Tamu Tamu Refreshments at Disney’s Animal Kingdom

Tamu Tamu Refreshments Review at Disney’s Animal Kingdom

Tamu Tamu Refreshments is located in Africa.

See this page for all of the Disney’s Animal Kingdom quick service reviews.

Location: It’s on the right as you enter Africa, across from Tusker House Restaurant and Dawa Bar. Kilimanjaro Safaris is straight back.

Food Type: Dessert and snacks.

Dining Plan: Yes, quick service.

Menu:

You can pull up the most recent version of the menu here.

Tamu Tamu Refreshments has served all sorts of items over the years, including couscous wraps and sandwiches. Now, it focuses primarily on desserts and boozy beverages, with an emphasis on tje Lion King related items that Disney debuted in summer 2019.

Food and Drink Items

$7 Simba’s Ice Cream Sandwich

The Simba Ice Cream Cookie Sandwich – Simba’s Face and Mane on an Ice Cream Cookie Sandwich with a Chocolate Tail is similar to the ice cream cookie sandwich that it replaced.

But this one does come with a chocolate tail, which we haven’t been able to say before.

We found it pretty difficult to eat with the cookies tending to slide away from our mouths as the sandwich drew nearer, particularly in the Florida summer heat where the ice cream is going to begin melting quickly. On the plus side, it’s relatively thick, dense vanilla bean ice cream that holds up better than most. The chocolate chip cookies are soft and appropriately sugary with enough chocolate chips to carry the flavor along with quite a bit of chocolate icing on top and around the tail.

Simba’s face, which is printed on some sort of edible paper-like substance, is largely what brings us into The Lion King territory. You may find yourself discarding it before eating or it may attach itself permanently to the roof of your mouth, as it did mine. If I start describing every good item as tasting like paper, then you may know why. Of course, if we’re talking about Festival food from the Italy Pavilion, the cardboard-taste is probably true either way.

Overall, this was a nice, fun, refreshing ice cream treat that was just a little bit difficult to consume. I probably would have also liked a little more ice cream wedged in there between the cookies. But you could certainly do worse for seven dollars.

$5.49 Simba Sunset and $10 King’s Cooler

Above are the two new Dole Whip options here. The $5.49 Simba Sunset – Dole Whip Pineapple with Watermelon, Strawberry, and Coconut Syrup-flavored Syrup is on the right. The $10 King’s Cooler is on the left with the only difference being that it’s topped with about an ounce of either Dark or Coconut Rum.

The Simba Sunset is an extra 50 cents over the cost of the regular Dole Whip Cup or 50 cents less than the Dole Whip Pineapple Float. Merely on portion size, the Simba Sunset is a great value. Granted, I didn’t weigh it, but it “felt” like it was about twice the amount of Dole Whip than the Cups. And unlike the Float, where half the cup is Pineapple Juice, this is 98.3% Dole Whip and 1.7% syrup. We didn’t think the syrup carried as much flavor as you might expect from the amount involved or the deepness of the color.

There was a little bit of a fruity vibe if you got a lot of the syrup in a spoonful. But even with a generous squirt, the majority of the non-dairy frozen treat is going to be consumed sans syrup. I think that’s just fine. If you like Pineapple Dole Whip, then you’ll like this, and benefit from the fact that it arrives with so much. If you don’t like Pineapple Dole Whip, then it’s unlikely that a subtle fruity syrup is going to elevate it for you. They would probably look at you cross-eyed if you ordered one without the Syrup, but you could probably go in that direction as well just for the larger vessel. Overall, I’d recommend it if you’re in the mood for a Dole Whip.

Ordinarily, I’m not a big boozy dessert person. I like dessert. And people have occasionally accused me of enjoying booze. But I prefer them served separately. But we really liked this one. If anything, the multi-flavored syrup is largely adding sugar. The dark rum here adds a little bit of caramel, vanilla, and spice, which complements the tropical flavors of the Dole Whip. There’s so much of the Dole Whip that the rum adds a little nuance to each bite. With the smaller Dole Whip Cups, I feel like the rum is a lot more overpowering. I’m less inclined to recommend those.

$6 Malva Cake Sundae

The Malva Cake is my favorite item here. The cake is light, moist, and sweet with a pleasant, almost-carrot-cake-like spice to it. The cinnamon on top of the refreshing vanilla soft serve enhances it further. It really is delicious and a little bit of a departure away from the generic quick service desserts that Disney typically offers. You can add a little bit of rum to it for three dollars, but I don’t think it needs it.

$5 Dole Whip

The classic Dole Whip, the world’s most popular reconstituted-from-a-powder non-dairy treat.

$10 – $11 Dole Whip with a Variety of Rum Choices

You could add about an ounce of rum to the standard Dole Whip for $5 to $6. I’d probably skip it. The pour is usually on the sadder sides of things and you don’t come away with anything as attractive as the King’s Cooler.

Seating:

Tamu Tamu has dedicated seating behind the quick service. That’s in addition to more seating across the way outside Tusker House and Dawa Bar, and in Harambe Market. We prefer the quiet seating in back of Tamu.