"You Look Like a Beached Jellyfish." An August 2017 TR! Finished 3/22

Following along also. I've only been to WDW once like 20 years ago, so I always find it interesting to see how completely different it is from Disneyland. (My home park, about 7ish hours away.)
 
Animal Kingdom Day

After we got out of Kilimanjaro, we decided to run down to Festival of the Lion King real quick to see if there was any chance of getting in. we were only about 10 minutes out from a show time at that point, so we knew the odds weren't good. Sure enough, it was already full. But no big deal, we'd swing back by later to see if we could catch another show. In the meantime, we saw signs pointing down to where Pandora was. This was another one of those times where I love Disney's attention to detail. In this picture, I'm facing where Pandora is, yet I can't see it at all, leaving all the surprise for when we get there.

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It's something DH and I really like about Magic Kingdom too. All the lands are so isolated and perfectly ordered as far as music and everything else. I don't really know how else to describe it, I hope that makes sense! I guess I just like how immersive each land feels. It was something we found very disconcerting about Disneyland- that we were standing there looking at the castle, but right next to it is a giant mountain that's just as tall!

Anyways...

We said goodbye to Africa for now and decided to head towards Asia since we were approaching the time for our first FP- Expedition Everest. On the way, I noticed that It's Tough to be a Bug had a very short wait, so we decided to drop in and do that.

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We just missed seating for the show when we arrived, but obviously it isn't very long and we were one of the first in line near the doors to be seated.

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Obligatory bug selfie.

I don't particularly care for this show in terms of it being funny or impressive, but what I do love about it is being near people who have never done it before- ESPECIALLY when you feel the "bug" crawl up under your leg! DH and I always laugh hysterically at all the other people freaking out! As usual, we were thoroughly entertained and were quickly on our way once the show was over.

We headed towards EE and spotted a cute dangling monkey on our way. He was snacking away on the branch he was holding.

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We also saw the Rivers of Light seating for the first time. When we were here in 2015, everything was under construction so this whole area was fenced off and blocked from view. I thought it looked really pretty now that it was done.

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I reallyyyyy love the Asia part of Animal Kingdom. I love the music, the decorations, everything. I just think it's a really well-done area in terms of theming.

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The only part of Asia I don't like is Kali River Rapids. I honestly thought this ride was laughably bad when we rode it on our honeymoon. It was so short and I felt like it had nothing to it. There was a very long line during this trip and we were both glad we wouldn't be standing in it.

We headed to EE and scanned our first fastpasses for the trip. On our way in, we noticed that the single rider line was only 5 minutes long. We agreed we would ride it with our fastpasses and then hop back in the single rider line. I was also really hoping to get another ride in at night for the first time later!

Two rides later, we had a great time and I enjoyed seeing Disco Yeti as usual. This coaster is so much fun and I love the backwards element. Unfortunately, I was not up front for either ride, but that's ok :) We did a quick spin around the gift shop on our way out, and then decided to head towards


Sorry that these last two updates haven't been very substantively long, but I had a lot of pictures I wanted to share and that ten picture limit messes me up! My next update might be a little shorter too since we head to Pandora and I took a lot of pictures... buttttt there will be a Flight of Passage review too!​
 
I'm here!!! Really enjoying your TR!

:welcome:

Following along also. I've only been to WDW once like 20 years ago, so I always find it interesting to see how completely different it is from Disneyland. (My home park, about 7ish hours away.)

:welcome: Of course I give a little dig to Disneyland in this most recent post! We went last year to Disneyland for the first time ever! We enjoyed it, but WDW is definitely our home. We only did a day at Disneyland, but I felt like it wasn't the type of place that I could get in the "Disney Bubble."
 
I'm used to seeing the Disneyland digs from the WDW people ;) I'm sure i'd probably feel the same way whenever I actually go out to WDW. I don't take the digs personally haha. DL and WDW definitely seem like they are on two different planets.
 


Joining in! Looks like you had a great, short trip - can't wait to hear more about it!

Thanks for joining in! It was a short trip, but was honestly so fulfilling. Plus I took a ton of pictures and have a lot to say so I'll be stretching this trip report out for all it's worth :rotfl2:
 


Love your report! Sounds like an awesome trip!!

Thank you! It was such a great trip! We really hit the jackpot for beginning of August. I thought the heat and crowds would be horrendous but we were very pleasantly surprised!

Loving your report! Looking forward to the FOP review!

Thank you!! FOP is coming up next, hoping to share tonight! So many things I want to say about this ride...
 
Flight of Passage, Pandora, and More!

It's finally time, guys... we're heading to Pandora!!

By the time we finished with our second ride on Expedition Everest, we were getting close enough to our FOP fastpass time that we decided to head towards Pandora to look around for a few.

Before I get into my Pandora review, let me just say that I just watched Avatar for the first time about three weeks before our trip. I know, I know, I'm a little behind the times. I heard from a lot of people how good it was when it was in theaters, but something about it just didn't really appeal to me. Plus, it's few and far between that I'm willing to pay for movie tickets (criteria for me paying for a movie are basically it's 1) Disney, 2) Pixar, or 3) Harry Potter). So anyways, I didn't see it in theaters and recently watched it at home with DH.

The movie was... fine? I mean, it was like Pocahontas but with blue people. Sure, it was pretty, but the story didn't really do much for me. But I wanted to see it before going to the park, so mission accomplished.

Other than that, I really didn't do anything to prepare for Pandora. Honestly, I really didn't want to look at a lot of pictures or walk-throughs of Pandora and spoil it for myself, if that makes sense.


And I'm glad I didn't, because, guys... It. Was. Incredible.

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We were blown away. My photos from my little iPhone don't do it justice. We just walked around with our mouths hanging open for a while, like a lot of other people. The level of detail was just amazing- you really felt like you were there. The floating mountains really look incredible. I'd love to know what they're made out of and how they did it, because it all looks very real.

After walking around for a few, we decided to go into the gift shop that FOP dumps into. This little guy was hanging out outside.

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The store was pretty neat. We discovered that this was the source of the on-the-shoulder Banshees we'd seen several people walking around AK with. I hadn't heard about these in advance, and they were pretty neat. I think almost every CM in the store had one on their shoulder, and the line to purchase them was super long. The store itself was pretty crowded, but we walked around for a few. They had a pretty cool floating mountain coffee mug, but it wasn't something DH wanted for himself. We didn't see anything we wanted to buy, but had fun looking around. They also the Avatar Maker area with several stations set up, but no one was participating. I'm not sure if it wasn't currently operational, or if we just happened to be there when nobody was doing it. I would have been interested to see someone get their own Avatar model though!

After checking out the store, we walked outside and saw a couple people walking around with interesting looking drinks that sort of looked like bubble tea. There was a nearby food/drink stand selling them, but I wasn't really interested at the time.

We also looked at the menu for Satu'li Canteen. I had a couple ask me before we went on our trip if we were going to eat there, but I wasn't really interested. I've heard it's really good, but the menu just wasn't all that appealing. If I'm being totally honest, it looked like a pretty healthy option, and I was planning to use this vacation to totally tank my diet and eat all the fattening foods in sight! Don't judge me, I did manage to lose 6 pounds before our trip and I actually didn't gain any back!

After strolling around for a few, it was finally time for our fastpass. I was so excited to get this! Granted, I was online at 7:00 a.m. for it, but I was still relieved to get it. I can't remember what the standby time was when we got in line, but I think it was around two hours. We were fortunately able to stroll very quickly past everyone in line and head straight inside.

The theming inside was pretty neat- very industrial. This was the only picture I managed to take because we were moving pretty fast.

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The doors led into the loading zones. There were sort of two different pre-shows where you turn into your avatar and get instructions. I like when Disney does this because I think it definitely adds more to the ride experience and makes you feel like you're getting more "ride time."

We were finally ushered into our rooms and went to sit down on our "banshees." I was a little concerned because there was a lot of talk about people not fitting. I am 5'11" and DH is about 6'3", but we didn't have any issues. It was a little tight on our legs, but certainly not uncomfortable. It was definitely a unique restraint system when it comes up to latch behind your back, but I thought it was pretty cool.

And then, we were off...

Guys. Remember when I said above that walking around Pandora was incredible? Okay. Completely forget that.

This ride surpassed INCREDIBLE. I don't even know how to describe it because words literally do not do it justice. I know that I was just open-mouthed and totally mesmerized throughout the entire ride (which was fairly long to be honest). The ride was just SO immersive, it was amazing. I've seen people compare it to Soarin', and while the format is similar, the setup here is completely different. You really feel like you are a part of this ride. I hesitate to say this (because of how much I love Space Mountain), but guys... I think FOP might be my favorite ride in all of Disney World. It really was that good.

I feel like this description really doesn't do it justice, but I don't know how else to describe it. Maybe someone else who's been on it can do it better justice than I have! What I would say is, if you haven't ridden it, I would encourage you NOT to go on Youtube and watch one of the POV ride-throughs. They absolutely do not do this ride justice, and you will want to experience this ride fully on your own!

DH and I could not stop raving about the ride when we got off of it. He was extremely impressed as well. He mentioned something to me about the other people on the ride afterwards below us. I looked at him totally confused and he said "yeah, you didn't look around and see the people beside us and below us?" Uhh NO! What the heck are you talking about?! I had no idea there were that many rows of people watching it all at once! That's how immersed in the ride I was!

So now that I've finished fangirling over FOP... we headed out of Pandora and decided to do a little bit of shopping. We stopped at a pin trading station to see what sort of new pins they had. I really wasn't planning to buy anything, but then I spotted this guy...

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GUYS. Have you seen that short? It is SOOOO cute! I really wasn't sure if I wanted to buy the pin at that moment, but DH encouraged me to. And let me just say now that I'm really glad I did, because I didn't see this pin ANYWHERE else on our trip other than the very last day when it randomly appeared at the Pop Century gift shop? I actually had several CMs in Magic Kingdom and Disney Springs compliment me on the pin as well!

We also stopped in Discovery Trading Company and shopped there for a few, but neither of us found anything we wanted to buy at the time. We were planning to save most of our purchases for our final day when we went to Disney Springs.

There was one place we were planning to buy a souvenir though...

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It was finally time for us to buy DH's Animal Kingdom You Are Here mug! We had waited so long to get this and it was the only one missing from our Disney You Are Here collection. It wasn't very crowded so we headed straight to the shelves where they were selling tumblers...

But we didn't see it. We looked around but didn't see it anywhere. Thinking that perhaps it was housed somewhere else, I walked up and asked a barista where we could find the mugs. And then he delivered the death blow...

THE AK MUGS HAD BEEN PULLED FROM THE SHELVES :sad:

So the barista wasn't totally sure, but he said all of the mugs in AK had been temporarily pulled from the shelves and would be released later in the year. He said he suspected they were adding Pandora to the landscape and therefore weren't selling anymore of the old ones. We were super bummed! We had waited so long to get one, but there wasn't anything we could do. Oh well, guess we'll just have to take another trip eventually...

Up next- we check out a show, eat a great meal, and get a little wet...​
 
I wasn't that impressed with the movie either story-wise, but the effects were cool and I'm really looking forward to seeing Pandora in person! I have heard so many rave reviews of FoP and can't wait to experience it for myself. I've been avoiding any online videos and only skimming photos of the land itself and the standby line for the ride. I think I would prefer to do the standby line actually since I've heard there are so many cool details in it. I'll just have to make sure to run straight there at rope drop I guess...

Oh, and I have to say I'm impressed you were able to ride Everest twice in a row. I did that during a previous trip and felt ill the rest of the day. This past trip I rode it once and it still got to me. It never used to affect me that way, but I guess now that I'm older I'm more sensitive to the going backwards part of it. :crazy2:
 
I wasn't that impressed with the movie either story-wise, but the effects were cool and I'm really looking forward to seeing Pandora in person! I have heard so many rave reviews of FoP and can't wait to experience it for myself. I've been avoiding any online videos and only skimming photos of the land itself and the standby line for the ride. I think I would prefer to do the standby line actually since I've heard there are so many cool details in it. I'll just have to make sure to run straight there at rope drop I guess...

Oh, and I have to say I'm impressed you were able to ride Everest twice in a row. I did that during a previous trip and felt ill the rest of the day. This past trip I rode it once and it still got to me. It never used to affect me that way, but I guess now that I'm older I'm more sensitive to the going backwards part of it. :crazy2:

Yes, definitely don't spoil it for yourself! It really is worth it to wait and see. Though (spoiler alert) I will have some pics of the standby line later, which was really cool! EMH were our friend that evening.

And no nausea issues with EE! Or FOP, I might add. Which is funny because I get HORRIBLY nausea on Star Tours, which is a shame because I love Star Wars. As soon as it starts I immediately want to throw up.
 
Just stumbled on your trip report--sounds like you guys had a fantastic time! I can't wait to finally go and see Pandora--reviews like yours just make me so excited! Also, glad to find someone else who only just recently saw "Avatar"...it's not just me who only saw it a couple weeks ago!
 
And no nausea issues with EE! Or FOP, I might add. Which is funny because I get HORRIBLY nausea on Star Tours, which is a shame because I love Star Wars. As soon as it starts I immediately want to throw up.

I've never had a problem on Star Tours, or Soarin' for that matter. Just EE for me and only in the past year or so. I'm hoping I will be totally fine for FoP!
 
Just stumbled on your trip report--sounds like you guys had a fantastic time! I can't wait to finally go and see Pandora--reviews like yours just make me so excited! Also, glad to find someone else who only just recently saw "Avatar"...it's not just me who only saw it a couple weeks ago!

Thanks for reading along! We had SUCH a great trip! Pandora was truly incredible, even if you're not blown away by the movie!

I've never had a problem on Star Tours, or Soarin' for that matter. Just EE for me and only in the past year or so. I'm hoping I will be totally fine for FoP!

I think I was too amazed to be nauseous! :rotfl2:
 
I've been here, just haven't had a chance to comment! I love your pictures. They have me super excited to see AK for the first time on our trip. And Russell is so adorable! I love when dogs love their stuffed animals :)

I'm with you on Avatar. I saw it when it came out, and the graphics were so great for... 2007? 2009? eh... but the storyline is generic. And I'm a sucker for generic RomCom story lines haha. I feel the same about the Canteen... people's pictures look good, but healthy... I will have BBQ, or maybe that corndog thing, I mean the sausage at Harambe Market. :p

I have tried to lay down the law about standby lines with DF, and that there is a limit there... but I have a feeling that might go out the window with FOP. We'll see!

I love the Lava short! I have the song downloaded. DF thinks it's sad lol.

Noooooo the mug! I've been debating getting them... I wonder if they're back out yet? That's something I haven't followed, and wouldn't have thought about at all.
 
I've been here, just haven't had a chance to comment! I love your pictures. They have me super excited to see AK for the first time on our trip. And Russell is so adorable! I love when dogs love their stuffed animals :)

I'm with you on Avatar. I saw it when it came out, and the graphics were so great for... 2007? 2009? eh... but the storyline is generic. And I'm a sucker for generic RomCom story lines haha. I feel the same about the Canteen... people's pictures look good, but healthy... I will have BBQ, or maybe that corndog thing, I mean the sausage at Harambe Market. :p

I have tried to lay down the law about standby lines with DF, and that there is a limit there... but I have a feeling that might go out the window with FOP. We'll see!

I love the Lava short! I have the song downloaded. DF thinks it's sad lol.

Noooooo the mug! I've been debating getting them... I wonder if they're back out yet? That's something I haven't followed, and wouldn't have thought about at all.

Yes, Russell is just a big baby who enjoys snuggling his stuffed animals! He is loving the one we got him from this trip, which I'll provide pictures of later :)

I usually won't wait in long standby lines either, but we did wait in a decently long line for FOP later. Not anything crazy, but it was well worth it.

Lava is so cute!! I watched Inside Out on a plane (to Disneyland!) last year and I totally cried on the plane watching Lava. One of my coworkers, this huge guy who's a former Marine and has done tours of duty, had told me about it and how he got so emotional watching it too, which I thought was hilarious! It really was great though.

I would definitely look around and see what you can find on the mug before your trip. We were definitely really bummed about that souvenir. I counted the other day and we have 26 You Are Here mugs from all over the country, so that's the only one we're missing of places we've been. I felt bad too because DH isn't really a souvenir guy other than the occasional pin, so this was the one item he really wanted to get at Disney.
 
I've never watched Pandora, but the Pandora world (or whatever it's called) looks pretty awesome to me. I also collect the you are here mugs, and i'm really glad I had my co-workers bring me back an AK one earlier this year since they're updating them. I actually have both AK and Magic Kingdom, even though I've never actually been to either haha.
 
I've never watched Pandora, but the Pandora world (or whatever it's called) looks pretty awesome to me. I also collect the you are here mugs, and i'm really glad I had my co-workers bring me back an AK one earlier this year since they're updating them. I actually have both AK and Magic Kingdom, even though I've never actually been to either haha.

We have all but AK and DCA! We only went to Disneyland on our one day trip last year, but hopefully one day we'll go back to the west coast and see the rest :)
 
We have all but AK and DCA! We only went to Disneyland on our one day trip last year, but hopefully one day we'll go back to the west coast and see the rest :)

I've heard they are possibly going to be redoing the DCA mug since they're redoing the DL mugs. There's a rumor that DL will be doing a mug for each land. The one they just came out with is based on fantasyland.
 

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