Planning | Travel | Animal Kingdom | Epcot | Magic Kingdom | Hollywood Studios | Summary

 Our first stop on our four day trip was Animal Kingdom!  We were excited to get a look at Pandora, the World of Avatar! 

We didn’t really have a destination in mind in Pandora.  We couldn’t get any FastPasses for the two rides in Pandora, so we planned to take in the new area in Animal Kingdom and get some pictures.  What we found there was really impressive.

The theming for Pandora starts right on the bridge that leads into the area.  There is background noise coming from the forest on either side of the path as well.  The first thing we encountered was the Flaska Reclinata plant!  It is a giant, mist generating plant that you can interact with.

We then headed deeper into the area. Here was a stream that led down towards the Flaska Reclinata.

As we turned the corner, we got our first view of the floating mountains. 

The floating mountains, to me, weren’t as impressive as the waterfalls coming off of them.  That is what really sold me on the effect.

Once we were done looking at the floating mountain, we headed towards Satu’li Canteen.

We stopped to look over the menu.

We also noticed Pongu Pongu right next door, but decided to hold off on the beverages until after lunch.

We went into Satu’Li Canteen and ordered lunch.  I got chicken on top of a sweet potato hash.  I don’t recall what sauce I got.

Nancy and one of the girls got fish.  My daughter’s lunch (pictured) was the rice base with the fish protein.

My other daughter got the Vegetable Curry Steamed Pods.

In the interest of science, we also ordered both the desserts: Chocolate Cake and Blueberry Cream Cheese Cake.

We all LOVED our lunch.  The food was fresh and tasted great.  The desserts were a little sweet, but we split them among the four of us, so it didn’t end up being too much sugar.  There was a ton of seating and the theming reminded me very much of Boma at the Animal Kingdom Lodge.  We will definitely go back to Satu’li Canteen for our meals in the Animal Kingdom.

After lunch, we headed over to see the cotton top tamarins near the Tree of Life.  We had FastPasses scheduled for Kilimanjaro Safaris, Expedition Everest, and Kali River Rapids later on.

We then rode the Safari before heading over to Rafiki’s Planet Watch to see the tamarins that are located there.  My older daughter got a chance to go with a cast member to learn even more about the tamarins.  They had a lesson on how scientists track them in the wild. She loved every minute of it.  No matter how many times we go to the parks, we always manage to find something new to do.

We went inside the Planet Watch just in time to see a snake demonstration.

We came back from the Planet Watch and let the girls ride Expedition Everest using all the FastPasses.  We also spent a lot of time looking through the shops.  Eventually, it was time to do the River Rapids.  I would like to state again for the record, I HATE being wet at the parks.  You have to walk around soaking wet.  Not my thing.  I don’t even know why I agreed to do this.  I ended up getting soaked and had to spend the rest of the night wet. 

After getting off Kali River Rapids, we decided to head off to dinner at Flame Tree BBQ.  We ate dinner and tried to figure out what else to do.  Our phones alerted us to a thunderstorm coming into the area, so we considered just heading back to the room for the night.  However, when we looked at the Lines app from Touring Plans,  we noticed that the Flights of Passage wait time was shorter than it had been all day at 120 minutes.  We decided to enter the queue to get out of the rain for the next two hours.  This was an unusual decision for us, since we don’t normally ever wait in a line that is longer than 30 minutes. 

The queue was amazing.  We actually enjoyed the time we spent in the line, as strange as this is to say.  There are different rooms (or areas) to the queue with lots of interesting things to see while you are waiting.

The ride itself was fantastic!  It is one of the most immersive rides we have ever been on.  The combination of the visual, audio, and sensory effects make it a truly unique experience and probably one of the best, if not the best, rides on Disney property.  We can’t wait to ride it again.  (Note that if you tend to get motion sick on screen-based simulation rides like Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, you might experience the same thing on Flights of Passage.  My wife loved what she was able to see of the ride, but she had her eyes shut tight for some scenes when she would start to feel a little unsteady).

After leaving the ride, we walked through Pandora to see some the bio-luminescent effects that Disney had put into place.  It was interesting to see how they had applied the effect to the walking areas as well. 

We left the park that night exhausted.  It was a long day that started at 4 AM and ended about 11 PM once we checked into our hotel.  The next day would take us to Epcot, which is our favorite park!

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