***Official*** Pandora: The World of Avatar Information Thread

[wareagle57]

My DH commented that he felt like the air blown on you is like concentrated oxygen and that's part of the "feel good" sensation you get on the ride. QUOTE]

Now there is an idea. Drug people on a ride to make them think they had a good time. Heck, just drug everyone as they enter the park and continue to do it all day. Maybe that's what Disney has been doing all along and we just haven't figured it out.

 

[Music City Mama]

I am feeling a little bit better about our FP plans now I guess. I had been disappointed to not get a fastpass for our only AK day but we are going to use AM EMH hour and get there at the crack of dawn and ride it at rope drop. Then we plan to ride Navi River Journey . Shortly after we have a FP for river journey again.
I did have a FP for both Safari and Kali but opted to give up Kali and make one for ROL. I know that hangs up our ability to make fast passes for the day but it's important to us to see ROL as we never have before. There's nothing else that I will die if I don't ride, and I won't mind indoor lines in the afternoon.
I really debated on this strategy but I think it's the only way to guarantee seeing and doing what we want.

If you're going on a EMH day, you won't need to get there at the crack of dawn. We went last week and didn't get there to almost 7:30 with the park opening at 8:00 (regular opening was at 8:00, not EMH) and we only waited an hour to ride FoP standby.

Also, do they have 2 ROLs on your day? We got back to AK at 10:00 after being at MK earlier, rode EE twice, and then they were practically begging us to come into the 10:30 ROL show to fill the seats. I also missed this last time and was excited to be able to see it finally.

 

[whiporee]

Do you think it was because you were too tall? What part did not fit? My husband is shorter than you and close to your weight.. thanks

It was my belly -- the legs fit fine, but the back support wouldn't click.

As for the music, it was the drum circle thing, and it seemed little big because it was a lot of pipe-ish music without much variation. I found it condescending because it seemed to be talking of the beauty of Pandora society in comparison to ours. This would be okay, exceptPandora is fictional and pre-industrial, so of course they live in better harmony with their fictional surroundings. The idea of living and blending with nature is awesome on paper, but to promote it as an ideal ignores the practical and realistic implications of that kind of thing. And to suggest a fictional world as a model is just sort of silly.

 

[AngiTN]

Does uber pick up right in front of the resort

Yes but in some (but not all) resorts they can get you at the building too.

 

[pigletto]

If you're going on a EMH day, you won't need to get there at the crack of dawn. We went last week and didn't get there to almost 7:30 with the park opening at 8:00 (regular opening was at 8:00, not EMH) and we only waited an hour to ride FoP standby.

Also, do they have 2 ROLs on your day? We got back to AK at 10:00 after being at MK earlier, rode EE twice, and then they were practically begging us to come into the 10:30 ROL show to fill the seats. I also missed this last time and was excited to be able to see it finally.

That's good to know about the EMH rope drop.
So far it only appears to be one show of ROL. If they add a second I will drop the fastpass for it.

 

[mnmhouston]

Curious

Not sure if people are still tracking things like this (been in WDW since last Saturday and haven't checked the DIS during that time), but I wanted to give a report on our timing during the rope drop rush to FOP.
Yesterday, Saturday July 8, was morning EMH at Animal Kingdom - EMH starting at 8:00.

6:25 AM: Got down to the bus stop at Beach Club. Looked at the screen of scheduled bus arrivals and saw that AK didn't have any time listed at all. A Magic Kingdom bus was scheduled to arrive a few minutes later and it did so while we were waiting.
6:30 AM: We called an uber. We wanted to be at the front of the pack, the screen still didn't have an arrival time scheduled, and we were done with waiting.
6:45 or 6:50: Arrived at Animal Kingdom. Two other families were waiting outside of bag check when we arrived. There was one Security officer standing at a table and she told us that they weren't ready for guests yet. We did see many CMs arriving to work. We also saw many busses pulling out of the AK parking lot (for what I imagine is their first run of the day) during this time.
Around 7:15: Bag check opened. I'm terrible at estimating but there was a pretty decent crowd behind us at this point.
7:40: Park opened. We were let in and held at the entrance to the bridge leading up to the tree of life.
7:53ish: About 10 CMs walked the crowd back to Pandora. I didn't really know where I was going so I don't have a better way to describe this, but one family deviated from the crowd to try and use an alternate route to FOP than the route that the CMs were using to walk us. We met up with them when they were going down a few stairs on the pathway and were made to wait behind the row of CMs anyway.
Not sure exactly what time we entered the ride room but I texted a friend "Done now" at 8:20 A.M. We also got to skip the second half of the first pre-show, because we were the first ride of the day in that room and the CM said we could save the time. We were in the front of the pack (maybe 15-20 people in front of us) this whole time.

Hope this helps someone! We were very anxious and wanted to make sure we got there as close to first as possible. We had ridden the ride once earlier in the week with a FP and didn't have another one, but wanted to experience it again. I'm so glad we got up that early - it was very worth it.

ETA: When we got off the ride, we walked down the way toward Festival of the Lion King and the line was all the way down at the drink cart right on that pathway in front of FOTLK. A CM was standing there holding an End of the Line sign and told someone that the line was one mile long from that point.

I am sure that had we waited for a bus, we would have been in the middle of that crowd of thousands and spent an hour waiting.

Curious on how NRJ was at rope drop. That is our RD focus as we have a FOP FP later in the day.

 

[rteetz]

Thanks to everyone who participate in this thread especially those there now or just back. With D23 this weekend I will likely not be on this thread much. If something needs to be added or changed on the first page please tag me or PM me.

 

[dorchrislen]

I haven't seen a response to the question about how rope drop has been for a non-EMH day. We are going Friday and the park opens at nine. We were planning on getting there at 7:30.

 

[capegirl]

Has anyone

I haven't seen a response to the question about how rope drop has been for a non-EMH day. We are going Friday and the park opens at nine. We were planning on getting there at 7:30.

Also waiting for a 9:00am report. We are going to drive to AK, and 7:30 was our plan too.

 

[Cinderella94]

What music show? RoL? Drum circle in Pandora? Trying to figure out what could be condescending about either. Or long



PP misunderstood the post. The line for Lion King wasn't long. The line for FoP stretched back nearly to the Lion King theater. That's the way they steer the line when it exceeds the queue

Yes, this is what I meant : thanks for clarifying for me.

 

[Cinderella94]

Oh my! That sounds like ,if we want to get there early,on an EMH day, we're going to have to uber over ..... ugh!

I would definitely say yes. Once the busses started arriving it was in droves and I was very glad to be in front of them all.

 

[Tiki Birdland]

us on how NRJ was at rope drop. That is our RD focus as we have a FOP FP later in the day

That's how we booked ours. We did padora at rope drop this morning. NRJ was listed at 20 min. Took only 10 -- just about a walk on. Our FP for FOP was at 330pm. It's worth all the hype.

Big disappointment -- they were out of banshees. Anyone have any luck with customer relations in fixing it? We have AK on plan for one day...

 

[AngiTN]

That's how we booked ours. We did padora at rope drop this morning. NRJ was listed at 20 min. Took only 10 -- just about a walk on. Our FP for FOP was at 330pm. It's worth all the hype.

Big disappointment -- they were out of banshees. Anyone have any luck with customer relations in fixing it? We have AK on plan for one day...

There was another thread about them a few weeks back and the poster said they went to concierge at their resort and asked them to check stock each day. When they finally had success the poster said they hightailed it to AK and bought them. No one else has offered up another successful method to check

 

[wenpop]

It was my belly -- the legs fit fine, but the back support wouldn't click.

He wears a 46/48, do you think that means he will not fit in the ride, He will have to double up on his diet we are on, maybe by sept he will lose a bit to fit better on the ride, I don't want him to miss it.... thank you.....

 

[preemiemama]

There was another thread about them a few weeks back and the poster said they went to concierge at their resort and asked them to check stock each day. When they finally had success the poster said they hightailed it to AK and bought them. No one else has offered up another successful method to check

When I was there last week, the woman in line ahead of me said she called central purchasing (I believe)? They had told her there were not any/any expected in. So, she was surprised to be in line to get one. She did speak to a manager in Windtraders who was surprised because purchasing was supposed to be giving out accurate availability information. Not exactly a successful method, but perhaps something else to try?

 

[whiporee]

He wears a 46/48, do you think that means he will not fit in the ride, He will have to double up on his diet we are on, maybe by sept he will lose a bit to fit better on the ride, I don't want him to miss it.... thank you.....

My guess is he'll be fine. He might want to wear tighter pants than he usually does, or something like spanx to be safe.

I don't think I was far off, and I'm bigger than him.

 

[ThistleMae]

We got in line when it was way back there on the path to Lion King. Our total time was just under 2 hours and in all that time we probably stopped moving 5 min. At least until we got to the merge point with FP riders, where you are divided in to two lines and then sorted to rooms. We really never stopped

Good news, thanks...I hope I can make it!

 

[ThistleMae]

It was my belly -- the legs fit fine, but the back support wouldn't click.

As for the music, it was the drum circle thing, and it seemed little big because it was a lot of pipe-ish music without much variation. I found it condescending because it seemed to be talking of the beauty of Pandora society in comparison to ours. This would be okay, exceptPandora is fictional and pre-industrial, so of course they live in better harmony with their fictional surroundings. The idea of living and blending with nature is awesome on paper, but to promote it as an ideal ignores the practical and realistic implications of that kind of thing. And to suggest a fictional world as a model is just sort of silly.

I haven't heard the song but perhaps the message is to take care of the planet. Fictional or not...we all really need to do that. I was on a cruise once, swimming on one of the Island stops and a woman, who was smoking in the water, threw her cigarette butt right in the ocean! Talk about disrespect.

 

[winterman]

Like everyone else, we will try to get FP+ for FOP. Can anyone tell me how much time the FP+ line takes? We will have to do child swap and don't want to have to wait for ever.

 

[Beer Me]

Quick report on rope dropping FoP yesterday with morning EMH 8am open. We hoped to take a bus from BC and arrived at the bus stop at 6:45. The only bus listed on the board was for MK. We had a car so just decided to drive ourselves and got to AK a little after 7. We were nearly first in line at bag check but they didn't start until 7:30. Gates opened about 7:45 and we were held inside the park at two different spots for a few minutes. We practically walked on the ride and were finished by 8:15.

I think we could have got there 30 minutes later and been ok.

The ride is great. Definitely worth some extra effort in the morning if you can't get a FP.