Trip Report Makin' Memories....One More Time! *COMPLETED*

Makin' memories
Makin' memories
Takin' pictures is makin' memories
Catchin' little pieces of time
Makin' them yours and makin' them mine
Great vacations and celebrations we love to hold near and dear
And when we're makin' memories
Happy days can reappear!


@amjt660 it seemed a little presumptuous of me to include Three Peat in the title of this trip report. A more accurate term might be Repeat, considering this is my third TR in three months. I am fearful that my WDWMagic friends may be weary of me.

But for @Big Hair and anyone else who wants to follow along, Welcome! I truly love reliving our great (and not-so-great) vacation memories through writing these reports. As always, your comments and observations are much appreciated!

So c'mon everybody, here we go........

Cast: Tuvalu, Woody and Em
Dates: June 17-25, 2017
Resorts: Port Orleans Riverside and Polynesian Village ('cause let's be honest......you can take the girl out of the Poly, but you can't take the Poly out of the girl!)

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(Does this picture make you woozy? It is an appropriate representation of my Pandora experience.)

Stick around to discover what memories we made!
 

Tuvalu

Premium Member
Original Poster
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It's like what, less than 10 minutes from boarding the bus at AKL and arriving at the front gate? Sadly, all three of us had to use the restroom outside the entrance. But I was able to snap this shot (from the restroom area) which you wouldn't normally notice....unless you looked UP.
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AK was the only park to get this signage right ~ ANNUAL PASSHOLDER ENTRANCE. The other parks just have the top part of the sign that says PASSHOLDER. Many guests without APs use the passholder line because they have a park hopper PASS. Adding the word ANNUAL should clear up the confusion (and make the line shorter for AP holders.)
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Time for our first fast PASS. (Disney sure has an affinity for using the same word for different things.)
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We didn't need the FP. There was no line. Our Time Rover wasn't even full.
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(Proof once again that Woody rides Dinosaur with his eyes shut.)

I LOVE THIS SHIRT!
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DisneyGigi

Well-Known Member
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It's like what, less than 10 minutes from boarding the bus at AKL and arriving at the front gate? Sadly, all three of us had to use the restroom outside the entrance. But I was able to snap this shot (from the restroom area) which you wouldn't normally notice....unless you looked UP.
View attachment 216073

AK was the only park to get this signage right ~ ANNUAL PASSHOLDER ENTRANCE. The other parks just have the top part of the sign that says PASSHOLDER. Many guests without APs use the passholder line because they have a park hopper PASS. Adding the word ANNUAL should clear up the confusion (and make the line shorter for AP holders.)
View attachment 216074

Time for our first fast PASS. (Disney sure has an affinity for using the same word for different things.)
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We didn't need the FP. There was no line. Our Time Rover wasn't even full.
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(Proof once again that Woody rides Dinosaur with his eyes shut.)

I LOVE THIS SHIRT!
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Oh, you are so brave to take a selfie on Dinosaur! My phone would be toast.
 

Tuvalu

Premium Member
Original Poster
From Dinoland to Harambe.

Sky not lookin' good.
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FP #2 was for Festival of the Lion King. Also not needed. It was the last show of the day.

Look @bee ~ no Photobomber!
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We were in the Lion section.
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Count the tumble monkeys....there were three, not four....and there was NO TUMBLING!!! :jawdrop: What good are tumble monkeys that don't tumble??!!! That whole part of the show was omitted. :mad:
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Thankfully fire guy wowed us with his stuff.
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The finale was inspiring as always.
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Songbird76

Well-Known Member
We started off with the bread service ~ after all, it would be sacrilegious not to!

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@blgauger and @Doc Disney and anyone else who doesn't like (or is uncertain about) the bread flavors ~ you can request whatever flavor(s) you want. The five breads served are traditional naan, garlic-ginger naan, spiced naan, onion kucha and paneer paratha. We don't care for the paneer paratha and substituted a second traditional naan. Ask your server to describe each type before ordering if you are a less adventurous eater.

Both Woody and Em selected an African white wine.
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Woody ordered African-Inspired Biryani with Chicken.....otherwise known as chicken and rice.
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Em and I decided to share the Potjie Inspired since the bread service always fills us up. It was disappointing that we could no longer order two meats with the Potjie but must choose one meat and one vegetable. Our server told us we could order an additional meat for $11. Since Em and I love butter chicken (and are just neutral on the veggie options) that is what we did.
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It poured outside as we ate. We caught a glimpse of a zebra and a giraffe through the window but all the other birds and animals must have taken cover.

Our server was friendly and paced our meal just right. Food was delicious though we skipped dessert.

We lingered inside until the worst of the rain had stopped. We had a date to keep......with Pandora.
Ah, when did they change the potje inspired? When we went last summer, I got the butter chicken and the braised beef, no problem. And DD stole my rice. But it was all sooo good!
So what's in that smaller dish on the right?
 

Tuvalu

Premium Member
Original Poster
Ah, when did they change the potje inspired? When we went last summer, I got the butter chicken and the braised beef, no problem. And DD stole my rice. But it was all sooo good!
So what's in that smaller dish on the right?
The Potjie change is recent.....my guess is that most folks chose two meats (which was a good deal for the price) and the restaurant wasn't making "enough" money....so the restriction was implemented, the price was upped and those who want two meats suffer an additional surcharge of 50%. :bored:

The smaller dish is our "Harvest" choice ~ Paneer Tikka.
 

Songbird76

Well-Known Member
The Potjie change is recent.....my guess is that most folks chose two meats (which was a good deal for the price) and the restaurant wasn't making "enough" money....so the restriction was implemented, the price was upped and those who want two meats suffer an additional surcharge of 50%. :bored:

The smaller dish is our "Harvest" choice ~ Paneer Tikka.
I had to look up "Paneer Tikka". I assumed it was breaded something, because in Dutch, Paneer means "breading" and South African was originally a dialect of Dutch. (The Dutch did trading with South Africa and assumed the people weren't smart enough to learn real Dutch, so they watered it down. Instead of calling it an "elevator", they might call it a "people lifter". But some of the words are the same. I assumed Paneer might be one of them. It's apparently not! Was the Paneer Tikka good? It looks interesting.
 

Tuvalu

Premium Member
Original Poster
I had to look up "Paneer Tikka". I assumed it was breaded something, because in Dutch, Paneer means "breading" and South African was originally a dialect of Dutch. (The Dutch did trading with South Africa and assumed the people weren't smart enough to learn real Dutch, so they watered it down. Instead of calling it an "elevator", they might call it a "people lifter". But some of the words are the same. I assumed Paneer might be one of them. It's apparently not! Was the Paneer Tikka good? It looks interesting.
It was okay.
 

Doc Disney

Well-Known Member
@Doc Disney and anyone else who doesn't like (or is uncertain about) the bread flavors

Hey now! I loved all the breads AND the dips :p:p:p I actually had to go back to my old TR to make sure I said I liked them and I did :joyfull::joyfull::joyfull:
OMG. Pictures nor words can do this justice. We love bread as it is, and dips, so this was delightful. We seriously liked every accompaniment. My favorites were the Red Chile Sambal and the Spicy Jalapeño-Lime Pickle. I think Jill said she liked the Mango Chutney the best...but I could totally be lying. For the naan bread we both loved them all, but the Onion Kucha was our favorite.
 

Tuvalu

Premium Member
Original Poster
When we left the Lion King theater there were puddles everywhere....obviously we'd missed more rain. The air was still sticky and humid. Yet it was finally dark and time to explore the bioluminescence of Pandora.

But first we put the lonely Photopass guy on the bridge to work.
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(This was the best of the bunch. The others were fuzzy, as I noted in my first post.)

A short walk later we'd made it to Pandora.
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Tuvalu

Premium Member
Original Poster
WARNING

This post contains a less-than-favorable first impression of Pandora. Pixie Dusters should skip ahead.

Some background for those of you still reading ~ Our first family visit to Animal Kingdom was in July 1998, three months after the official opening. I had to drag my kids out of bed so that we could be at the bus stop at 6 am. The park opened at 7 am and I'd heard horror stories about the crowds. It was a very warm and humid morning (much like our present day very warm and humid evening!) When the rope dropped, we walked shoulder-to-shoulder with thousands of other guests through the Oasis. No one stopped to look at anything as everyone was in a rush to get to the Safari. There was no signage and all I knew was it was "in the back of the park."

We enjoyed the Safari and afterward began the difficult task of navigating the park. All paths looked the same (even the map was not much help) and the few attractions that were open were spread out far from each other. Two of my three kids were freaked out by "It's Tough to be a Bug" (middle son stood up during the show and yelled "Get me out of here!"); all three (and Woody) were frightened by Dinosaur; we rode the train and then made the long, sweaty walk to Conservation Station where there was nothing to see; and lastly waited in a slow-moving (uncovered) line for an hour to ride the "Discovery" river boat....where again, there was nothing to see.

All during conditions of oppressive heat and humidity.

Thus, our first experience of AK was not a good one. And though the park has greatly improved over the years (especially with the addition of directional signs!) it remains our least favorite park. First experiences can taint future experiences.

And now Pandora.

Due to the difficulty of obtaining FPs (and the tier system) our first experience of the new land would be at night. In hindsight, seeing it during the day first would have been better. Much better.

Though the Pandora area is small we found ourselves turned around and confused by where we were (lack of signs!); it was super-crowded; steam was rising off the pavement due to the humidity; and the bioluminescent lighting made us all a little woozy.

The fact that none of us had seen Avatar (or watched any Pandora videos) probably didn't help matters.

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The standby wait for Na'vi River Journey was an hour and as we would soon learn, mostly outdoors. We scanned our bands and were quickly in the loading area.

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Em said she wasn't taking any pictures of the ride so I took a few with my iPhone.

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(What are we looking at?, you may be thinking. And my honest answer is "I have no idea.")

As our boat drifted along Woody asked, "Is this the pre-show? I'm waiting for something to happen."

Seconds later the Shaman appeared.....
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.....and the ride was over. o_O

Em's expression speaks for the three of us.
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Now I am not one to use profanity but the first words out of my mouth were, "What the hell was that??!!!"

Instant flashback to the Discovery River Boat ride.

I cannot imagine waiting an hour plus for Na'vi River Journey. Less than 10 minutes and I might consider riding again. Waste of a tier 1 FP? Absolutely.

(A major way to improve the ride would be the addition of @wdisney9000's family dancing and singing and imitating the Shaman chant! :joyfull:)

We stopped for a Photopass on our way out. The photographer told us to look to our right and act surprised. When I saw the picture I expected there would be some creature (or Disney character) in the shot with us.

Nope.
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It wasn't until I compared the above ^ with the "before" picture that I saw the difference.

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(Floating white blobs! Quelle surprise!! :in pain:)

It began to rain which seemed like the perfect ending to our Pandora visit. We headed for the bus and did not stop for the Tree of Life Awakening (which would have been fun to watch had it not been raining.)

Once back in our room Woody turned on the TV. He discovered that one of the Disney channels plays Avatar 24/7. We caught the last 45 minutes of the movie. It helped to put Pandora in perspective....a little.

We'd give it another try on Saturday ~ during the daytime. Would Flight of Passage live up to the hype for us?
Or would our first impression of Pandora taint our next visit?
 

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