DAK Avatar Flight of Passage reviews, comments and questions

[Cesar R M]

The Na'vi exchange students tend to put on a few pounds when exposed to human junk food for this first time.

Oh man, you suddenly reminded me of these weird folks who did a literal Na'vi church like cult(after the movie was all the rage).. and they constantly claimed how they were Na'vi in a life before and other hilarious stuff


*edit for clarity*

 

[Dizmunk]

Once you reach the indoor part of the queue in the standby line, approx. how much waiting time is left?

 

[neoshinok]

Once you reach the indoor part of the queue in the standby line, approx. how much waiting time is left?

Depends if they're operating at full capacity or not, but roughly an hour in my experience.

Had a nice surprise today, got to the last pre show room and they evacd us past the ride vehicles. Scanned our bands and we were given TWO any ride FPs! I got back into FoP with 1 and used the other on NRJ. REALLY glad I didn't wait standby for NRJ, it's lovely but so disappointingly short.

 

[freediverdude]

I'm suddenly going to be at Animal Kingdom in two weeks, for early morning EMH starting at 8AM. I'm hoping those that have already experienced Pandora could answer some quick questions? Many thanks

- I'm planning on being at the AK gate 45-min to 1 hour before the 8AM EMH opening. I hope to be at the front of the pack waiting to get in. Is that enough time?
- Do you wait at the front gate at AK? Or do they let you in to a certain point? If so, where?
- I plan on going directly to FOP & riding. Should get on pretty easily?
- By the time I've finished the FOP ride, if I go directly to the River Journey ride...what wait time should I expect on it?

Thanks amigos. I'm excited!

Here is the time line that happened to me Wed.:
-parked in the parking lot at 6:30am
-walked up to the security tables and they started letting us go through about 6:45
-walked up to the turnstiles and waited there until about 7:15 (now some crowds behind me going back to the ticket booths)
- 7:15 let us through the turnstiles and walked to the entrance to Pandora (over the bridge by that huge plant).
- held here until about 7:40, now huge crowd behind us going back into discovery island and oasis area
- 7:40 allowed to walk into the FoP queue slowly, and make way through the queue, stopping and waiting here and there. (There weren't many people in front of me, maybe a couple hundred, so they must have been letting them go slow through the queue or something.)
-exited the ride at 8:38. At that time FoP had built up to 240 minutes already, and NRJ was already 90 minutes.
So you're probably going to need to be there earlier than what you're planning to be at the front of the pack going through the turnstiles. By 7:15 there's already a sizable crowd at the turnstiles.

 

[djkidkaz]

Has anyone seen FP+ become available on the app for FoP after someone cancels? I'm wondering if Disney has locked out passes returning to the app or something because I have done some serious refreshing on the app over the past week and have not once seen any time become available for FoP. NRJ on the other hand had been pretty easy for me to get a FP for. Just wondering if anyone has had any luck logging in and seeing a FP available for FoP?

 

[Magic Feather]

Can someone explain the queueing lines? We know there are 4 theaters so why does it go to 5 lanes and then a link chamber lane? I've always been put on the far left and the two lanes in the middle never have any guests in them.
View attachment 208132

Happy to explain. Going down, row 4 is the group lane, and the Link Chambers line is for all ADA or wheelchair groups. Row five is for employees to move up and down, but was initially designed for singke riders, with the Link chamber line for employees, and handicap going in with normal groups. As for the four up ramps, currently, the one on the far left (Link Chambers), is used for boarding Level 2 chambers, 1 and 2 are used for employees, and 3 is for level 3 chambers. Originally, Link Chambers was fot employees, 1 was for Level 2, 2 for singles, and 3 for Level 3.

Can you make a Diagram? I got confused lol XD

Will do, just give me a few.

As promised:

 

[Jones14]

As promised:
View attachment 208328
View attachment 208329

And, to add, ramp 5 is still occasionally used to divide groups of 16 by CM's at the end of the ramp. So we walked all the way up ramp 4 and went around some other guests to the very front of line 5, where we started the next group of 16. Think of how they load the line for the Gringotts pre-show now.

 

[freediverdude]

Has anyone seen FP+ become available on the app for FoP after someone cancels? I'm wondering if Disney has locked out passes returning to the app or something because I have done some serious refreshing on the app over the past week and have not once seen any time become available for FoP. NRJ on the other hand had been pretty easy for me to get a FP for. Just wondering if anyone has had any luck logging in and seeing a FP available for FoP?

I just don't think hardly anyone is canceling those, because they know they are hard to get and want to ride that one above any other. I think for a long while the only way to get one is going to be possibly right at 30 days, or between 30 and 60 with a resort reservation. Once they update the systems tomorrow so the non-ticketed magicbands can't be used at the fastpass taps any more, that may help. It will be harder for people to have many multiple ones from then on.

 

[djkidkaz]

I just don't think hardly anyone is canceling those, because they know they are hard to get and want to ride that one above any other. I think for a long while the only way to get one is going to be possibly right at 30 days, or between 30 and 60 with a resort reservation. Once they update the systems tomorrow so the non-ticketed magicbands can't be used at the fastpass taps any more, that may help. It will be harder for people to have many multiple ones from then on.

What is this about non ticketed magic bands being used?

 

[RustySpork]

What is this about non ticketed magic bands being used?

People have found loopholes in Disney's FP+ system and have been able to book 6-9 or maybe more FP+ per person per day using them at the expense of everyone who doesn't exploit the system. Sounds like Disney is closing that loophole, but there is already a thread on another board that talks about ways around that too.

 

[ChrisFL]

After spending a few hours in Pandora last night, going on the River Journey and seeing the wait time for FOP go from 210 mins all the way down to 40 mins in what seemed like a span of 2 hours (Maybe they opened more theaters/rooms??) finally rode it late last night, and WOW, It is truly amazing.

I've recently been wondering if combining the best screen, 3D and other physical effects can start to overcome our notion of just being a simulator....Disney has come REALLY close to defining that with this ride. During the ride, I was also comparing it to the flying scenes portion of Forbidden Journey at IOA, and how nauseous that makes me, and how relatively crap the video is. FOP just completely blows that away and also blows Soarin' away also.

I know people were skeptical about this being a soarin' clone, but it couldn't be farther from the truth. This is seriously next level immersion!

 

[KrzyKtty]

So has anyone tried to rope drop FOP during a EMH morning at 7 am? If so what was it like for you? What time did you get there?

 

[KrzyKtty]

After spending a few hours in Pandora last night, going on the River Journey and seeing the wait time for FOP go from 210 mins all the way down to 40 mins in what seemed like a span of 2 hours (Maybe they opened more theaters/rooms??) finally rode it late last night, and WOW, It is truly amazing.

I've recently been wondering if combining the best screen, 3D and other physical effects can start to overcome our notion of just being a simulator....Disney has come REALLY close to defining that with this ride. During the ride, I was also comparing it to the flying scenes portion of Forbidden Journey at IOA, and how nauseous that makes me, and how relatively crap the video is. FOP just completely blows that away and also blows Soarin' away also.

I know people were skeptical about this being a soarin' clone, but it couldn't be farther from the truth. This is seriously next level immersion!

Do you mind saying what time you noticed it was around 40 minutes? Just curious. I will be there next Monday, and trying to decide if Rope Drop or late evening is the better time to ride it.

 

[ChrisFL]

Do you mind saying what time you noticed it was around 40 minutes? Just curious. I will be there next Monday, and trying to decide if Rope Drop or late evening is the better time to ride it.

It was about 10 PM

 

[KrzyKtty]

Also one other quick question. We will have to do rider swap since my 4 year old is not tall enough. I heard during AP previews, they were letting the whole family through the que, even if some were too short to ride. Does anyone know if there are still doing that? Just trying to figure out if I will be going through the que with my husband and switching, or if I will be waiting outside and then switch when they are off?

 

[CastleBound]

I'm back after a few day trips to the park and I gotta say - I'm changed after Pandora. I can't stop thinking about it. The incredible size and scope of that land is breathtaking. I couldn't stop taking pictures and videos the entire time to capture something otherworldly.

Navi River Journey is a very nice experience. The queue was nothing to write home about, aside from the ambient sounds from the jungle that surrounded you. I'm one of the people who has enjoyed many of the recent attractions/overlays from Disney, so this small attraction really excited me. It's a very calming experience, something to draw you in and imagine. Nothing jaw dropping here. The screens are decent (you can always tell it's a screen), but it does create a very cool sense of depth to the scenes. Of course the Animatronic is super impressive. She's huge too! I was kinda shocked at how big of a creature she was, with incredible wingspan. I did like how the Avatar theme blended with the new song the Shaman sings.

We headed back to Flight of Passage at night (thank god). A lot of the queue was outside and we would have been scorched and even the cave system was very hot. I don't believe there were any fans in there and the only air conditioning seemed to be coming from the RDA doorway. I really loved the section after the cave, where it transitions to night, followed by the Avatar program facilities. The ride itself really blew me away as well. It's so unexpected and shocking to start that I could barely catch my breath as I was flying around. I honestly couldn't help but smile and laugh the whole time.

The store was fine, but didn't really hold anything I'd consider buying aside from a t-shirt and a banshee. I didn't come home with either. I was shocked the banshees sold out two days after my visit, as they seemed well stocked with priceless first additions.

We ordered 4 different meals from the canteen. The Steel Cut Oats which was a GIANT bowl of oatmeal, fit for two people. The French toast was enjoyable, but needed more topping. The cheese burger pods were just alright. They were a bit bland and needed some sauce or cheese. I wouldn't order that again. The Tofu bowl with Hash and (I forget the sauce, but it was white) was an outstanding meal. Probably the best meal we've ever head on property.

I went into this land with the same thoughts as most people, trying to compare it to Harry Potter since that's what everyone wants us to do, but personally, I think this beats Harry for me. Obviously they are completely different experiences and shouldn't really be compared, but I would pick visiting Pandora over most things.

 

[CastleBound]

It was about 10 PM

For my visit, it hit the 40 minute mark at 12:30 PM. I think it really all depends. Apparently last night around 9:00 PM it was 40 minutes. We waited probably close to 90 minutes and it was bearable. I'm not sure I could do much more.

 

[Rowlet]

Just got back from exploring Pandora for the weekend. Was lucky to have gotten to ride Flight of Passage twice and the Na'vi River Journey three times thanks to Fast Passes and Extra Magic Hours in the evening for resort guests (the most we waited was 45 minutes). I thought the land was very pretty and to think it's all man-made was what made it even more impressive. Flight of Passage was really really awesome! I didn't get motion sickness which I was concerned about beforehand as I have a hard time on rides like Star Tours, and even some of the Universal/IOA rides. The River Journey was calming and very well made. Like everyone else, we were blown away by the animatronic. So grand, so smooth. When she looked our way, I felt almost an eerie connection to it, that's how life-like it is! Tried some of the treats at Pongu Pongu - the Night Blossom drink was tasty and I personally liked the Pongu Lumpia (pineapple-cream cheese pastries). There were a lot of nice things to get at the store. I just got the Annual Passholder magic band (love the teal color!) and light-up Na'vi flip flops.

In the end I feel like Disney did a good job in adding more things to AK. I feel like to me that's the biggest plus. When comparing it to Harry Potter, I feel they're both so different in their "immersion" experiences that it can be a little hard to compare. Obviously Harry Potter has been open for much longer and has more things to offer. I would like to see an expansion to Pandora but with only one movie out (of expected 5?) I guess we'll have to wait on that. Until then, Harry Potter still does it for me more than Pandora but I have a feeling Star Wars Land will change that.

 

[Figment82]

Also one other quick question. We will have to do rider swap since my 4 year old is not tall enough. I heard during AP previews, they were letting the whole family through the que, even if some were too short to ride. Does anyone know if there are still doing that? Just trying to figure out if I will be going through the que with my husband and switching, or if I will be waiting outside and then switch when they are off?

As we were entering the FoP queue on Saturday, a family was asking for child swap. The CM asked the non-riding parent to wait with the child outside. I was surprised they all weren't able to enter the queue together, but I've never used the service so I didn't know if that was standard practice.

 

[KrzyKtty]

As we were entering the FoP queue on Saturday, a family was asking for child swap. The CM asked the non-riding parent to wait with the child outside. I was surprised they all weren't able to enter the queue together, but I've never used the service so I didn't know if that was standard practice.

Ty. It is normally standard practice for them to ask the family member to wait outside, but I heard during AP previews they were letting the whole family queue together. I was just curious if that was still the case.