Day 4 of our winter break vacation took place at Animal Kingdom! I was very, very excited to see Pandora - The Land Of Avatar. Briana really wanted to ride Expedition Everest.
After two very full days at Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom, the three of us agreed we were going to make this a shorter activity day. We just had to - we were tired. It meant me not being able to see Pandora at night, but after not sleeping great for a few days, I was looking forward to the shorter day. And, we also knew temperatures would rise that afternoon.
If I remember correctly, Doug was up kind of late Monday evening and purchased Genie+ for our Animal Kingdom day. Our plan was to drive to Animal Kingdom from the hotel. The park opened at 8AM, which meant early entry was at 7:30AM. I decided to grab lightning lanes in the hotel room instead of sitting in the car. I wanted to get individual lightning lane reservations for Flight of Passage and a regular lightning lane reservations for Na'Vi River Journey. And that I did...
We entered the park - Tree Of Life...
This is how our Animal Kingdom day went...
Kilimanjaro Safaris
Avatar Flight Of Passage
Discovery Island Trails (Beavers)
Na’vi River Journey
Gorilla Falls Exploration Trail
Tusker House Restaurant
Expedition Everest
*Back To Hotel For Day*
Steakhouse 71 Takeout
MK Fireworks From Room
**********************
After our quick photo opp, we hustled our way quickly to Africa for early entry "Kilimanjaro Safaris."
Africa...
We arrived at the entrance to Kilimanjaro Safaris and there were a lot of people with the same strategy as us...
Above was the standby line for just early entry people! You should have seen it the rest of the day - the line was SO long. If you don't hit this experience first thing or get a lightning lane, you will be waiting for a LONG time. The animals are most active in the morning, so we were fine waiting to see that. The weather was actually perfect at that time - nice and cool. We probably waited about 25 minutes total before getting on a truck. Not too bad. I did have a lightning lane reservation coming up (8:55AM to 9:55AM with a 15 minute buffer), so I did want to get on this ride as quickly as possible and get going.
Birds as we winded our way to the trucks...
We finally made our way to a truck. And we had a wonderful experience! So many animals - elephants, giraffes, lions, hippos, rhinos, alligators, warthogs and more. It was really something to see...
A short video of what a ride is like...
It was so beautiful...
It was finally time to board "Avatar Flight Of Passage" (the picture of the entrance is a stock image I swiped off the internet - it still says Fastpass on it)...
The actual ride is a 3D simulator where you sit on what looks like a bike which is situated directly in front of a huge screen.
This is a great description of what the ride entails if you are interested in reading...
https://touringplans.com/blog/a-ride-wimps-review-of-avatar-flight-of-passage
Internet photos of what we experienced...
Oh. My. Gosh.
This was one of my favorite rides of the entire trip. I honestly felt like I was flying through Pandora on a banshee. It was amazing! 10 out of 10!
We got off the ride all giddy and were directed into the gift shop (of course)...
Doug was a bit hungry and grabbed a snack and this very colorful drink called the "Night Blossom" (which Briana stole some of)...
