Disney Vacation Day: 2
Total Animal Kingdom Rides: 7
Color: Purple
Total Steps: 19,387
Temperature: 2nd Circle of Hell
It’s Disney Vacation Day #2 and we’re up bright & early to explore the Animal Kingdom today! I’m totally excited because I’m a huge Avatar fan, and Pandora the World of Avatar resides in this park. So, you already know I’m ready to hit the ground running. The minions, not so much. 🙂
We didn’t have much planned, outside of Pandora, so I had no expectations of how the day was going to go. We had a few attractions on the MFDOP for the day, but largely just planned to walk around and see what we could get into.
(Full deats on how the Montgomery Family Disney Optimization Plan MFDOP was created can be found in my Magic Kingdom recap).
Featuring:
Animal Kingdom Itinerary
Before Lunch Priorities
- Avatar Flight of Passage
- Na’Vi River Journey
- Kilimanjaro Safari
Lunch Block
- Kali River Rapids
- Expedition Everest
- Jungle Trek
After Lunch Priorities
- Dinosuar
Animal Kingdom Morning
Animal Kingdom is my favorite of the 3 Disney parks we visited. For one, it was much cooler than Magic Kingdom. Mind you, we spent the coolest part of the morning in Pandora and Africa. These 2 areas have more trees and shading than the others. Which really came in handy with the sun was trying its best to melt us on sight.
We arrived as the park opened & made a beeline for The World of Avatar. Walking into Pandora felt exactly like I thought walking into Pandora would feel like. Even the girls were impressed, which should tell you something, because impressing my 2 teens is nigh impossible.
Disney did a great job setting the scene here. The landscaping, the sounds, the smells….all worked in harmony to make me feel as though I was on the alien planet. They did a great job working in actual flora with fictional Pandora flora.
The queue for Flight of Passage was just as cool and immersive. You experience some of the bioluminescence and a lab set up. The results of which is being the ability to link with a banshee on Pandora from good ole Earth.
Flight of Passage is in my top 3 favorite rides in all of Disney. It’s a 3D ride, so you never physically leave, but you totally feel every turn, dip, and race. They even pump in fragrance to stimulate the smells of the flora. Between the wind blowing your face and the smells & sounds, it really feels like you’re flying through Pandora on the back of a mountain banshee.
I filmed the queue, but not the ride because of how it works. But what I managed to capture still inspires awe. Here’s what we saw in Pandora & the Flight of Passage queue.
Next up, the Na’Vi River Cruise. I was super excited about this one. We thoroughly enjoyed this leisurely drift down a Pandora inspired river. It’s a beautiful ride & we loved the bioluminescence plants and animals featured. Check out the experience below.
By the time finished the Na’Via River Cruise, it was really starting to warm up. We grabbed a morning snack & refreshing drinks before turning our attention to Africa. We had our sights on the Kilimanjaro Safari, so headed in line before it really started to blaze.
Having never been on an authentic safari, this is what I’d imagine one would be like! Rumbling & tumbling around in a safari jeep across the African savanna, taking in the different terrains and animals within each. We saw quite a few animals- many we’d never heard of- that call the African savanna home.
This attraction is never the same day to day, person to person. What each trip looks like is determined by how the animals are feeling the moment you roll through. Our trip was very active, in fact, this was the first ride the girls wanted to repeat.
Animal Kingdom Afternoon
The first three attractions took up the majority of our morning, and since we’d had a busy day at Magic Kingdom the day before, the crew was starting to drag pretty early. So after some adjustments to the plan, we decided head over to Asia to knock out the next 2 major things on our list.
When I tell you it was HOT and we were feeling it, please believe me. There wasn’t much tree cover in the Asia area, so we headed straight to Kali River Rapids to cool down. And cool down we did, LOL. This ride was pure joy. You can see for yourself below, but be warned, it’s full of screaming & cackling laughter.
The girls get soaked! Good times all around 🙂
Waterlogged, we queued up for Expedition Everest. This was our longest line of the day, as EE is a very popular attraction. And little did I know, this was the closest to a full on thrill ride that we would come across at Disney. The more we advanced in the queue, the more we got the idea that we may be in for a bit more excitement than we realized. So of course, the youngest was beyond excited, while my eldest was looking for ways to exit the line.
In her defense, EE was more than a bit “adventurous” for her. It zipped around, had a pretty high drop, and then went in reverse. It was fun, but man was she screaming and not happy with me afterwards. 🙂 I’ll let this pic tell you all you need to know about Expedition Everest and my 2 girls. FYI- this is my most favorite picture ever of them-LOL.
Even though it was early in the day, the crew was pretty wiped. So after a quick walk through Jungle Trek, we hiked over to DinoLand for Dinosaur, our last stop for the day. DinoLand is perfect for younger children. There’s an entire, carnival style area full of rides and games in this area. Not excitable enough for us, so we skipped it.
The Dinosaur queue is an immersive prehistoric trip through time. There are fossils all around, a huge globe hanging from the ceiling featuring Pangea, and several lessons from Bill Nye the Science guy peppered in as you progress. The eye catcher, however, is the full sized Carnotaurus fossil in the second stage of the queue.
(We were moving quickly, so I didn’t get the chance to take pics, but I have some film footage somewhere. If I find it, I will add it to this article later.)
The ride, itself, is pretty fun. The storyline is a mash up of Dino safari meets Jurassic Park. Quite enjoyable & not too scary. Because trust me, the eldest was COMPLETELY done with thrill rides at this point. 🙂
And there you have it, our day at Animal Kingdom. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and all the attractions. I highly recommend giving this park at least half a day. It’s a zoo unlike any other you’ll experience.
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