Various African animal species appear as if they could come right up to the tourists, though there are cleverly disguised fences and boundaries to ensure guest safety.

During Cast Previews of Disney's Animal Kingdom, there was a "Dark Ending" in which the safari vehicle encountered the corpse of Big Red.

After this time, it was deemed that the additional costs, plus the fact that animal visibility was poor (eliciting many guest complaints), made Night Safaris unfeasible to continue regularly.

Also, the safari script/story were significantly changed, placing less of an emphasis on the "Little Red" storyline, and more about the animals in the reserve and the need to find a lost elephant at the end.

This led to a somewhat confused plot in which guests are searching for a lost "mother elephant" and eventually find her baby which, according to the story, had already been safe the whole time.

[3] The attraction housed Hartmann's mountain zebras, but these were removed four months after their arrival due to "acclimation" issues.

Some reports claim that the zebras were fighting each other, biting at vehicles or each other, standing in the road, or just causing issues due to excessive mating behavior.