventure begins as you board a 17-passenger converted Land Rover with your guide and driver to take part in the 34th annual running of Rhino Rally, an off-road race along the Zambezi River across the rugged and dangerous terrain of the African veldt. One adult in the group is chosen to ride next to the driver (a great seat, by the way) and serve as the navigator who, in off-road rally tradition, will be blamed if anything goes wrong. Along the way, your sturdy vehicle splashes through crocodile-infested waters and comes almost face to face with elephants, rhinos, and other wild critters. The course has been cleverly designed to allow the Land Rovers to nosedive into streams and water holes and cross narrow bridges over deep ravines.
The trip provides close-up, although brief, encounters with elephants, Grant’s zebras, cape buffalo and scimitar-horned oryx. The ancient Egyptians, we learn, domesticated these beasts and forced their long curving horns to grow together into a single horn, creating the myth of the unicorn. After driving past two rare white rhinos (they are actually gray), the vehicle fords a stream filled with real crocodiles cruising just a few feet away.
Then, as often happens in theme park thrill rides, things go awry and, of course, it’s all the navigator’s fault. A fateful wrong turn takes your vehicle into a tree-shaded gulch just as a cloudburst hits, obscuring the view out the front window. As your driver nervously tries to cross a rickety pontoon bridge, a freak flash flood comes roaring over a cliff on the left. Before you can say “Dr. Livingstone, I presume,” the bridge breaks apart, carrying you and your vehicle on an unscheduled ride down a meandering river.
After drifting through a narrow canyon and under a drenching waterfall, the bridge fragment on which your vehicle is riding crashes against yet another washed out bridge and comes to a bumpy halt. Fortunately, your intrepid guide is able to drive out of this predicament and up the side of the river, bringing everyone safely to the finish line.
A great deal of the fun of this ride is supplied by the driver/guide. The best ones really get into the spirit of things, teaching you a few handy Swahili phrases and getting everyone involved in the action. So you’ll probably want to ride more than once. The problem with that is the line quickly grows to daunting lengths. Figure on an hour’s wait unless you arrive at opening time.
Tip: If you are alone or if there are just two of you, you may be able to get in a vehicle a bit sooner by following the sign for the single riders line. If you are waiting in the main line, you can accomplish much the same thing by holding one or two fingers aloft during the boarding process. Ride attendants sometimes look for singles or couples to fill in empty spots on the Land Rover that’s about to depart.
The best seats in the house. The seats on the left hand side of the vehicle offer not only the best views of the wildlife but a front row seat to the spectacular flash flood. You will, however, get wet.
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