Day 08 - Animal Kingdom

TLDR: Animal Kingdom. The new area of Pandora is absolutely stunning, great scenery and even better rides, especially Flight Of Passage - its phenomenal. The other noteworthy attractions was The Lion King show which was simply amazing. Nice little lunch in a rainforest, well in the Rainforest Cafe, though it was wetter outside than in. Tired adults and even tireder children so home to for some much needed rest after another ride or two.

Hakuna Matata!

Today kicks off the start of Week 2, and its a real struggle to get up today, especially the kids, but thats why we have energy shots eh? :P Pick up my mum and dad and headed off to Animal Kingdom. A completely new area with a few new rides and lunch in a rainforest sounds like a pretty good day to me. We get there and go through the usual bag check by a girl called Precious <insert LOTR jokes here> and I Just Cant Wait To Be King kicks in as soon as we enter the gates.

We had some time before the first Lion King performance of the day so we went to visit the new area in Animal Kingdom: Pandora - The World of Avatar. We watched the movie recently so we’re kinda clued up a little on the Na'vi and what their world looks like. We have the Na’vi River Journey Fast Passed for later so had some time to take in the beautiful sights and sounds of this place. As soon as you enter the area you see the huge floating mountains and waterfalls - it’s spectacular. Although there are a few rides here, its more than just that, they’ve created an immersive world and thought of every little detail to mirror world of Avatar. Cant wait to be back and try the rides out.

So we head round to Africa next to get a good seat for The Lion King show. As soon as it starts youre drawn right it, its definitely one of the best Disney Park attractions out there. Not do they sing all of the iconic songs, but they have huge Lion King characters on floats, acrobatics, dancing, hot girls dressed as zebras dancing, fire breathing, hot girls dressed as lionesses dancing, stilt-walkers and also hot girls dressed as tigers dancing (well I think it was tigers anyway…). Seriously though it was absolutely breath-taking, one of the best and a must see if you visit here.

After we had recovered, we were set up nicely for our first Fast Pass of the day, the Kilimanjaro Safari, which was just around the corner. Standard safari fare, catching a glimpse of Eleflumps, Giraffes, Cheetahs, Rhinos and a load of other things I cant remember the name of. The lions didn’t want to come out and play though, which was a little disappointing.

I flew a Banshee and I liked it!

The rain came on then, so we put on our rain-jackets. Ten minutes later, the sun was back out and we were starting to cook, so we took our rain-jackets back off. That’s what it been like for the last few days, and its a nice break to the blistering heat at times. We had some time before our lunch reservation, so though we’d head back to Pandora and check out the first ride, Flight Of Passage. This had already come recommended and the build up to the ride through the queues and then this staging area where they did a full body scan (for the purposes of which was to link your genetics to an Avatar of course) and you could see your outline on screen as well as the other 19 peeps in the room all moving about - it was pretty cool! However the actual ride… the actual ride was another level. The ride has you linked with an Avatar riding a Banshee (a big flying dragon-y dinosaur type thing) and you fly through various landscapes including jungle, mountain and ocean. It actually feels like youre doing it, in some sort of surreal dream, the smells, the sounds and you can even feel the heartbeat of your banshee your sitting on. I physically gasped several times during the course of it and its probably the most spectacular thing I’ve witnessed (when it comes to theme parks experiences). For me this is my best ride ever and knocks Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey down to second place. I will definitely be doing this again before the holidays ends. So here’s a nice segway into Patrick’s Fun Fact Of The Day before we head off for lunch. I loved this ride, and according to Patrick:

> When you say you love someone it may actually be an form of OCD which causes a complete obsession in other person.

Seriously, where does he get this stuff? I googled this (for reference) and it took me to several different psychology sites about relationships and emotional response. Anyway moving on, we had lunch booked at the Rainforest Cafe, which is a cafe kitted out like a rainforest. Seriously. All sorts of animals and animal noises were in there as well as a thunderstorm that passed every 15 minutes or so. It was awesome! Gracie thought the tigers were real though so I had to reassure her they were only pretend, which she then seemed a little sad about. Our server asked if we were from Scotland because my dad sounded like Sean Connery to which my mum replied she wished he looked like him! XD Lunch was ordered and as soon as they brought Ann’s plate out, I realised the gravity of my mistake (don’t you just hate that though). You see, I like tacos and I really like fish tacos in particular - they’re one of my favourites, so Ahi Tuna Street Tacos was an obvious choice for me. However Ann got this thing called Tastes of the Islands, which was described as follows: Caribbean Coconut Shrimp, dynamite Scallops and shrimp, blackened tilapia topped with mango salsa. The plate looked epic and it tasted amazing (Ann inst Joey - she does share food). My tuna tacos were fine an all but yeah if I were to go again I probably get this, and if I were to go again after that, I’d probably get this - it was that gooooood.

Through a valley of fear, to a river so deep…

After lunch, which included a big bowl of dirt and worms for Gracie’s dessert (read crushed up oreos and gummy worms), we headed off for our next ride and the second of the new ones, Na'vi River Journey! This one was a slow boat ride with lots of magical visuals along the way. Think Small World on LSD. I am actually really interested to see what they plan to do with the next films (oh and what Massive Entertainment do with the IP). Few pics below dont do the ride justice and I can understand why both ride in Pandora have extremely long wait times.

With the on and off rain cancelling our final Fast Pass of Kali River Rapids and all of the party getting a little weary, we decided to call it a day and head home to get a good night rest. We missed about half the park, but as we’ve scheduled a second visit to Animal Kingdom (which we were hesitant about but now so glad we did), we will catch the what we missed on the return visit.

We did swing by the Liquor store to pick up some whisky, (which happened to be a nice wee bottle of Woodford Reserve), and I got ID'ed. Nothing to worry about as I now carry my driving license about with me everyone now, since the Uno incident on 2013 (see previous blog post). However my dad said he was also ID'ed earlier in the week at the same store! Hehe my dad Sean Connery getting ID'ed eh? :P No plans for dinner just our daily ritual of going to Walmart to buy trading cards and other non-essential things before heading back to the hotel to relax… and sleep… and blog.