Na'vi River Journey reviews, comments and questions

[Animaniac93-98]

Disney boat rides historically have either narration (Jungle Cruise, Living with the Land, Submarine Voyage) or dialogue (Pirates, Splash Mountain). There's nothing wrong with Na'vi River Journey not following the trend, but because it's still a ride in WDW, most guests will expect that to be the case going in. Even rides based on popular movies (Star Tours, Frozen Ever After) still have a fair amount of spoken/sung dialoge.

People who come to WDW have a point of reference for what a haunted house or the gold rush was based on exposure through other media. Pandora, however, only exists in the Avatar movie and James Cameron's mind. As popular as the movie was, the world beyond the main characters is still alien to most. People can guess what the animals are like, but the general purpose of the ride and the Shaman may be lost on those who don't do any prior reading online like we do.

It doesn't need a three-act plot, but some spoken words would probably help to familairize everyone with the setting.

 

[Ismael Flores]

I don't know if there is any free space within the show building but expanding it out would not be easy since there are things in the way on all four sides.

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with all that land available i am really surprised that they never consider the possibility of expanding a rides capacity. You would think they would learn after the success of Midway Mania and Soarin, Luckily both of those had room to add capacity. If they are going to continue pushing for this new fastpass service they need to make sure that attractions could handle capacity and/or at least try to make them a bit longer to keep guests entertained. having to wait in multi hour lines just to ride something that is a few minutes long is not the best way to please guests. I understand that thrill rides may not offer the possibility for a longer ride time but a boat ride should have been at least twice that length. I am sure they could have added another large show scene with more wild creatures even if it was done as a projection style experience a la Pirates in Shanghai.

Flight of passage has scenes of creatures in the ocean jumping out trying to catch food why not add a large immersive scene that has the boats sink down into the water and experience those creatures. The set up for that could have added several minutes. Maybe they could have had the boats travel into a research facility while on the rivers journey and in there we are introduced to a technology that will help the boat submerge and allow us to experience this underwater world as well.

so much that could have been done by taking advantage of the projection technology they are already using. What an easy way to expand the land and bring renewed interest to an attraction as the years progress. Cameron is promising four new movies, an WDI could have taken advantage of footage to update the attraction as the movies come out

 

[Cosmic Commando]

You see a blank space, I see an opportunity. We need the fans to make an ACE tour guide spiel that you could listen to on the ride... and also a Jungle Cruise-style version. I'm 10% joking, but I could see this actually being neat.

 

[Texas84]

Rode this three times Sunday. Beautiful relaxing ride with lots of detail to discover. I don't need something attacking me in every ride!

 

[Dizney Crew]

This ride was decent, rode it 3 times, it actually felt a little longer then I was expecting. The lack of a story I think is sorely missed, also I thought it would be a little brighter on the inside. I didn't notice the plants moving with the animals either, something I thought happened, and I looked for it each time through. I agree with others, this ride could have been so much more unfortunately its nothing more then a slow moving boat ride.

Knowing our luck with the FL parks, this land is a success and they clone it out in California or somewhere else, and make the boat ride twice as long with drops and a story.

 

[JimW]

Rode this only once on Saturday. In retrospect, I wish I had ridden it multiple times. I agree with those that posit some sort of context would be valuable, be it information provided pre-ride, or on-board audio. I had no idea what I was seeing, or why I was seeing it. On first blush, I walked away mildly disappointed for that reason.

However, in retrospect, I'm not 100% certain that it's a bad thing. There are very few opportunities in life to experience something with some sort of prior knowledge or bias. The innate confusion forced me to pay closer attention to everything that was happening around me.

Regardless, there are very few things that have left me literally agape. The Shaman AA was one of those things. The movement was so smooth that it was hard to believe it wasn't real. For the first time ever, I found myself thankful to be caught in a logjam towards the end of a ride. I'm glad that I avoided the temptation of watching ride videos of this before I went on it. The Shaman is really something to behold in person.

 

[Incomudro]

Rode this three times Sunday. Beautiful relaxing ride with lots of detail to discover. I don't need something attacking me in every ride!

I agree so strongly.
Sure, I love adventure - but not every ride needs to be something goes wrong and we barely escape.
That's fine sometimes. I love Dinosaur and ToT.
Uni does this formula over and over again. Far too much.
Fortunately, Disney doesn't feel the need to do this everywhere.

 

[sedati]

Here is yet another video of the ride, and I think one of the best:


A few things that jump out to me here that I had not noticed in other videos:
At 1:58, there is a far greater sense of depth seen here as the forest (thanks to screens) seems to go on and on in the distance. Pay close attention to this scene along with the Viperwolf and Hexapede scenes as you can really get the multi-plane effect they captured with the layered screens.
At 2:48, something I'd noticed in a few other videos and unfortunately it's still not clear here. There are dangling vines that show movement- particularly one on the far left. Could be from a/c, but I'm wondering if there's an effect that is either being missed, or hasn't been fully installed yet. There were these monkey-like creatures: http://james-camerons-avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Prolemuris which seem an easy thing to depict swinging around.
At 3:00, nothing new, but this is the best capture of the deer-like Hexapede scene. They actually seem to be reacting to the oncoming boat and the mannerisms are very natural.
At 3:24, if you haven't noticed them before, the bugs running along the vine arch are very clearly visible here.
Actual ride time (not including movement on the belts) comes in at about 5:25 with no noticeable backup at the end.
Kudos to iThemePark for a great vid. I can't wait to experience this someday as-is, though if a few surprises were still waiting to be turned on, I wouldn't mind that either.

 

[Scrump4STITCH]

If I may ask, what was the lasting impression from those who rode? No doubt it's visually beautiful and detailed, but in terms of ride time and the overall experience, did you leave "satisfied" with the ride?

I just think about the first year this is in operation and people waiting an hour or more to ride and if the ride will live up to the wait (in their minds).

We loved it and went on it again! I think it is one of those rides in which you will always find something new to see, if you pay attention!

 

[dennis-in-ct]

In general - I seriously LOVE the psychedelic aesthetics of Pandora. It sort of feels like this perfect alternative psychedelic and spiritual African reality. Totally *feels* real and other-worldly at the same time. Perhaps like visiting an African village on LSD.
Just stunning. KUDOS to the artists and designers for creating this jaw-dropping land !! Wow indeed.

That said - this *is* Animal Kingdom* and the fantasy Animals in Avatar are brilliant. I seem to remember a show on the Discovery channel that explored the fantasy of alternate genetic possibilities of animals and the graphics looked like all the animals from the Avatar movie. So much work went into the Animal design for the movie and I would have expected to see more animals in the river ride and around the land.
Seems like a missed opportunity. Hopefully the land would expand in the future pending the success of the films.

 

[Magicart87]

Anyone interested in pinning a great show script including subtle spoken dialog? I think for a ride concept... is that of a calm, mostly quiet field-guide type tour. The ride's plot should be clear and the scripted spiel (as hosted by A.C.E.) should be marginalized to mostly their notes detailing the plantlife and species in the attraction. The attraction SHOULD speak for itself however in areas where it doesn't A.C.E. steps in to provide context. The script should have a narrative beginning, middle and end with reference to Shaman as finale. Ideally the script should come in at ~5min, be realistic in it's presentation and work in tandem with what riders are currently experiencing in the ride at that given time. I figure for a 5 min ride there should be frequent periods of limited dialog, where the beauty of the attraction shines and remains the focus. It's finding that thin-line between Tour Overload and Glowy Underwhelming Nothingness that will be the most challenging with this script.

Anyone is interested in pursuing this challenge? This is mostly for "gits and shiggles" but if something solid comes of it; I (and hopefully others) will show appreciation with a Paypal donation. If this works out I'll get a VO artist to scratch it out so it can later be burned to MP3 and played through earbuds for those wanting to ride NRJ with some added oomph.

Anyone interested?

 

[ozzel1]

We rode it twice. We had a mix of people who had seen the movie and those who did not (including my 7 year old niece). We all really enjoyed the whole land. My niece only knew that Pandora was supposed to be another planet. And she loved it. We spent a lot of time exploring, she kept finding new plants and animals and pointing them out. She didn't need a land or a ride based on the latest IP to engage her. It was new and different and that is what made it exciting. And yes, she loved River Journey. We all did. We immediately got back on after our ride, we enjoyed it that much. The visuals were enough. The mystery of what things were only made us want to look deeper (our attention spans are longer than most).

I would have waited an hour+ to see this ride the first time and not been upset about it. Now that I have seen it, I'm more in the 20-30 minute range.

 

[EPCOTCenterLover]

The more I see and read of NRJ, the more I think of El Rio del Tiempo- with its charming, mysterious, elegant "first act". I think I'm going to love NRJ.

 

[AEfx]

Disney boat rides historically have either narration (Jungle Cruise, Living with the Land, Submarine Voyage) or dialogue (Pirates, Splash Mountain). There's nothing wrong with Na'vi River Journey not following the trend, but because it's still a ride in WDW, most guests will expect that to be the case going in. Even rides based on popular movies (Star Tours, Frozen Ever After) still have a fair amount of spoken/sung dialoge.

It doesn't need a three-act plot, but some spoken words would probably help to familairize everyone with the setting.

To me it's not even dependent on spoken words. Though, as you said, even a few of those at the beginning would help. While it doesn't have that "something is missing/hidden go find it" narration or dialogue, in truth - that's essentially what it is so might as well say it. You are going on a river journey to seek out the shaman or whatever.

I think the reason it plays so blankly is because without any context, you almost keep waiting for it to start and you are half-way through or further before you realize, oh, this is it. There is nothing wrong with this type of ride - I just love me some intricate dark rides, even simple boat journeys like this - but it's that expectation of waiting to make sense of it that distracts from what it is, more than some simple narration or other device would in the first place.

When I saw the video of James Cameron and Sigourney Weaver riding it, I was kind of embarrassed for them. They didn't even manage a single reaction to something, just that look of "gee, isn't this...lovely" look plastered across their faces, kind of like when someone gives you a present, and even after you've opened it you still aren't quite sure what it is.

It's a nice little ride, and it sure is needed at AK. It just needs a little something...more. It doesn't need anything major, but just...something.

 

[MuteSuperstar]

150 min wait for NRJ at the moment, according to MDE.
Wait times in general look horrifying today, not just Pandora.

 

[Winter]

So, I don't want to read the posts on here because I don't want to be spoiled about how the ride is..... But I do want to ask, how good is it? Is it a good ride or bad ride?

 

[RustySpork]

So, I don't want to read the posts on here because I don't want to be spoiled about how the ride is..... But I do want to ask, how good is it? Is it a good ride or bad ride?

It's not worth a 3 hour wait (or a 45 minute wait), but it's not the worst ride at WDW. It's good, but it isn't "great".

 

[Kman101]

It's a pretty ride. It's a hard one to critique for me. It's not bad by any means. It's immersive. The AA is great. But it's not worth the hour waits it will probably get.

 

[Dizney Crew]

This ride is worth a 20 min max wait, anything more and I think you'll be disappointed.I'd rather wait 2 hours for Pirates, at least you get a drop on that ride, and the queue is inside.

 

[Cesar R M]

No, YOU are wrong. Many (no, not all) YouTube videos of the rides gives one exactly what one needs to know.

Incorrect, because int he majority of the times.. you only see the POV of what the videomaker wanted. A video is a fixed representation of a fixed POV.
If the videomaker decided to just look at the left,you will lose all the center and right parts. If you look at the center, you will miss some on your left and right.

This is in no way a representation of the experience in person. Where you can tune your eyes and move you around.

Sorry you make too much of a VERY slow-moving, boring ride that offers nothing but pretty colors to look at and no real fun. How sad. No mistake at all to judge it on a YouTube video, nor is it silly. It shows the ride how it actually is, and how it actually is looks very disappointing. Such a lazy effort from Disney imagineers. A real shame.

Ok, we get it. You do not like slowrides, you like action and trill rides. Good thing theres expedition Everest and Kali for you!