Another early morning. Animal Kingdom by 7:30am. I got up kinda late and skipped the protein shake, but I ate the banana, and got dressed and headed out for get the LYFT to Animal Kingdom. I check out the bus line first, and as suspected, it was the longest one, so LYFT it was. The LYFT driver was nice and his music was good, his windows were open and the ride was quick. He got a nice tip. I arrived at Animal Kingdom (DAK) before the rest of the gang, so I grabbed an iced coffee and waited under a tree. When everyone got there, we got in the park and headed over to Pandora.
Pandora? In DAK? What does Avatar and the world of Pandora have to do with Disney? I mean really… does anyone even remember the first Avatar movie? (2009 if you need to know when it actually came out) Yeah. I didn’t think so - and then there was the promise of 2 sequels. I just checked the Google on the date of the first movie and when I typed in “Avatar” the google came up with Avatar 2 as one of the suggestions - so maybe there will be a second one? Anyway, Disney shuck a deal with James Cameron and now we have the land of Pandora. Besides the amazing theming and such, there are 2 attractions. The Navi River Journey and Flight of Passage. The Navi River Journey is a slow moving dark ride set on a river, much like It’s a Small World - but darker and shorter. The main theme (HERE) and hopefully that link works - reminds me of the song “Diamond Girl”by Seals and Crofts (HERE) and hopefully that link works if you don’t know what I’m talking. About. The ride. Does have a really cool animatronic towards the end. There are several ride-through videos on the YouTube if anyone cares to looks.
The next ride in Pandora is Flight of Passage. FOP - as the fans refer to it as - is a simulator ride. You’re basically sitting of a Banshee that you have been “paired” with and you fly through the land of …. Can’t remember the name…. And it’s really fun - you wear 3-D glasses and there are some gimmicks, etc, and it’s pretty intense. Once again, quite the technological feat by Disney. Disney has been on a simulator kick, as well as a trackless ride system kick and an interactive kick. Many kicks…. But I think we all want something a little more Classic Disney - kinda like Mickey and Minnies Runaway Railway - even though it uses a trackless system, it’s still heavily Disney and not Star Wars or Avatar (still trying to figure out WHY on that one in the first place)…. Anyway - we ended up on this 2 times.
We walked around Animal Kingdom and checked out the Otters, and that’s all I’m saying about THAT. Next we went on “It’s Tough To Be a Bug” - one of my least favorite 3-D attractions ever created - except maybe Shrek at the U-park. It’s just creepy. But I took one for the team and went on and it was as disturbing as it was the last time I went on it.
Next was Rafiki’s Plant Watch, which is basically a “hands on” petting zoo and some inter-workings of how the animals are taken care of at DAK. Speaking of animals - we went on the Safari attraction and saw a LOT of animals. Our guide was very good. I took pictures and hopefully will it them all in a video.
Kali River Rapids followed - the worlds shortest river rafting expedition. Grizzly River Run at DCA puts this attraction to shame x100. Expedition Everest followed which is always a great exhilarating rollercoaster. We would have done it a second time, but the rain kept it closed in the afternoon.
Speaking of rain - yes - it rained. After lunch and after we went on Dinosaur. - which is the same type of ride as Indiana Jones in Disneyland, but in this case you are going back in time trying to bring back an Iguana-Don dinosaur for research - it started to rain.
So, there was some walking, sheltering, more walking, shopping, etc and then the gang decided we would park hop to the Magic Kingdom. Which we took a bus and hopped. The gang wanted to do the big ones again - Space, Splash, Mansion, Pirates, etc…. which after an iced coffee, we did. And what fun we had. I was pretty beat up after Space Mountain, though - it was very fast and very bumpy. I may feel muscles I didn’t know I had tomorrow - but it was so much fun. Splash Mountain is always my favorite and I was glad to get to do it a second time on this trip. Maybe even a third??? Who knows…. We bussed over to the Yacht and Beach Club for dinner at Cape May Restaurant. Cape May is usually a Buffett, but because of COVID, it’s now a family style meal which they bring to your table and it’s all you can eat. We had a good time and I can safely say that the spell has been broken and no one spilled anything at dinner. The past 3 sit-down dinners, someone has spilled something - including me. Hopefully the spell is broken.
Tomorrow is a Blizzard Beach day (water park) which I intend to sleep late and get to the park, and just sit in the lazy river all day. However, I think the gang wants to head back to Magic Kingdom at some point tomorrow as well. So, we’ll see how things go.
Another great day -
So, now you know!
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