RustySpork
Oscar Mayer Memer
Honestly, the safari is the true winner (for me )at AK. However, I have not posted my review of Pandora yet
Night safaris really are the best part of AK when they're available, even with Pandora now being a thing.
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Pandora - The World of Avatar opening day reports
- Thread starter wdwmagic
- Start date
Night safaris really are the best part of AK when they're available, even with Pandora now being a thing.
disney4life2008
Well-Known Member
Honestly, Pandora is the best thing to happen for the safari. I expect lines would be short for the safari at night because of the increase at pandora.
RustySpork
Oscar Mayer Memer
I can certainly agree with that. Did you get lost in the blacklight haze while you were in Pandora? They need to dial that back quite a bit.
disney4life2008
Well-Known Member
Kman101
Well-Known Member
I haven't seen it at night yet but that's where they should have knocked it out of the park.
RustySpork
Oscar Mayer Memer
That was my expectation as well, after I spent some time there the other night though I think it still needs a lot of tweaking. The blacklight into the walkways caused a significant haze that ruined all of my photos. Quite a few people were talking about how it interfered with their vision and their photos as well. I'll try again in a month and see if it's better.
disney4life2008
Well-Known Member
People are probably awaiting my scathing review of Pandora. Well, here it is.
I finally made my way to animal kingdom Thursday night. I figured the rain storm would keep people away but it did not. I think gay days and alot of Florida residents made up the majority of the crowds. I arrived at 7pm just in time to see the lion King show and use my safari fp (did not need it though, it was walk on).
I had a fp for river journey at 8pm so I headed over to pandora. And i saw this...

All i could say was wow. I was impressed and it was even bigger than i imagined. I guess it also looks so good because its brand new. I was in Pandora at 8pm right before it got dark, more about that later.
I headed over to River journey. The standby was 105 minutes. Luckily I had a fp. I scanned my band and from that point to ride was probably all of 3 minutes.
The boats are nice and comfortable. The ride..
AMAZING!!! Yes i said it. Now i cannot group this with frozen or any other boat ride. Maybe the land ride as both are very relaxing. The visuals, the music, the videos, the sounds, the animals crawling on rotating leaves above your head, everything was amazing.
The shaman; however, was not as impressive as i thought it would be. It is lifelike but I think because it's the only moving person (?) in the entire ride its odd. Impressive but odd.
A quick 4.5 (?) ride and while impressive, i stand by my original opinion that anyone who waits more than 20 minutes for this is crazy. I do understand frozen, it has its fan base. But this is not that type of ride. I give RJ a solid B+. Just for comparison, the land is an A.
Back out pandora it was still light out.
I went to the restrooms near the gift shop. I didn't see anything spectacular (ala tangled) unless I missed something? The food looked good but i has no interest in waiting. The lines were horrible for everything. I figured i would go to the gift shop, i butted about 200 people until this woman screamed at me that is the end of the first group line lol. The line wrapped around to somewhere I couldn't see and i quickly left. Tons of people with them banshee props and I stand by my original thought, people will buy anything.
It was starting to get dark and suddenly I was feeling dizzy. I figured i was just tired from working 6am to 5pm then having the nerve to go to disney.
I walked around the land more and came across flights of Passage. It had a 40 minute wait. What?? I knew i wasn't going to waste my time even trying to get on. I am a pooh. There is am horribly placed test seat right at the fp entrance. It looked like it just got there because it reaked of spray paint. And to make matters worse, its not standalone. You need a cm to stand there because otherwise, you don't know what you are doing. The fp line cm came over where a group of about 20 poohs were embarrassingly trying to figure out this contraption. Not one of us fit. Ah well. Off to my next battle.
I felt even more dizzy because now it was pitch black and colors aglow. Omg the colors and worse, black lights. Everywhere! Maybe i have something where i can be in black light for too long but after about 20 minutes i had to leave the land. Its too dark and the neon black lights gave me the severest of headaches. I felt like it was 1988. Needless to say the glowing ground was nice as were the plants. It was funny looking at people take pictures of the plants and trees saying oh wow look at how it moves, umm its the wind doing that. By the time i reached the exit to Africa I felt so sick i could barely get out.
All in all, Pandora is a phenomenonal addition to animal kingdom. Personally, i will choose to visit again before night (maybe summer 7 to 830) is good because you can get the night effects and i won't get sick.
I give Pandora a solid B. For comparison, i gave the new fantasyland a B also. Pandora does not have continual repeat value for me unless 1) i loose weight to fit on fop and 2) i get a fp for rj.
For what it is worth, animal kingdom remaims my second favorite night time park. Everest is perfect at night. And with rivers of light (my grade was a D), I definitely have no interest in that. All the other attractions should have low waits.
See, i presented the positive and negative. And overall enjoyed pandora.
It looks like the other pictures didn't show. But there just the pictures of the land.
I finally made my way to animal kingdom Thursday night. I figured the rain storm would keep people away but it did not. I think gay days and alot of Florida residents made up the majority of the crowds. I arrived at 7pm just in time to see the lion King show and use my safari fp (did not need it though, it was walk on).
I had a fp for river journey at 8pm so I headed over to pandora. And i saw this...

All i could say was wow. I was impressed and it was even bigger than i imagined. I guess it also looks so good because its brand new. I was in Pandora at 8pm right before it got dark, more about that later.
I headed over to River journey. The standby was 105 minutes. Luckily I had a fp. I scanned my band and from that point to ride was probably all of 3 minutes.
The boats are nice and comfortable. The ride..
AMAZING!!! Yes i said it. Now i cannot group this with frozen or any other boat ride. Maybe the land ride as both are very relaxing. The visuals, the music, the videos, the sounds, the animals crawling on rotating leaves above your head, everything was amazing.
The shaman; however, was not as impressive as i thought it would be. It is lifelike but I think because it's the only moving person (?) in the entire ride its odd. Impressive but odd.
A quick 4.5 (?) ride and while impressive, i stand by my original opinion that anyone who waits more than 20 minutes for this is crazy. I do understand frozen, it has its fan base. But this is not that type of ride. I give RJ a solid B+. Just for comparison, the land is an A.
Back out pandora it was still light out.
I went to the restrooms near the gift shop. I didn't see anything spectacular (ala tangled) unless I missed something? The food looked good but i has no interest in waiting. The lines were horrible for everything. I figured i would go to the gift shop, i butted about 200 people until this woman screamed at me that is the end of the first group line lol. The line wrapped around to somewhere I couldn't see and i quickly left. Tons of people with them banshee props and I stand by my original thought, people will buy anything.
It was starting to get dark and suddenly I was feeling dizzy. I figured i was just tired from working 6am to 5pm then having the nerve to go to disney.
I walked around the land more and came across flights of Passage. It had a 40 minute wait. What?? I knew i wasn't going to waste my time even trying to get on. I am a pooh. There is am horribly placed test seat right at the fp entrance. It looked like it just got there because it reaked of spray paint. And to make matters worse, its not standalone. You need a cm to stand there because otherwise, you don't know what you are doing. The fp line cm came over where a group of about 20 poohs were embarrassingly trying to figure out this contraption. Not one of us fit. Ah well. Off to my next battle.
I felt even more dizzy because now it was pitch black and colors aglow. Omg the colors and worse, black lights. Everywhere! Maybe i have something where i can be in black light for too long but after about 20 minutes i had to leave the land. Its too dark and the neon black lights gave me the severest of headaches. I felt like it was 1988. Needless to say the glowing ground was nice as were the plants. It was funny looking at people take pictures of the plants and trees saying oh wow look at how it moves, umm its the wind doing that. By the time i reached the exit to Africa I felt so sick i could barely get out.
All in all, Pandora is a phenomenonal addition to animal kingdom. Personally, i will choose to visit again before night (maybe summer 7 to 830) is good because you can get the night effects and i won't get sick.
I give Pandora a solid B. For comparison, i gave the new fantasyland a B also. Pandora does not have continual repeat value for me unless 1) i loose weight to fit on fop and 2) i get a fp for rj.
For what it is worth, animal kingdom remaims my second favorite night time park. Everest is perfect at night. And with rivers of light (my grade was a D), I definitely have no interest in that. All the other attractions should have low waits.
See, i presented the positive and negative. And overall enjoyed pandora.
It looks like the other pictures didn't show. But there just the pictures of the land.
RustySpork
Oscar Mayer Memer
Yeah, this very accurately explains the after dark experience I had as well. Thanks for the review!
disney4life2008
Well-Known Member
Yea it is definitely dizzying. Luckily it was not hot last night. I may have something where I cant be in black lights for an extended period of time but I know I was getting sick. The moment I was back in Africa I felt perfectly fine.
RustySpork
Oscar Mayer Memer
It's not just you, it was happening to a lot of people the night I was in Pandora. I saw it as a purplish haze, and it sadly ruined nearly all of my photos once those lights came on. It's almost like getting sick from a strobe light.
disney4life2008
Well-Known Member
Interesting a strobe light doesn't bother me. But yes its a deep purple haze and being dizzy does not help. Ironically, i think pandora is more beautiful at day than night. You can't see anything. The light up plants are nice but not spectacular
RustySpork
Oscar Mayer Memer
Yeah, I agree with you that it's more beautiful during the day. Strobes don't bother me either, but someone I was with was sensitive to them and mentioned the similarity. I had expected that it would be better at night based on the hype, but it wasn't nearly as great of an experience. I'll give it another shot after the dust settles a bit more. I really hope that it's a solvable problem.
Ismael Flores
Well-Known Member
It's amazing to keep reading that the Pandora stores are packed. For the last couple years people on forums kept saying that nobody cared or remembered Avatar and that it did not lend itself to merchandise yet the store has been selling items like crazy from miniature banshee to strap on tails
Kman101
Well-Known Member
Some are going to argue it's not really popular and people buy anything. It seems some can't understand the well done land can stand on its own. I haven't seen the movie and I think the land is great.
RSoxNo1
Well-Known Member
It's week one. It's new.
I'm sure they're thrilled by the amount of merchandise they sold early on, but let's give it 6-12 months to see what is still selling and what isn't. The good thing is, it looks like they've hit on something (the banshee puppets) out of the gate, and I think many speculated they would struggle to get a signature item like that.
COProgressFan
Well-Known Member
Just trying to confirm - so is single rider open now?
I'm nearing my 60 day FP booking window for a trip in August. My kids are too small for Flight of Passage. Since my understanding is that you can't choose FP for both the River journey and FoP, I was hoping to use the FP's for the river and single rider for myself for FoP.
Wondering if anyone had any insight into whether single rider is open and how it seems to be working out with wait times.
Edit: (Posted before I saw the other thread about this - sounds like they may not be using single rider - of course if anyone else has info feel free to pass it along).
Last edited:
RSoxNo1
Well-Known Member
I had a Fastpass but was the only one in my group. There is no single rider option for either attraction at this time.
So, now that the opening day mad crush is over, what are those of you who are now at WDW experiencing in terms of crowds? I was fortunate to visit during the AP/DV previews, but my daughter has convinced me to return in August since they want to go now and not wait until I'm back again in November for the W&D Half (and my son-in-law really wants a banshee - I've not told him they are currently sold out). We are going the 2nd weekend in August and I'm hoping crowds won't be too bad as most families will be heading back home for school starts.
I am bummed that Disney tiered the rides in Pandora. We'll use our FP for FoP and hope that the wait time for Na'vi isn't too long. Actually, I might let THEM wait in line for Na'vi, since I rode it three times during preview. I can go watch Lion King while they stand in line for an hour or so.....
I am bummed that Disney tiered the rides in Pandora. We'll use our FP for FoP and hope that the wait time for Na'vi isn't too long. Actually, I might let THEM wait in line for Na'vi, since I rode it three times during preview. I can go watch Lion King while they stand in line for an hour or so.....
djkidkaz
Well-Known Member
So, now that the opening day mad crush is over, what are those of you who are now at WDW experiencing in terms of crowds? I was fortunate to visit during the AP/DV previews, but my daughter has convinced me to return in August since they want to go now and not wait until I'm back again in November for the W&D Half (and my son-in-law really wants a banshee - I've not told him they are currently sold out). We are going the 2nd weekend in August and I'm hoping crowds won't be too bad as most families will be heading back home for school starts.
I am bummed that Disney tiered the rides in Pandora. We'll use our FP for FoP and hope that the wait time for Na'vi isn't too long. Actually, I might let THEM wait in line for Na'vi, since I rode it three times during preview. I can go watch Lion King while they stand in line for an hour or so.....
The crowds for the land are not bad. You can walk into the shop, restaurant and walk the Pandora area fine. Navi has been about an hour wait consistently every day. FoP has been all over the place. Yesterday the wait said an hour but cast were telling you as you walked up that it was 2.5 hrs. Then later it said 3 hour wait and there was no line until you got into the large bioluminescent room and it was actually a 50 minute wait. If I was you I would just expect a 3 hour wait for FoP and anything less consider a victory.