We (myself and DH both in our 20s) did both KTTK and Backstage Safari this past Jan. and for us Backstage Safari came out way ahead of KTTK.
Keep in mind that our favorite channel is Animal Planet
so we found everything we learned to be fascinating. Our guide was Paul, a retired teacher, and he was fantastic. There were 5 of us on the tour that day. We got to go to the elephant barn, where we saw an elephant and heard all kinds of entertaining (some dirty
) stories about the elephants and about the breeding programs that they have for zoos, how that works. We went to the rhino barn and got to pat Sammy (how often can you say that you touched a rhino?). Then we went to the giraffe barn where we spoke with 2 of the trainers and got drooled on by the Rothschild giraffe. We went backstage in the Conservation Station, met a snake, got plenty of snacks, a tour-guide book about AK, and other goodies. Then we went to where they prepare the food which was also pretty interesting. Then Paul took us on our own personal Safari ride; he turned off the normal spiel and pointed out a hidden Mickey, and several other details about the ride/animals/plants that you'd never notice. We heard more interesting stories and he was happy to answer any questions we had.
The next day, KTTK seemed like such a let-down. It wasn't bad by any stretch of the imagination!!!! We were just much more excited by the other tour. Our tour guide was younger, and while informative, she just wasn't Paul
Our group was much bigger too. Time seemed to drag, especially toward the end when about 3 people were monopolizing the questions, and kept asking the same questions in different ways...
It all depends on what you think *you'll* be the most interested in - either way I'm sure you'll have a great time
Keys should be much easier to get into, I think it's offered several times a day, whereas the AK tours are only offered specific days of the week.
HTH