June 2018 TR - It took me 40 yr, but I'm finally back home to WDW!

Impressions of EMH at Animal Kingdom:
Most of the AK attractions available during EMH are far apart from each other. We only ended up going on 2 attractions during that entire hour. Plus there were a lot of EMH attractions that we just weren't interested in. Overall, it was a disappointment. Of course, I'm comparing this to compact Disneyland, where we often get on 4-6 attractions during EMH or 4 attractions during DCA's EMH (usually Mater's, Luigi's, Soarin, & Little Mermaid). At that point in the morning, I was both starting to regret getting us all up so early yet also grateful that we'd gotten up early because here it was only 9:00 am and we were all very hot and miserable.

Well, we got on the Kilimanjaro Safaris so we got to sit down for quite awhile and were grateful for that!
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We also got to see the baby hippo!
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Then it was giraffe time. They were SO CLOSE!
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Then some wildebeests....
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And this weird tree which apparently leafs out only a couple of times a year and the tree of life at the main entrance is based on this sort of tree.
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Then we saw some rhinos....
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And then the exciting part...got to see this male lion! Here he is in the middle of roaring.
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Then we saw his girlfriend...
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More roaring....
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The safari was really neat. I'm glad we were able to get on it first thing. We did have to wait about 10 min even with a FP, so I can see how the standby line for this really creeps up later and later in the day. We all enjoyed this. The kids thought it was spectacular. DH? He was just in survival mode at this point in terms of the weather. To be honest, we were all so hot, we were pretty miserable. Even despite lots of drinking & chewing/sucking on ice, YDD & I were starting to not feel so well (nauseous) which I knew was a sign of dehydration and early heat stroke/heat exhaustion. So we stopped for more fluids and then went into the standby line for Festival of the Lion King. Nobody but me wanted to see this, but I told the kids & DH that this was not negotiable because:

a. it was indoors
b. it was well air-conditioned
c. YDD & I weren't feeling well and needed to cool off
d. it would be 30 min of sitting

We got in line at about 10:30 am for the 11:00 am show. And...2.5 hours in a theme park so far yet we've only experienced 3 attractions. We all thought...THIS SUCKS! I know that AK is 1 of people's favorite parks, but because of the heat it really was pretty miserable. The gorilla trail was open by the time we were off of the safari, but we were so hot & miserable that we didn't care about seeing gorillas, so we skipped it.

I also had plans to take that Rafiki train thing and experience that other side of the park, but we skipped all that, too, because of the weather. YDD was really not doing well in terms of how she felt. NO way am I going to Animal Kingdom ever again in the summer. I'll wait until winter!

Here's my crew waiting for Festival of the Lion King to begin. 3 very tired & miserable campers.
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General thoughts about Festival of the Lion King show:
- the singers were really excellent
- we really liked the acrobatic monkeys
- loved how it was freezing cold in the theater
- liked how there were no bad seats in the whole place
- the show was really well done. We all liked it
- we would see this again.

I originally had plans to see the Nemo show later in the day, but those plans got scrapped because of the weather misery. Look at how lovely & picturesque & balmy that appears to be! NO! IT'S LIKE YOU'RE SITTING ON THE EQUATOR AND YOU WILL BE HOT FOR ALL ETERNITY! HAHAHAHA!
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Oh, look, what a lovely river. Yes, lovely to look at but it's as hot as the middle of the Congo. BWAHAHAHA!
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Then the complaints began again:
- What do we do now?
- I'm hot
- I'm hungry
- Can we eat lunch now?
- When can we leave?
- Why is it so hot here?

So I went into negotiator mode with my family. First, we all sat down in some shade. Then I told them this:

"Ok, listen. We have FP for Avatar Flight of Passage at 12:10 pm. We can eat lunch now if you want, but Flight of Passage is an exciting ride. It's like Soarin' but better than that and you'll be riding ON a banshee through the world of Pandora. FLYING, ok? ON a bird-like creature. Going up and down. So we can go have lunch like at Flametree BBQ or wherever, but if you eat like pigs and fill up to the point where you feel ill because you ate so much, then you run the risk of barfing on Flight of Passage or feeling nauseous the rest of the day. So it's up to you. We eat now and you risk puking on or after the ride or we eat a snack now, go on the ride, and have lunch right after. So what do you want to do?"

DH: I don't care. Let's just decide. I've never been so hot before.
YDD: I want a Mickey bar.
ODD: I'm hungry. I don't care. Let's have a snack.

Ok, so I walked over to yet another ice cream kiosk and got 2 Mickey bars, 1 frozen lemonade, 2 bottles of water, and some sort of sports drink for DH to the big tune of $30 or so. Then we sat in the shade near the Festival of the Lion King theater in silence and ate & drank and killed some time before it was time to head back to Pandora for our FP window.

At about 11:50 am, we decided to head back. The kids needed a bathroom, so we stopped at a bathroom in the Harambe section and the African drummers were out doing their thing. We were all so hot & sweaty and, frankly, not having a very good time right now. None of us felt all that great. If there were PP photographers out, none of us cared. I'm not kidding when I'm saying how miserable we were.
 
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We finally found our way to the FP entrance and were directed quickly down this hallway....
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Then we ended up here...
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And then went on the ride! General impression of Flight of Passage:
  • amazing, awesome, best attraction we've ever been on in any theme park ever
  • kids immediately said, "Can we go on that again?" And I thought, "Oh, you have no idea how much work went into us getting this one FP for this."
  • DH said, "That was really cool. I'm done. Let's go." :rotfl2::rotfl2::rotfl2:
So yeah, stick a fork in us because we were DONE! We all LOVED Flight of Passage. But we had zero desire to stay in Animal Kingdom any longer. I asked the crew if they wanted to eat here or at Animal Kingdom Lodge. DH said, "I want to leave this place as soon as possible. Let's go to the hotel." So back to the car we went and we laughed inside our heads at the poor souls just then arriving at Animal Kingdom.

Up next...Animal Kingdom Lodge check in, club lounge, and Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom outside our hotel room
 


General impressions so far of Animal Kingdom:
  • it's a beautiful park, but very spread out
  • it's much much hotter than the other parks. We thought Epcot was unbearably hot and AK was even worse than that.
  • it's a mix of zoo & theme park rides
  • hard to find PP photographers
  • very easy to get lost
  • feels very enclosed because of all the foliage
I forgot to mention that we also went on Kali River Rapids. That was another long trek to get to, so thumbs down for that. It was fun, but Grizzly River Run at DCA is a longer ride and you get wetter on that one. I was a bit disappointed with KRR. We liked seeing the monkeys from the ride 'boat.' DH hates rides with drops, so he was miserable. When KRR was over with, we all said, "That's it?" That being said, the theming in that area is really well done!
 
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NOW IT'S TIME FOR SOME ANIMAL KINGDOM LODGE!
On the WDW map, it looks like AKL is kind of close to AK. But getting their by car? It's MAYBE a 5 minute drive. SO FAST! SO EASY! I drove up to the parking hut thingy, scanned my Magic Band, and told the CM that we were there to check in. He confirmed my name and said that our room was ready for us and gave us a nice "Welcome home!" greeting. That was really nice...the first 'Welcome home!' all week.

I parked the car and we all got out. The parking here is SO CLOSE to the Jambo House main entrance. We were not staying in a DVC room. We had a non-DVC room. Club level savannah view! Thanks to the 25-30% off summer rates special that had been going on, I paid the regular rate for a club level room. I thought that we'd go to the main check in desk, but no! Not necessary! There was a concierge waiting right for us right there in front of the main entrance. He took us upstairs to the club lounge on the 6th floor and introduced us to another concierge, who checked us in.

The concierge helped me switch our room key to the Magic Bands that had our park tickets on them. This was because we had 2 sets of Magic Bands...1 for ASMusic and those had our park tickets on them. And then I had a 2nd set of Magic Bands for just AKL. So John at the Concierge desk switched that all around. He gave us a packet of information, which included all sorts of information for our family's "safari" there at AKL. It also included some granola, which was pretty tasty (I tried it later). DH & the kids went to get club lounge snacks & drinks while I did all of this. John was from South Africa. He was very helpful and very nice and said to let them know if we needed any help making any reservations or anything like that.

I settled in with the kids to eat some snacks since we were all hungry and right now as I type this, I'm pretty certain that we did not eat lunch in the park at Animal Kingdom. So we hadn't eaten lunch yet and at this point in the day, it was almost 2:00 pm by the time we finished eating & relaxing in the club lounge.

The club lounge was very nice. It overlooks the Jambo House main lobby and in order to get to the 6th floor, you need to scan your magic band and you need to have a club room in order for that to work for 6th floor elevator access (well, at least from the main lobby elevators, I didn't try it from other elevators down the hall). The club lounge had 2 TV's: 1 was playing an animated Disney movie and another TV was playing Disney Jr sorts of TV shows. The lounge had all sorts of juices, sodas, water, coffee, tea, beer, wine, etc., etc.

And here's that fabulous lobby....
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Would you look at the SIZE of those COLUMNS?!
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After filling up on drinks and snacks, we headed off toward our room on the 4th floor. We were in the Kudu section. We ended up with a room with 1 queen bed and bunk beds. The kids have bunk beds at home and normally ODD is on the top bunk, so YDD took the top bunk here. It was SO gloriously cool in the room. Oh man, it was like heaven. We opened up the balcony sliding glass door and were got to see some of the wildlife...
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Those 2 birds hung around the whole entire time we were at AKL. It seemed like they had a nest of some sort built in that tall grass. We learned on Saturday morning that it WAS a nest because there was an EGG in it. There wasn't an egg there the day on our check in day, though! We also saw this guy...
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There's another one in the background off to the right and if you look close enough, you can see the zebra way in the back on the left. I took this picture without any zoom!

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This is, like, right underneath our balcony....
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DH, the kids, & I were SO wiped out and, frankly, dead to the world. I spent a good 20 min just sitting on the balcony looking at the animals and doing absolutely nothing. It was wonderful. DH & the kids were so tired that they didn't care about the zebras and other creatures out the window. Everybody was hungry, so I offered to go downstairs to Mara to bring some food back. I had an ulterior motive, of course, I wanted to explore a little bit without cranky family members in tow...so I could take pictures of amazing stuff like this...
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And this amazing piece of art which was 2 stories tall...
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In the lobby, they have art work in glass cases all over the place. It's like an art gallery in addition to a hotel.
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And this crown from the Yoruba people...
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This is a headdress, too...
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I then went over to the hotel gift shop to browse and take a look. I needed to get something for ODD's birthday and I wanted to get each of the kids a WDW pin to add to their pin collection (I ended up picking out Kilimanjaro Safari pins for each of them). Then I took the elevator to the 1st floor (because when you enter the hotel, you're on the 3rd floor) and went to Mara. Let's see...what did I order? I think it was:
- kids cheeseburger for ODD (which she decided that she didn't want, so I ate part of it)
- kids chicken nuggets for YDD (she ate 1 nugget and some fries and then fell asleep)
- African stew 'potjie'
- tamarind BBQ pork sandwich for DH
- a couple of drinks

DH & ODD ended up splitting the pork sandwich. They both liked it. DH & I shared the potjie and we both really liked that (reminded us of Indian food) and I had some of ODD's cheeseburger. If I had to do it all over again, I would have gotten half of that food because nobody had a ravenous appetite. After lunch, both kids napped. YDD ended up sleeping for about 2 hours! She was exhausted and said that her stomach was hurting and she didn't feel good (I'm certain that it was from the heat).

I took a nap, too. I think that I slept about 30 min. I bugged DH incessantly for a good 30 min for him to have Bell Services bring up our bags and Bell Services was very prompt about it. The CM was very nice. Once got our bags, YDD stirred and asked about going to the pool. DH once again was tired and wiped out and didn't want go anywhere or do anything. We all totally understood because we all sort of felt the same way! I took the kids down to the Jambo House pool. I don't have any pictures of the pool, but the kids enjoyed the water slide and the pool water wasn't cold like the Disneyland Hotel pool water was back in March. We stayed out at the pool for about an hour and then we were ready to go lay down some more.

In the course of all this (pool stuff, that is), the kids asked if we were going back to AK that evening. My original plan had us going back to AK by 7pm, going on some other attractions and such until the Rivers of Light show around 9:15 pm, seeing Rivers of Light, and then doing other stuff until just before park closing, when we'd get in line for Flight of Passage again.

But they didn't really want to do anything else at Animal Kingdom. They were not interested in sitting outside for 45 min waiting for a 20 min water show to start. All they wanted to do was go on Flight of Passage once more. They wanted DH to go, too. So we went back to the room and asked if he wanted to come. He wasn't sure & said to ask him later, but if we needed an answer right then, then the answer would be no.

Fair enough. We'd had a really busy week and this is now vacation (i.e., nobody has to be at a convention anymore) for all of us, so we can do whatever you want (except for park hop since we didn't have park hopper tickets). I sat outside in my bathing suit to chill out and watch Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom from our balcony...
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That deer-looking thing has this big white ring around its butt, so I started calling it the circle butt deer thingy. LOL! And then there were 2...or 3, or maybe it was 4?
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And if you looked over to the right, you could see this...
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The evening safari thing must have started because this safari truck drove by...more of those circle butt deer.
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The skies were looking VERY dark, as you can see from the lighting. Shortly after I took this picture, it started to pour. The animals didn't do a thing. They just stayed there like it wasn't raining at all. There are wildebeest and some other creatures off in the distance in this picture.
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After the rain, oh look! The circle butts are still here.
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Then it was dinner time or past dinner time. YDD said that she wanted chicken nuggets, but didn't want any more Disney World chicken nuggets. She wanted McDonald's chicken nuggets. So I drove her to the most expensive McDonald's I know...McDonald's on WDW property. LOL!
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YDD was really hungry and ate everything she ordered. I had a soda. Then before we left, I ordered some food to go to take back to the room for DH & ODD. It was kind of nice just to have some 1-on-1 time w/one child. I wish that we'd had opportunities to do that earlier in the week on this trip. We usually do that on every Disneyland trip, but with DH's work schedule on this trip, it didn't work out.

So back to AKL we went and I went back to my favorite spot on the balcony staring at the animals. Or maybe they were staring at me wondering why us humans are cooped up in cages stacked on top of each other in this huge building. LOL!
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The circle butts hid out and took a nap in the grass with 1 on look out duty...
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And even the wildebeest were taking naps...
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At one point in the afternoon/evening, 1 of the long-horned antelope-type animals got into an argument with the wildebeests. They were arguing over real estate (i.e., who got to eat the hay first). It was very entertaining to watch! Our hotel room was very well decorated. There was a ceiling fan above the queen sized bed. Double sinks in the bathroom. Even the wallpaper was cool.
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This was a light fixture in the hallway. It totally looks like a drum.
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I decided to head back to the club lounge to check out their "twilight offerings," which basically means dinner-type appetizers around dinner time. And through a window walking down the hallway, I spotted an ostrich...
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And then there was this mask in the hallway....
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When I got to the end of the hall and was going to turn right to make my way to the elevator, I took this picture. This window is really spectacular.
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Then looking to my right, it looked like this...
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The top of that 2-story sculpture is at eye-level....
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The food offerings in the early evening at the club lounge were really tasty. A couple of dishes that tasted a lot like Indian food. I asked DH to go with me because I knew that he really likes food like that, but he said no...too tired. Well, he decided after I got back that he wanted to now go, but by the time we went back, they had packed it all up so he missed out. I basically had dinner at the club lounge. Very tasty! I could get used to the club lounge lifestyle. LOL!

So after my club lounge dinner and after taking DH back to the club lounge and discovering that the early bird does get the worm and then we went back to the room, I went outside yet again and saw some zebra butt. The kids & DH were interested in the animals, too, but I think that I got a bigger kick out of it than the rest of them. Probably because they were all so tired and hot and worn out.
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Then some new birds showed up. I don't remember what these ones were called. The African crested crane birds started to protest these invaders soon after their arrival.
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Then these little things which I would swear at Impala (or related to them) sauntered in. That fuzzy thing on the left is 1 of the vertical bars on the balcony. I took this picture sitting down looking through the balcony fence/railing.
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Up next...it's giraffe feeding time at Animal Kingdom Lodge!
 
Thanks for sharing your trip! My DD are heading to WDW in August (based on your review, maybe our NEXT visit will be to Disneyland!)
 
Loving your trip report. Also I can’t believe Disney would let a guy with a swastika tattoo roam the park like that. Woah. I’d be offended too.
 
Looks like you got a great room at AKL!

I hope you guys get to go back to WDW in cooler months. I really feel you would probably enjoy it more as it sounds like the heat really impacted how you guys felt about the parks and how you were feeling in general.
 
Loving your trip report. Also I can’t believe Disney would let a guy with a swastika tattoo roam the park like that. Woah. I’d be offended too.

I know! I decided to take down my description of that so as to not upset or offend anyone. But it was pretty shocking and horrible to see a guy walking around with a swastika and Adolf Hitler tattooed on his leg and Disney didn't do anything about it, even though their dress code policy specifically refers to no offensive tattoos.
 
Looks like you got a great room at AKL!

I hope you guys get to go back to WDW in cooler months. I really feel you would probably enjoy it more as it sounds like the heat really impacted how you guys felt about the parks and how you were feeling in general.

We still had a great time. I know for certain that we all would have enjoyed AK so much more if it was 20 degrees cooler. There was so much of it that we missed.
 
Now it's back to the #1 attraction of the day...Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom outside our hotel room! I must have spent a good 4-5 hours on Friday just sitting there looking at animals. Even though it was hot, there was a breeze there and all I had to do was sit with a cold drink in my hand. No navigating through a theme park figuring out how we're going to get from Point A to Point B with the least amount of walking. LOL!

It was then time to feed the giraffes! The zoo keeper's truck showed up and 1 of them got in the back of the truck and put this big bunch of leafy stuff in a box way up high at giraffe level. While the truck was there doing this, the giraffes showed up.
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You see that rock on the right hand side of this next picture? Right there is where 1 of the general hotel guest outlook areas is. This is also the area that has a fire pit where they offered smore-making and marshmallow roasting. We had grand plans of going down there to participate, but none of us were willing to go downstairs for it when we had a perfectly good view of the wildlife right here.
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Then the baby giraffe came over to check us out. ISN'T HE CUTE?! I told him that he was cute. It was like he was checking US out instead of vice versa. This pic was taken with no zoom and I was standing up on the balcony.
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There he is again! After I said hi to him, he turned his head to the side as if to try & figure out where those noises were coming from. Like "Who said that?"
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It was very pleasant in this spot at this time of day.
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Eventually, we had another family discussion about our evening plans. At first, the kids & DH didn't want to go back to AK at all. I was a little disappointed since I was a tad interested in seeing the Rivers of Light show, but I, too, was pretty pooped from a really busy week. But the kids really wanted to go on Flight of Passage again. This was our last park day. We were not headed into any park the following day (Saturday, departure day), so if anybody wanted any more Disney theme park, AK was it and it had to be that evening.

AK park closing on that day was 10:30 pm. DH was NOT into it. He did NOT want to go back. He said, "Nope! I'm tired. I'm exhausted. I've felt lousy from the heat. I don't want to go." I tried to convince the kids about Rivers of Light but they pooh-pooh'ed that. ODD declared, "I do NOT want to wait around for almost an hour for a boring light show. Sorry, Mama, but I just don't want to do it." YDD agreed.

So I told them, "Ok, so what about this - if you want to go on FOP 1 last time, there are no more FP available for it. The wait time has been ~ 2 hours all day long. The best chance we'll have of going on it again without a 2 hr wait is if we get in line right before the park closes. What do you think?"

ODD was on board with a resounding "YEAH!" YDD wasn't quite sure. She was the 1 who had napped for a good 2 hr earlier that day and she was the one who had felt the worst all morning at AK. But her desire to go on FOP again overruled her fatigue. DH said, "Hm...that's tempting. Maybe. Ask me right before you guys are going to leave."

Transportation back to AK:
I debated whether to just drive straight there or take the short bus right to AK from AKL. The kids wanted to ride the bus, so bus it was. Dinner was basically that overpriced McDonald's. I'm glad that I had cancelled our Boma reservation a week prior to our trip because we were so wiped out that nobody even wanted to leave the room to get food.

At around 8:00 pm, we all headed back up to the club lounge for dessert. DH & I liked the desserts, but they were all just a little too exotic for the kids' tastes. They had peanut butter brownies, for example, but my kids hate peanut butter. So I got them some desserts down in the gift shop instead. Earlier in the day when I got take out from Mara, I bought a package of those zebra domes that everyone raves about.

YDD looked at them like they were poisonous. DH tried half of one and liked it. I tried half of one and thought it was ok. ODD loved it, so she had a couple.

Back to Animal Kingdom...
With the goal being for the kids & I to be in line for FOP before 10:30, I mentally had to work backwards. So this is how I thought that through....
- last option to get on FOP is to be in line by 10:30 pm
- so we need to give ourselves 10 min or so of wiggle room
- that means we have to be at the entrance to FOP by 10:20-ish
- and it will take our tired feet up to 10 min to get to FOP from the AK entrance
- which means we need to be at the AK main gate through security by 10:10 pm
- and I need to allot 5 min to get off the bus and have my bag checked by security
- which means dropped off by the bus by 10:05 pm
- the bus should only take 5 min to get to AK, but the busses drive a little slower than I do, so I should figure 10 min to get there by bus
- which means get ON a bus by 9:55 pm
- and Lord only knows how frequently they run the AK busses at that time of day
- so I need to figure in 10-15 min of wiggle room
- which means that we need to be down at the bus stop by 9:40 pm
- which means that I need to start herding my kids out the door at 9:30 pm
- this means, in turn, that I need to start getting ready to go at 9:15 pm

That's how my brain works for every time we had to be somewhere that week. That's the thought process that I go through when we go to Disneyland as well, but since at DL, we always walk to the park and it's always ~ 10 min walk from the hotel to the main entrance (based on where we stay), I don't have to stress about waiting for a bus, what if the bus is late, etc., etc.
 
The discussion about Mission Return To Animal Kingdom was about 7:30-7:45 pm. We got back to the room from the club lounge around 8:30 pm, which meant an hour to kill before we'd head out to go back to AK. The kids & DH laid in bed and watched TV. I went back out to the balcony to look at animals and what do you know, but they were still out there! Not as many as during daylight hours, but there were 1 or 2 out there hanging around. I went back downstairs to the gift shop to get a gift for ODD's birthday & to admire the lobby some more, then back to the room to relax before we headed out.

9:30 pm came around and I announced that it was time to leave. The kids grumped about it at first. "Already?" "Do we HAVE to?" I told them, "No, you don't HAVE to, but *I* am going with or without any of you. *I* am going on FOP 1 more time today and *I* am leaving right now to do that. If you'd like to go with me, then you need to put your shoes on so we can go." That got the kids moving. Go to the bathroom, put your shoes on, etc., etc. "Mama, can we wear flip flops this time?" Yes! "Mama, I don't have to go to the bathroom." Fine, then don't tell me that you have to pee when we're waiting in line because if we have to get out of line, then we will not be able to ride it at all.

We asked DH if he felt up to going with us. Nope, he was staying in the room. Are you sure, honey? Yes! It's too bad because he really loved FOP. Oh well, we'll have to do it again on our next trip!

So we ended up down at the bus stop at 9:40 pm. Busses came for Disney Springs, Hollywood Studios, and MK. And then an AK bus finally arrived. A bunch of people got off from AK (Rivers of Light must have just ended). The tree of life was all lit up and looked gorgeous. The weather was much nicer at this time of day, but still very muggy and the 3 of us were still sweating. PP photographers were out, but my kids said, "NO PP PICTURES!"

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We walked our way over to Pandora. It's so pretty there at night.
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The bioluminescent walkways were really neat, but none of that showed up well in my photos. The girls really enjoyed walking through Pandora at night.
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There were a lot of people in Pandora doing the same thing we were...looking around and taking pictures. We got a little lost trying to find the entrance, so we had to backtrack a bit. That's ok, though, because it really was spectacular. The weather was much more pleasant, but still warm and sweaty. We just weren't sweating nearly as much as we had been all morning.

We eventually found the FOP standby entrance. It was 10:20 pm. A park guest in front of us asked the CM when FOP closed. The CM said, "In a couple of minutes, we're going to close the queue." Hm, that's odd because I thought the queue remained open until 10:30 pm and we officially had 10 min left. We went in the standby line behind those people. There were still some stragglers of people going into the FP queue. The standby posted wait time was 120 minutes but we ended up being in line for 52 min before we got on the ride.

Cave paintings in the cave part of the standby queue...
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Once we passed the 10:30 pm mark, the standby queue moved a LOT faster because there were no more FP people coming in. I think the standby queue theming for this attraction is really well done. They even set up this airlock panel. Check it out...it's even kind of rusted a bit on the top so it looks like it's been there forever. YDD asked, "What's an airlock?" so I explained the best I could in 10 yr old terms.
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When we got to this part of the queue, YDD asked, "Mama, are we outside right now?" So awesome job, Disney, because my kid thought that we were outside! Nope, we are actually inside...you can tell because of the air-conditioning (but you know what? I was still sweating)! There were about 15 people behind us in the standby line. There's nobody back there! Standby line is closed!
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Then we entered the lab part of the standby queue. This is really great. Disney did a fabulous job on this. There's a lot of stuff to look at. The kids & I were really glad that we got to go through this ride a 2nd time today and that we chose to go standby on it because you don't see any of this in the FP queue.
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This part is really amazing. The kids were ooo'ing and ah'ing over this. YDD said, "Mama, is that thing real? Is he alive?"


 
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Then we reached the point of the standby queue where they ask you again how many people in your party? 3 please. They ask you this at almost the beginning of the queue and that's when they hand you that medical disclaimer card. To be honest with y'all, I have no idea why they ask at that point in the queue, "How many in your party?" because it's not like they're keeping track. The CM doesn't have a clicker thing counting people off.

After the avatar lab part of the queue when you go into the industrial corridor area, THAT's where is makes sense for the CM to ask you "How many?" They were directing people down multiple sections. Down 1 corridor, they had 2 lines of people. Down this one that we were sent down, they started out with 2 lines of people (with 1 aisle empty in the middle). Behind us in line, there were 4 people - a married couple and a mom and her son. The married couple were there on an extended family trip & they left their kids back at the hotel with the grandparents so they could go back to AK just to ride FOP. This was the mom & son's first time on the ride, too (first time for the married couple as well). They were pretty surprised that we were doing this twice in 1 day. The son was a little nervous about it, but his mom said, "See? Those girls already went on it today and they want to do it again, so it must be pretty good." My kids told him, "Oh yeah! It's so great! It's not scary at all! It's amazing! You'll love it!" We got on the very last ride of this of the night!
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So we did the same routine as before...you go into a room where you stand on a #. That # corresponds to the ride vehicle that you'll be getting on. You watch a short video that explains the whole Flight of Passage and Pandora Conservation Initiative thing. You know what? It almost makes sense for people to go on FOP first and THEN go on NRJ because we didn't really understand the purpose of NRJ. After having gone on FOP, it made more sense. But if you're not tall enough to go on FOP or if you just can't handle that sort of ride or if you have a medical condition which prevents you from going on it, then NRJ doesn't make sense. It's not quite clear what the point of it is. There's no "story" to go with it, if that makes sense.

Then you go into a second holding area room where you also stand on your number. This is the DNA scanning & avatar-linking room. It took awhile in this room. It tried to link us to avatars, but it didn't work right. So the guy on the video said to stand by, they were running diagnostics or something in their system (this was pre-recorded, it wasn't somebody speaking live to us over an intercom speaker). That still didn't work, so they had to do it a 3rd time. At that point, all 16 of us were starting to get antsy. 1 guy started grumbling about what if they don't let us on it and what if I wasted all the time in line, blah blah blah. I spoke up loud enough for everybody to hear and said, "Please stand by while we load your monthly Microsoft system updates.":rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

We all laughed hysterically...everybody did...No more grumbling. A couple of minutes later, everything worked and we then went into the ride vehicle room and got on board our banshees.

So FOP was just as amazing as it was the first time earlier that day. During the part where the banshee goes in a couple of loop-dee-loops, I close my eyes because I hate that sensation of going in a loop on a roller coaster. The kids & I high 5'd each other when we were done! party:

I asked the girls, "So what do you think? Was that worth it to stay up late and come back?" They both gave a resounding and very loud "YES!" followed by "Mama, I'm tired. Can we leave now?" Poor YDD was SOOOOO tuckered out! It was worth the hassle. It was a really nice way to end all of our park days. ODD said, "It's too bad Daddy was too tired to come. He really missed out!" Well, you know what? Shortly after we left the hotel to go back to AK, DH went to sleep! :-)

We started heading toward the exit. The park was TOTALLY empty and it was shortly after 11:30 pm at this point. There were a few CMs lined up along the walkway as you leave the Pandora area. They were bidding everyone good night and asked all of us how we liked FOP. The kids and I were walking SO slow because we were all so tired, but as we walked by, the CMs all gave us high 5's. I told them that Pandora was really great and that this was our 2nd time on it that day. 1 CM said, "Wow, twice in 1 day? That's impressive!" :rotfl2:

It took us about 10 min to get to the main entrance. I took this one last photo as we headed toward the exit and we waved goodbye to Animal Kingdom, got on the bus (which was waiting for us), and 5 min later, we were back at AKL. YDD fell asleep on the bus right away! When we got back to the room, DH was fast asleep. The kids hit the hay. But even though I was totally and utterly exhausted, I was wired from just having been on FOP. So I turned off all the lights in our room and went out on the balcony to relax. There were zebras out there! No pictures, though.
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Up next...the saddest day of all...departure day and the end of stay at Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom! :-)

 

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But if you're not tall enough to go on FOP or if you just can't handle that sort of ride or if you have a medical condition which prevents you from going on it, then NRJ doesn't make sense. It's not quite clear what the point of it is. There's no "story" to go with it, if that makes sense.

I think when they designed Na'vi that they were depending on people having seen Avatar and remembering Avatar. It is a design flaw, there should be enough story built into the ride that you can appreciate it without having seen the movie. Maybe they will somehow fix that as time goes on?
 
So glad you made it to the standby queue for FoP! It is an amazing ride for sure-I have done SB 3 x now (rest have been with FP) and when you can get on <60 minutes it's definitely worth it. LOVE your room view!!
 

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