Walt Disney World 2017 Trip Log: Day 2
Part 1
I’m writing this - at least, the first bit of it - during a break in the middle of the day. It’s been a very long morning, in a good way!! We’ll likely be going back out soon, but I wanted to get down my thoughts so far because we’ve done so much.
This morning, I woke up at around 6:30. Today was our Animal Kingdom day, and we knew we needed to rope drop to do everything we wanted to do. So, I hopped in the shower very briefly, and as I said in yesterday’s trip report, those showers are amazing. Like, the water pressure’s great, the temperature is perfect, just, what a wonderful way to wake up. I skipped makeup today too - SPF 30 foundation isn’t going to cut it this week, and I’m gonna be sweating like mad, so I just used some eyeliner and called it quits.
We got dressed quick and headed over to Landscape of Flavors. The thing I neglected to mention yesterday is that it’s my birthday on the 28th, so I’m wearing a birthday pin all week, and almost everyone we’ve seen has said something. This includes the folks at LoF! We got to Landscape just a couple minutes after breakfast began. Jenn got some character waffles and I got a cheddar bacon omelette. We both got iced coffee. It wasn’t bad! Point was to get a quick hot breakfast and that’s what we got and so we headed to the bus!!
The bus was prompt and the trip was short. We met a family on the way who had been here through Irma. They talked about their experiences, seeing Bolt at AoA, and told us how great Animal Kingdom is. It was nice - we saw them again later in the day, too!
We rope dropped like we wanted. We were very close to the front of the line when things moved back, and Flight of Passage opened at about 8:40 AM. It was a walk-on!! We went straight into the pre-show room and learned about the Avatar program then were assigned our Avatars and link chairs!!
Flight of Passage is the best theme park attraction I’ve ever been on. Ever. I’m trying not to be overdramatic here but it’s astounding. You look to your right and you see this huge room full of other people and the ride is just... you really can feel the Banshee breathing underneath you. It’s spectacular. I can barely describe it. It’s an intensely magical experience and the ride is breathtaking and extremely fun and the smells and the sights and the sounds are just... way, way better than anything the movie Avatar deserves. That movie really isn’t very good, I have no idea how they took that and made that ride out of it, but hell, more power to the Imagineers.
Seriously. That was amazing. And the queue brings you behind all these floating rocks and the landscape because we walked in and just got overwhelmed by how gorgeous and immersive Pandora is and... goodness gracious.
So the ride exits into Windtraders. While there, we visited the Banshee Rookery. I made friends with a cute little Ikran, but I chose not to take it home - at least, not yet. Maybe. I’m still not sure!!
After visiting the Banshees, we grabbed a delicious, frosty, sweet Night Blossom at Pongu Pongu and had some time to kill before our FastPass reservation for Na’vi River journey. We chose to explore the landscape more, and signed up to become Wilderness Explorers. We earned our first couple of merit badges, took a few photos on Pandora, helped a rare plant spread its spores, and joined in a drum circle.
Afterwards, we boarded our boat on Na’vi River Journey. It’s very pretty! I do wish there were more practical effects, but I will say that the Shaman of Songs is as amazing as people have said. There’s a sense of scale to her animatronic that photos and videos simply can’t convey. The ride is gorgeous in and out and is very, very well detailed. I just wish the Viper Wolves would have appeared in reality rather than as projections. Certainly many of the effects worked well - there’s a particular projection of a caterpillar on a log that’s very convincing, and another moment where animals crawl on leaves above you is quite stunning as well. I think Na’vi River Journey presents an interesting future for Disney dark rides, though I’d love to see something on the level of Mystic Manor stateside some day.
It was still pretty early after we finished our boat ride, and we had a full 50 minutes before our 10:45 FastPass at Everest. So, using a combination of our own intuition and our Touring Plans guide, we set out to explore more of the park. Touring Plans recommended getting the Dinoland attractions out of the way, and given that we’re looking at those as “get them out of the way,” we decided to follow that lead. On our way, we noticed that many of the park’s signature animals weren’t out and about in their habitats, likely due to the impact of Hurricane Irma. Many fish and birds were still around, and we got to see plenty of them on our walk. We also stopped at another Wilderness Explorers booth and met Russel, a fellow Explorer.
At Dinoland, we... oh, I’m not gonna be cutesy with this, Dinoland is ugly as sin and the sooner it’s replaced with a land that has some sort of theming and character the better. Walking in Dinoland reminds me of walking in Paradise Pier in 2001. It’s utterly unpleasant. We rode Primeval Whirl because we wanted the coaster credit. It’s bad??? It’s really bad. It hurts more than it should and it’s just a boring wild mouse and oh my goodness what an uninspired boring attraction. We could have had The Excavator. We could have had Beastly Kingdom. Instead we have... a wild mouse in a parking lot?? And you did it that way on purpose??? Thanks Michael Eisner. Ugh. Unpleasant.
Anyway. After that we made our way over to see Claire Huxtable at The Dino Institute and ran into a surprising friend on the way - Donald Duck!! We got our pictures taken with an immensely enthusiastic safari duck and gave him a big hug before hopping on Dinosaur. You know Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye, right? You wanna go on that but instead 60% of the ride is in complete darkness and there’s a few dinosaur animatronics here and there? Yes? Cool, awesome, I have a ride for you. Seriously, this ride feels immensely cheap, and it’s really hard to believe this was once the only E-ticket at this park. We got the on-ride photo thanks to Memory Maker. We look bored.
Finally, to wash all that bad taste out of our mouths, it was time for our Everest FastPass. And, holy heck, does this ride still deliver. The last time I went on this ride, in 2007, the yeti was working. I really wish the yeti was working. But you know what? This ride kicks . That backwards part really gets you, the layout is incredibly effective, it’s fast and fun and just amazing. This park needed this ride so desperately and even now, post-Pandora, it is in my opinion the park’s signature thrill attraction and I’m excited that it will soon get the refurb it greatly deserves.
After Everest, we got very hungry. We were going to stop at Harambe Market, but it was getting quite hot and the rib shop was closed. So, we packed up and headed over to Flame Tree Barbecue. On the way, we made a plan to push back our Kilimanjaro Safari FastPass to 4:00 so we could come back to Art of Animation and rest. We’re likely going to do Flight of Passage again afterwards - ironically, we kinda wanna see more of the queue! We also want to see Pandora light up at night, and we plan to eat dinner at Satu’li Canteen. We’re not quite sure what we’re going to do after that - either we’re going to watch Rivers of Light, or we’re going to take advantage of the Extra Magic Hours at the Magic Kingdom tonight.
In any case, at Flame Tree, we realized we could take advantage of Mobile Ordering to skip the lines. That realization couldn’t have had better timing - while we ordered on our phone, we got to wait in line to hug King Louie and Baloo!! I’ve never seen them before!! They both wished me a very happy birthday and yes, if you’re wondering, Baloo gives amazing hugs.
At Flame Tree, we ordered an order of pulled pork fries for each of us and a powerade to split. We’ve been really good at controlling our portions and sharing food thus far, and this was absolutely the right choice. It was a perfect amount of food at a great price and wow oh my gosh those fries are amazing. I slathered mine in that wonderful spicy barbecue sauce and seriously, the combination of jalapeños, plastic cheese, barbecue sauce, tender pork, and fries is just... yup, yeah, eat this. It’s amazing. While we ate, cast members released a flock of parrots and let them fly behind us in front of the Tree of Life. What a wonderful afternoon meal.
Once we wrapped up lunch, we hopped on a bus back to the hotel! We grabbed a couple cold drinks from the lobby, I bought a Baymax mug I’d had my eye on, and now we’re relaxing for another two hours!! What a fantastic day.
One final observation I’ll make for this part of the log - Disney is doing an incredible job recovering from one of Florida’s most impactful hurricanes. Every guest we’ve spoken to that went through it is immensely satisfied with Disney’s response. Everyone’s happy, and most rides are open. Yeah, a lot of animals are away; no, we can’t ride Kali River Rapids; and sure, I’m worried our steam train tour for Friday is going to get cancelled. But honestly? Considering everything? We’re having a fantastic time, and if I hadn’t known about Irma, I wouldn’t be able to tell what happened at all.