Changes coming to Kilimanjaro Safaris?

A new rumor has been released by Stitch Kingdom.com, that states that the "Kilimanjaro Safaris" attraction at Disney's Animal Kingdom may receive some not-so-good changes. Indeed, it seems like the storyline (the chase of the hunters) will be completely removed, and replaced by... nothing!

But again, for now it's only a rumor, but the source is good. it is the rumor:

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Big Changes Afoot at Disney’s Kilimanjaro Safaris; 

Potential Refurb in January

The economy has hit us hard all around the world and perhaps no single company has been impacted as much as the Kilimanjaro Safaris company that attempts to make its ends meet by guiding tourists through the Harambe Wildlife Reserve.

Strong rumors indicate  that early next year, KJS will be closing for an extensive refurbishment and when it re-opens, it will be with a completely lackluster storyline, if it even has one at all.

Currently, guests are set to embark on a two week safari (hope you brought your toothbrush!) through the wilds of Africa aboard SIMBA-1, only to have their trip cut short when other touring vehicles come across signs of poachers and SIMBA-1 joins the quest to find and stop the poachers before it’s too late for elephant favorites ‘Big Red’ and her baby ‘Little Red.’ Under the new changes, all of this will be completely eliminated. Whether this means there will be no apparent storyline for the guests, we don’t know at this time.

This isn’t the first time the story has been de-embellished, however. In the original, pre-opening version of the attraction, ‘Big Red’ was physically represented as the fallen victim of the poachers. Determined to be too family unfriendly, the faux corpse was removed from the attraction and ‘Big Red’ turned out okay (so they tell us). A few years ago, the storyline thinned out even further.

So what provoked these rumored changes? Sources have given us several rationales, but none of them really seem to make sense from an operations perspective. The only other change we know to be occurring is the new tour that will be offered to guests  as first announced on the Disney Parks blog. Although that tour was said to be launching later this year, we have been assured that its success depends on the refurbishment of the attraction so it’s not likely to begin until early next year instead. It’s a case of the chicken vs the egg in terms of which came first, but from what we understand, the tour does stand to benefit from the proposed changes to the attraction, however that may be.

Update #1 – 9/1/10: Stitch Kingdom reader Tonya offered the following on our Facebook page:

‘We were there the end of August. I was asked to take a short survey. They asked questions about the length of the ride, how many animals did we see and if our children enjoyed it. All they would tell me is that they are thinking about changing the ride like making it longer.’

Update #2 – 9/1/10: This is 130% speculation on my part, but I just want to say it for the sake of it being said. If this pans out, I believe it’s a good chance the safari will go in the way of automated spiels that will be triggered as the vehicle passes through certain areas, just like Living with the Land has done and the Planet Watch Wildlife Express attempted to do.

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I'm a bit worried now.... I like the last part of the tour where the truck begins to run to reach the camp.

I don't know either why this change will take place, but there should be an explanation. 

What do you think? Do you prefer a normal, plain safari (which is absolutely interesting too, nothing to say), or something more added to the experience, like the storyline we have now? For me, an automated spiel would be good too, but it would not be very realistic, since if some of the animals are not present, the spiel would say "over there you can see the lions..." and maybe they're not there, so it would be a problem.... 

Please, tell us your opinion in the comments.