We could feel that our holiday was starting to come to an
end (sob!). Today was our last park day
for the trip and we spent it at Animal Kingdom.
It is Disney’s newest park but has been open for 20 years. Only Catherine has done this one previously
and even then there’s always more to see.
Our first fastpass was for Na’vi River Journey in Pandora
(based on the James Cameron film Avatar).
The introduction of this section of the park in the last few years has
certainly ramped up visitor numbers to it and the wait times for the rides in
Pandora can be unreal. We hadn’t been
successful in getting a fastpass for the other ride, Flight of Passage, so would have to take pot luck with the standby
queue when the time came.
Na’vi River Journey is pleasant enough and the effects
(holograms and animatronics are amazing!) but it is a short ride (too short if
you’ve waited an hour to get on it) and if you’re not on the front row of your
boat the view is obscured a bit. We then
decided to postpone our Everest fastpass for the afternoon and try our luck
with Flight of Passage as the wait time was about an hour.
Wow, just wow! All of
the hype for this ride is definitely worth it.
It uses similar technology to Soarin’ in terms of the graphics but it is
3D as well. We didn’t have to queue for
the full hour and it’s another ride with an immersive queue area. When you get inside the ride section you sit
on what can only be described as a static motorbike, so that you feel like
you’re riding on the back of the banshee in flight (you can even feel its
breathing motion against your legs).
Visually stunning and you even get the smells. It’s one that deserves all of the praise that
it gets.
Animal Kingdom always feels hot (Andrew’s theory is that
it’s because all of the trees and plants in the park keep the air from
circulating fully), so once we’d got a few photos in Pandora we decided to go
down to the Festival of the Lion King show to cool off. This truly is a great show, very colourful
and has great floats with Simba and Pumbaa on.
However, we were seated towards the back and in front of us was a
walkway so our view kept getting blocked with people leaving with crabby little
ones. It didn’t detract from our overall
enjoyment though as the show is so fabulous.
Time for another fastpass and it was a biggie. We hadn’t managed to meet the big cheese (and
Mrs Cheese too!) on the whole trip so went to hang out with Mickey and Minnie
in their safari outfits. It’s always
magical meeting these two and Minnie took a particular shine to Andrew (Mickey
had his eye on him to make sure there wasn’t any funny business!).
Meet and greet done, the boys went to do It’s Tough to be a
Bug (a show that gave Catherine a panic attack aged 11 so she sat this one out
– bloody insects!). Catherine renewed
her annual pass while she waited for the boys (served by the cutest cast member
ever who was so apologetic about everything, even existing as a human
being!).
We then went to meet Dug and
Russell from Up! which turned out to be the best character meet all
holiday. While we were meeting them
Kevin (the massive bird from Up!) went past and they pulled us over to say
hello to him – magical! Russell proudly
showed us all of his scout badges and we bonded with Dug about how naughty it
is of squirrels to run up trees when you’re trying to chase them. Andrew gave Dug a good tummy rub which set
his foot off tapping.
We then stopped for some food at Flame Tree Barbecue because
we’d not had enough pulled pork yet this holiday and it isn’t half bad from
here. There’s also plenty of seating
nearby, some of which has a great view of Everest and the lake.
Lunch consumed, we ventured over to Dinoland USA. This is definitely an area for the little
ones in the main but it also has the Dinosaur ride which was a new one for all
of us. It’s a bumpy one and has a bit of
a Jurassic Park feel to it so not perhaps the best one to do straight after
eating! The rest of Dinoland is
definitely not aimed at us and the boys were getting keener and keener to do
Kali river rapids (or rubber dinghy rapids as they’d nicknamed it).
The wait time for this was insane, perhaps because it was a
hot afternoon and everyone needed a good soaking to cool off. They aren’t wrong when they warn you that you
will get wet and you may get soaked (they should just shorten it and say you
WILL get soaked!). Another fairly short
ride but a great laugh and we came off absolutely dripping wet! The worst bit is that there is a bit of a
wait at the end of the ride to get off the rafts. While you’re waiting you get drowned by jets
of water controlled by sadistic visitors who have just got off the ride and are
soaked to the skin themselves and want to inflict the same pain on you! We had to partake in the same activity once
we finally got off the ride, be rude not to!
Our next fastpass for Everest was now open and there’s no better
way to dry off from a water ride by getting wind-blasted on a rollercoaster. This is a favourite and it also has a
single-rider line if you fancy another go on it. It’s a steep one, does go backwards at one
point and a lot of the turns and twists are in the darkness of the inside of
the mountain. Once we’d finished we
managed to get a fastpass booked for the safari later on this evening when all
the animals would be out due to cooler weather.
To kill time until then we did both of the animal walking trails
in the park. One has tigers, komodo
dragons, an aviary and monkeys. The
other has a gorilla troop, meerkats, okapi and zebras. They’re a nice change from the hustle and
bustle of the rides and the cast members that are on hand are so knowledgeable
about their charges. We saw one of the
tigers really close up and the animals do seem to have a large space to be in.
We then had a quick coffee stop in Starbucks and then
realised that Pocahontas was doing meet and greets nearby so we swung to say
Wingapo to her.
Then it was safari time.
Once again, it didn’t disappoint.
We were stalked by a group of curious giraffes, saw the hippos swimming
to cool off and were able to see some of the elephants too. It’s definitely one for a fastpass as the
lines for this one can get really long.
The evening show (Rivers of Light) wasn’t until 8pm so the
boys managed to fit in another go on Everest while Catherine got some honey
chicken to try from Yak and Yeti (yummy!).
The seats we had for the show were really good, although we did have to
sit on separate rows due to the family sitting next to us not leaving enough
space for their relatives who arrived later!
There are no fireworks at this show due to the animals on site but the
light-up floats are beautiful and the projections on the water are
fabulous. The onion ninjas got Catherine
again (it’s that song from Tarzan that does it!) and then it was time for home,
waving goodbye to Disney for this trip (sobbing again!) – until next time...
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