Day 2 - 6/25 - For The First Time in Pandora
We woke up around 615AM to get ready for our breakfast reservation at Garden Grill in EPCOT. Shelly loved the mirror on one of the stairways in the Boardwalk, so we had to stop for a picture.
We stopped by the Boardwalk Bakery for a chocolate croissant (because I needed pre-breakfast
) and walked over to International Gateway.
As we were approaching, I noticed the gate was chain locked. “Are you sure we can enter this way?” I asked Shelly. “Yes, I read all over the place that you can go in this way if you have a breakfast reservation." said Shelly. There was no Cast Member in sight, so we kind of were at a loss.
I decided to call the front desk at the Boardwalk to see if I could get any extra information. The first Cast Member I spoke with said there should be an individual all the way to the left with a sign for breakfast reservations. I restated that we were not at the North entrance of EPCOT, but we were at International Gateway. The Cast Member was nice, but seemed to not really know what to do. “There should be a Cast Member there” she kept repeating.
I politely asked if there was perhaps another area I can speak to. Maybe someone on call that kind of oversees International Gateway. I was really stretching at that point. The Cast Member did connect to someone else and I was informed that someone would get called to open the gate, because it should be open by now. All in all I was on the phone for about 15 minutes.
No more than 2 minutes later a Disney Security Cast Member walked up and unlocked the gates. “Wow” I thought. I asked the Cast Member if she had gotten a call to unlock the gate, thinking it was that Disney magic at work. “Nope, just time to unlock it”. Huh, ok.
We weren’t able to enter EPCOT yet. We still had to wait for clearance. After sitting for a couple minutes, a few more families made their way to International Gateway. One woman was not too happy that she was not able to enter the park. “We have a breakfast reservation and you’re going to make us late!”. The Cast Member assured her that even if she was a couple minutes late for her reservation the restaurant knows that people need to wait for clearance. The woman just couldn’t grasp the fact that her table was going to be waiting for her. To be honest, it was a bit entertaining. I understand people pay a lot of money for a Disney vacation (you’re looking at one) but if someone is telling you not to worry, just relax and enjoy. If you get to the restaurant and there are problems, then you can worry again.
Anyway, we walked over to The Land pavilion. Shelly’s parents met up with us a couple minutes later as they entered from the North entrance. We were also supposed to meet up with my best man (Osiris) and his wife (Katie). Osiris (Sye) is also from Connecticut but Katie is from England. He moved to England to live with her. They were back in Connecticut the week prior to the wedding. They flew from Connecticut to Orlando the night before and were staying at an Air BnB. I usually communicate with Sye through What’s App.
Panic started to set in as I realized that we neglected to tell them the name the reservation was under, or instruct them on how to get to The Land pavilion from the main entrance. “Just text them, Mike” you may be thinking. Well because they are both from England their cellular data doesn’t work. Wi-Fi is needed to communicate with them and they are both first timers in Disney. Also, I love Sye, but he’s not the most punctual person, so I was really nervous him and Katie would end up lost in Orlando somewhere. I started to walk to the front gate, hoping to spot them in the crowd and make sure they were able to enter ok, when who do I see walking the correct way around Spaceship Earth. They made it! I was so relieved! I let them know there was Wi-Fi in the park. Sye said that Katie lost her phone somehow on the airplane but she remembered the name of the restaurant from looking at it on her My Disney Experience app. I looked at Sye and laughed as I said, “I thought you were going to be lost.” Katie responded, “He’s married to me now, we don’t get lost”. God, I love Katie!
The food at Garden Grill was, as always, delicious. I probably ate two sticky buns by myself. The eggs were really good too. They tasted like real eggs!
After breakfast we sent Shelly’s family, Sye, and Katie to do Soarin’ before it got too busy while Shelly and I settled the bill and watched her nephew. Shelly’s family has done Soarin’ a bunch, but Sye and Katie have never done it. They got off the ride really impressed. The loved everything about it. I was happy that they were both starting to enjoy the taste of Disney magic.
I decided to take Sye and Katie onto TestTrack. We went through the single rider line and waited no more than 10 minutes. It was nice that Sye and Katie were able to ride in the same vehicle. They had a lot of fun, even Sye (though you couldn’t tell from his face
)
After going on TestTrack we decided to take a break and head back to the Boardwalk. That’s when the day went from great to not so great.
Back at the end of May we shipped Shelly’s silk flowers down to Karis. Karis is the most amazing Cast Member. She assisted in planning the proposal and is just an overall amazing person. We had shipped them in advance because we didn’t want to transport them on the plane and thought this would be safer. With every other aspect of the wedding bouncing around in our brains, we didn’t even think to double check with her to make sure she received it. I had tracked the package back in May and it showed that it was delivered on the expected date. We received a text from Karis we certainly weren’t expecting.
She had said she never received the flowers and assumed we figured out another way to transport them. Everyone besides Shelly and myself started to freak out. UPS was closed because it was Sunday. I didn’t have the tracking information with me so I couldn’t double check myself. Don’t get me wrong, Shelly and I were stressed, but it wasn’t because she wasn’t going to have flowers. It was because we spent about $350 and now that money is nowhere to be found. When I shipped the package, the gentleman at UPS never asked the value, nor if I wanted insurance. I had a million other things that I was thinking about, so I didn’t put insurance on the package. More to come on this piece of the story in the coming days, but at this point in time there was nothing we could do. So we decided to “not think about” and head to Animal Kingdom for our FastPasses.
On the bus to Animal Kingdom, Sye was in very, very, deep thought. I don’t think he was prepared for the amount of walking that comes included in a Walt Disney World vacation. Sye and Katie had a FastPass for Expedition Everest, so I walked ahead with them while Shelly and her family took their time.
Katie LOVED Expedition Everest. Sye, not so much. I mean, just look at that face! When he got off the ride he said, “Yep...I think I’m good with never doing that again.”
Shelly, her sister, her brother-in-law, and myself had FastPasses for Expedition Everest just after Sye and Katie’s FastPass window. Shelly and I weren’t feeling particularly thrilling that day, so we asked if Sye and Katie wanted to go on again. Katie instantly said, “YES!”. Sye’s eye’s got a little wider and said, “Well, I guess.”
Everyone got off the ride and Sye said, “Yep...ok, now I can never do it again.”
With the thrilling stuff out of the way we headed towards the train station to Rafiki’s Planet Watch. That day was hot, hot, hot! I was holding Shelly’s nephew and tried to find any little bit of breeze that I could. Doc McStuffins was meeting when we arrived, so we got in line for Shelly’s nephew. He’s never watched her but seemed like he wanted to meet her. He didn’t do so hot with the other characters earlier in the trip, so we were quite surprised by this. He gave her a hug and the interaction was really great!
After petting some goats we made our way to the Safari. Unfortunately we didn’t see too many animals, which I assume was due to the heat.
The elephants were trying to stay cool too!
We had an hour to kill before our reservations for Tiffins so Sye, Kate, Shelly’s brother-in-law, and me headed to It’s Tough to Be a Bug. I’ve done it countless times, but no one else had experienced it. Everyone really enjoyed it. Especially the part when all the kid’s started to cry when the spiders came down from the ceiling.
We had a really great dinner at Tiffins. Everyone enjoyed the food. Shelly and I had dined there before so we knew how good the food was going to be. We even got the same server as the last time we dined. He was fantastic. Everyone’s food came out perfect! They also gave me the recipe for the chocolate coconut bark they give out after dinner.
After dinner, Shelly’s family headed out and now it was Katie, Sye, Shelly and myself. Time to speed things up a bit. I love being in the parks with her family, but we can’t go full speed like we usually do because of Shelly’s nephew. But now that it’s just the “big kids”, we had things to do and places to be.
We entered Pandora for the first time. I’m not a fan of the Avatar movie, but as with any new thing with Disney, I was hoping to have my socks blown off. It wasn’t quite night time yet, so the bioluminescence didn’t kick in. The land, as others have been saying, is EXTREMELY detailed. There is so much care that went into the character plaster (rocks, plants, etc). There were also a couple interactive things. Here’s Katie rubbing some purple spot to make water shoot out:
Also, the mountains look absolutely massive from up close.
The land is kind of difficult to navigate, which I’m sure is by design. My understanding is that Joe Rhode is big on guest discovery. I’m not such a big fan of that, because I don’t like not knowing where I’m going, but we found ourselves outside of the Na’Vi River Journey.There was only a 60 minute wait for Na’vi River Journey so we jumped in line. We’ve seen 3 hour waits for it on the app, so we figured 60 minutes was alright, especially since our FastPass for Flight of Passage wasn’t ready. The queue wasn’t anything to write home about. After waiting outside you wait inside a hut which had some...questionably shaped fixtures...or it could just be me.
After waiting in the hut you enter a cave which I thought would be much, much bigger. I’m used to thinking I’m at the front of a line only to realize there are 300 more people in front of me in a crazy set of switchbacks. This was not the case. There was only maybe about 50 feet from the end of the hut to the loading dock.
We boarded the ride vehicle after waiting only 35 minutes. I didn’t take any pictures on the ride because I have this self policy. The first time I experience something, I do not film or photograph it. I want to actually experience it for myself. The ride was very relaxing. Lots of pretty things to look at. There was one part where these creatures were jumping on the leaves above us and the projections were timed with the movement, so it looked extremely realistic. Then came the shaman animatronic. Wow...this thing was pretty intense. Sye was blown away. He asked if that was a real person. I wasn’t fooled that much, even if I didn’t have the prior knowledge about it, it still had that uncanny valley effect.
We got off the ride and were all really impressed with the shaman. We agreed that it wouldn’t have been worth any longer of a wait though. The lack of a story was pretty disappointing as well. I understand that’s not the point of the ride, but still, it was just different.
We spotted a banshee and then it was time for our Flight of Passage FastPass.
It was still a bit of a wait, even with a FastPass. I think this was due to the fact that the pre-show is very, very, long. Between having your bodies scanned, then being explained why they do that, then moving to the next room, then being explained more things...I was ready to just get on the ride. I will have to go back and experience the standby queue though. I was really looking forward to seeing that Na’Vi in the tube, and we didn’t get to see it. Maybe next trip. Anyways, Flight of Passage, yeah, it was pretty killer. The 7 story screen was pretty breathtaking just at the sheer magnitude of it. The ride starts as soon as you are able to see the screen. The movement was kind of, but not too, intense. More intense than Soarin’ for sure, but it wasn’t too intense. I’m not one for roller coaster or thrills, but I was giggling like a schoolgirl the whole time.
We got off the ride and were all extremely impressed with how immersive it was. I was worried what Sye would think of Disney. He’s not one for fairytales, he’s not a huge fan of the movies, and he’s not one for “magic”. But he looked at me and he said, “y’know what Mike. I get it now. I get why you like this place so much”. I was really happy to hear that. Do I think I converted him to a diehard Disney fan? No. But knowing that he was enjoying himself so much and, to a certain extent, understood why we loved it, it was a nice feeling.
After going on the two rides, we were all pretty hungry. It was getting late though so we decided to get an Ice Cream Chocolate Chip Cookie Sandwich from Dino-Bite snacks. We grabbed a table in Restaurantosaurs, ate our ice cream, and took a minute to relax. It was nice to reflect with my future wife, my best friend, and his wife. After a hot, tiring, day, sitting for a second to enjoy a guilty treat was the perfect was to almost end the night.
We saw that Dinosaur was a 5 minute wait so we decided to go on it. Katie and Sye loved getting bounced around, but unfortunately this ride picture isn’t as funny as the other ones.
After Dinosaur we went back to Pandora to check out the bioluminescence. It was extremely nice to look at, but at the same time I was getting stressed. There were so many people, and it was so dark that all the neon was kind of tripping me out. It really was like a completely different land than during the day. It was just too dark with too many people there and it felt really claustrophobic. So after experiencing nighttime Pandora for about 10 minutes, we were good to go.
We made our way back to the Boardwalk, waited in the lobby for an Uber to pick up Sye and Katie, then headed to bed. We had the luxury of sleeping in a bit the next morning and definitely took advantage of it.