WALT DISNEY WORLD Animal Kingdom plans new ride for 2006 opening

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) -- Walt Disney World officials marked the fifth anniversary of Animal Kingdom on recently by announcing plans to build a new coasterlike ride for the park, which has lagged behind its sister parks in attendance.
The "Expedition Everest" ride will open in 2006.
Disney officials also announced that its NASA-inspired "Mission: Space" ride would open Aug. 15 and that the much-delayed opening of the first phase of the Pop Century Resort would be Dec. 14.
Animal Kingdom opened in 1998 to much hoopla. At 500 acres, it is Disney's largest park and boasted a large menagerie of exotic animals.
The story line of the 200-foot Expedition Everest has riders boarding a fake mountain railway destined for the foot of Mount Everest. The train rolls through thick bamboo forests and waterfalls until the track ends in a mass of twisted metal. The train then shoots through mountain caverns and canyons until the riders meet an abominable snowman.
Mission: Space will allow visitors to board a four-person simulator where they will be flat on their backs for liftoff. Using hydraulic lifts, the ride will create the feeling of intense G-forces as a spacecraft escapes Earth's atmosphere.
Disney postponed the opening of the 5,760-room Pop Century Resort in the wake of the tourism slowdown caused by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
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