McDonald's 1998 Disney Animal Kingdom Theme Park Opening

Diorama Display

Restaurant Banner 

set of the 12 in bags toys at most locations

Picture of all 12 toys found in most locations

Disney's Animal Kingdom in Orlando, Florida opened in 1998. To celebrate a Disney toy series was done based on animals for the new park opening. Most were real animals and one was imaginary. The theme of the new park was a imagined celebration of all living animals, imaginary and extinct. Animal Kingdom is the largest Disney park at 403 acres. Almost four times the size of the Magic Kingdom. The park is so big that the attraction Kilimanjaro Safaris is a 100 acres which is about the size of the Magic Kingdom. 

The toys you could have gotten at most locations in the USA were:

1) Triceratops

2) Toucan

3) Gorilla and Baby

4) Elephant 

5) Ring-Tail Lemur

6) Dragon 

7) Iguanodon

8) Zebra

9) Lion 

10) Cheetah

11) Crocodile 

12) Rhino

Sign welcoming you into DinoLand U.S.A.

In 1998 when the parked opened, McDonald's sponsored a section called "DinoLand U.S.A". They opened two locations in the park. Petrifries a free standing location & Restaurantosaurus a sit down dinning location. They had a ten year contract for these locations that were then turned into official Disney food locations and no longer have McDonald's material on them. The standig location restaurant name was changed to trilo-bites.


During the opening the McDonalds in the park had exclusive toys in the USA that year. They were Generic Dinosaur squirters that you could fill with water and squirt at each other:

The different dinosaur squirters were:
1) T-Rex
2) Stegosaurus
3) Pterodactyl
4) Triceratops

The toys were also featured outside of the USA in other countries such as Europe & the UK a year prior as generic water squirters. The ones at animal Kingdom had Disney Animal Kingdom printed on the bottom of them and the international toys did not have that printed on them:

Animal Kingdom Print on the bottom of the toys

 The national chain McDonald's happy meal boxes had cut out assemblies that were perforated so you could pop out pieces and assemble:

Stand Up Elephant

Gorilla Straw hanger

Dragon Bookmark

Stand Up Dinosaur 

There wear also exclusive boxes made for the McDonald's inside Disney's Animal Kingdom:

Side one of the Disney park happy meal box

Side two of the Disney park happy meal box

In the early years of McDonald's inside Walmart they would have exclusive toys. During this promotion they had a Tortoise:

Tortoise Package

Press letter sent months prior to the Promotion 

Fry Package during promotion

The cups featured different parts of the parks:

DinoLand U.S.A. with a carnosaurs & triceratops from the Dinosaur rover ride 

Gorilla Falls with a gorilla and a hippo

Safari Village with the imaginary purple dragon & a Brontosaurs 

Rhino & lion

cup designs

cup designs rotated

cup designs rotated