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

[JDUCKY]

Yeah because if rides run past 1 am they have to pay GR, Security, and CMs of Pandora rides extra time if not getting into 3rd shift pay.

Not to mention limiting or preventing overnight maintenance

 

[ELLH]

I'll throw this out there as a FWIW:
Wife and I didn't care much for the NRJ. It was a neat ride. And the Shaman was incredible (could be a meet and greet as far as I'm concerned). But overall... meh.

However, my DD6 liked it. She's a fan of all sorts of rides (Everest, Pirates, etc) but the one thing she said she liked about NRJ was "there was no big drops". Which to me means she liked that she could just enjoy the ride for what it is. Which is exactly what that ride seems to be intended for: provide a "tour" of Pandora in a relaxing way.

 

[FoxC63]

I'm out! It's past midnight in my neck of the woods. See you tomorrow @rteetz thanks for keeping us updated!

 

[JackieT1182]

I can't wait to ride FoP in August!

I just have a question - how secure is it for a smaller, skinny child? My 5 year old is exactly 44", but she's only 37 lbs. I tried looking at pictures and videos, but it's hard to see how well she'll be restrained. I know she'd love this ride because she loves Soarin, Tower of Terror, and all of the roller coasters, but I don't want to be worried that she'll fall out during the whole ride!

 

[wilkeliza]

I can't wait to ride FoP in August!

I just have a question - how secure is it for a smaller, skinny child? My 5 year old is exactly 44", but she's only 37 lbs. I tried looking at pictures and videos, but it's hard to see how well she'll be restrained. I know she'd love this ride because she loves Soarin, Tower of Terror, and all of the roller coasters, but I don't want to be worried that she'll fall out during the whole ride!

She won't fall out. She'll be secure at the back and leg restraints. To add to that you can reach out and touch those next to you should make you a little more at ease.

 

[hodad]

We had lunch at Sanaa and got to Animal Kingdom around 1:30. My kid forgot her magic band so I had to wait in line at Guest Services to get a replacement card, and when we finally got into the park we stood in the line to enter Pandora for a few minutes until someone else in line explained that people with fast passes need not wait. A sign of some sort explaining this would have been nice.

I was impressed with the ability of the cast members at the fast pass entrance to handle the chaos of impatient and entitled park goers. We were let over the bridge the exact minute our fast passes opened up, and we headed to FoP. Everyone enjoyed it, although my kid had to ask for the back support to be readjusted because it closed pretty tightly against her.

The back door to Windtraders was closed, and people getting off FoP had to walk around and get in the very long line with everyone else if they wanted to get inside. Those shoulder banshees are really in demand. Fortunately, we were able to get a Navi tail at a gift cart by the face painting station.

I wish the drummers didn't have to deal with a short but very noticeable delay between the hitting and the sounding of their drums. I blame it for their poor synchronization.

Thanks to a glitch when FastPasses opened up, we were also able to get some for NRJ. The attention to detail was impressive, even if the ride was short and uneventful. Most people leaving the ride after us had terrible things to say about it, including "I liked Pandora before that ride."

Once we ordered food at Satu'li, it took the kitchen about 3 minutes to give us our order. The cheeseburger bao were yummy, and the kid's hotdog was too salty. There were lots of people camping out at tables without food, either waiting for people in line or just sitting and applying makeup. They made it difficult to find a place to sit while we ate.

The Night Blossom is about twice as sweet as any other frozen drink I've ordered at Animal Kingdom. I don't know if I'd wait in a 30 minute line for one.

We left around 7, before sundown, and there was no line waiting to get in at the back entrance, although CMs were putting down tape to prepare for the evening crowd. 8pm fastpass at Kilimanjaro Safari, then Rivers of Light for some and 15m single rider Everest for others. We got back to Animal Kingdom Lodge at 10:15.

Happy to answer any questions anyone has about the day.

 

[MissPrice]

DO you think it will be this crazy late next week?

 

[Spacecow]

Once we ordered food at Satu'li, it took the kitchen about 3 minutes to give us our order. The cheeseburger bao were yummy, and the kid's hotdog was too salty. There were lots of people camping out at tables without food, either waiting for people in line or just sitting and applying makeup. They made it difficult to find a place to sit while we ate.

How long was the line to order at Satu'li?

 

[Accident]

Hoping to find a working stream. Not seeing anything on https://www.facebook.com/disunplugged . Do you have an actual link to your stream?

that is the official disunplugged page, I was on the fan page since I'm not affiliated with disunplugged. It's at https://www.facebook.com/groups/66711414432/

 

[Accident]

So I just got home, I ended up closing the place down.... I'm going back tomorrow night, AK was completely empty.. There was a family that got on EE at 11:30, and didn't get off of it until 12:30.. 15 rides, never got out of the seat. It was MK after hours dead, except for pandora where everyone was hiding...

I had an amazing day.. I planned getting in perfect with my normal lets walk around for an hour and then had a great meal at tifffins at 3. tiffins was half empty and the rol package guests were coming in as I was leaving. I walked out to the line being let in and no line for a couple hours.. Pandora got really packed but no wait.. I even ran for a smoke break and back and had to walk the line but they never stopped it from going in. Hung out with a lot of vloggers, didn't see anyone from dis there but it was packed so it was easy to miss people.

After I left which was right about 11pm when I noticed the last set of fastpass riders were let in just before emh started after the line had been closed for a couple hours. pandora was really nice for a couple hours, the ride lines disappeared into the queue, you had nobody to bump into you similar to preview for pandora at night.

Disney handled this amazing. Shade, water along the line to get in.. Mobile ordering is amazing, even with long lines for food you could order in the app and get your food in 5 minutes. Fastpass got a shorter line but it was far, they checked and you couldn't go in until it was your fastpass time. Lines were longer than spring but shorter than summer so pandora was a good distraction for those that did AK in it's entirety today.. The land was designed with paths to form longer lines.. so what looked like a lot of senseless walkways, really gave a spot for a line to be put up so even though 90% of pandora was a line for something, there was nobody really in the way to just walk around and explore... The uniformed security/police being all along the lines with cm kept everyone at bay. It seemed like everyone came expecting to be in long lines all day and even with it almost hitting 100F, everyone was in amazing spirits, that is until it got close to dark when many started to show up to see it at night and the rudeness appeared and strong words almost ending in fights but the security force was right there to calm it down with a quick "are you really sure you want to go to jail and get banned from disney right now".

Oh they even added a third ROL at 11:45, including fastpasses. I decided to check it out, fastpass was packed, standby was about 40% full. I got a great front row, nobody around me 360 of it. The show is much better when your closer to it but I also knew the show so it wasn't confusing. I wasn't near the middle but had a great night. I'm heading back and going to rent an ecv to just roll around the place with the 360 camera.. Of course in remembrance to Bob, seems like a fitting week to do that and a perfect time with no crowd while everyone is hiding in pandora..

Oh they added projectors being the tree so the tree of life animations that happen randomly can be seen from behind as well.. I noticed the projectors but never around at night to see it happen.

Loved going the first day.. as long as you go in ready to wait and what the heat is going to be like, it's a fun time.

 

[spacy9]

So I just got home, I ended up closing the place down.... I'm going back tomorrow night, AK was completely empty.. There was a family that got on EE at 11:30, and didn't get off of it until 12:30.. 15 rides, never got out of the seat. It was MK after hours dead, except for pandora where everyone was hiding..

Are you saying that all of Animal Kingdom was open for the EMH, not just Pandora? I thought it was just the Pandora land that was going to be open from 11-1.

 

[Accident]

Are you saying that all of Animal Kingdom was open for the EMH, not just Pandora? I thought it was just the Pandora land that was going to be open from 11-1.

they changed that a week or so ago, I forget where the announcement of it is (wdwinfo probably has an article on it). EE, ROL, KALI (maybe, I didn't pay attention), some of dinoland. dinosaur was not opened, not really anywhere to eat outside of pandora but there was a few rides and you could just roam around. It's in no way close to all the stuff, but there was more than pandora. No street performers.

AK is actually a great place to just roam around real slow at night. one of my favorite things, especially when it's only 71ish out instead of 98 during the day. EE is a must do in the dark.

 

[spacy9]

Wow, that's awesome. I missed that announcement somehow. We're going June 10th - 16th so this is great info. Thank you!

 

[MomofDisneyLoversx3]

My FP window opens in 33 minutes. Any thoughts if I should do FoP or NRJ? Seems like FoP is getting better reviews but the lines seem similar. We range from 49-7 years. Tia

 

[ABE4DISNEY]

they changed that a week or so ago, I forget where the announcement of it is (wdwinfo probably has an article on it). EE, ROL, KALI (maybe, I didn't pay attention), some of dinoland. dinosaur was not opened, not really anywhere to eat outside of pandora but there was a few rides and you could just roam around.
.

Actually Dinosaur was opened. When we were entering the park(9:30 pm), a CM with a bullhorn announced that it had been added for the evening. We rode it a few times but left around 11:45 so I'm not sure if it was open the entire time.


Also, Momof DisneyLoversx3, if your family likes Soarin or Star Tours it is a no brainer. Get the FOP fp's. If not, choose the boat ride.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

My FP window opens in 33 minutes. Any thoughts if I should do FoP or NRJ? Seems like FoP is getting better reviews but the lines seem similar. We range from 49-7 years. Tia

Definitely FoP - that seems to be the big ride and no matter how good the queue is, a multi hour line is still a multi hour line

I know the river ride had long lines today (well, yesterday at this point) but based on feedback and not everyone thinking it was worth the wait I don't expect that to retain long lines like FoP will

All I hear/read is people doing FoP multiple times if they can vs River Ride being more of a "one and done" even for people that liked it

 

[CAS239]

How do you think FoP will be for younger children (8-10 range)? Too intense?

If they can handle other thrill rides then they'll love it. I saw plenty of kids during my preview slot ride that got off and told their parents they wanted to go again.

 

[lovethattink]

Sunday we are planning a long afternoon break then over to AK around 6pm as first fastpass is at 630. I was going to drive to avoid long transportation waits as it will be late when we leave. My question is about parking. Did the AK parking lot reach capacity on Saturday? Want to make sure i plan to arrive earlier if lot might be closed.....

Yes, there was discussion earlier about parking reaching capacity. I don't remember what time it did.

 

[CAS239]

DO you think it will be this crazy late next week?

I don't think you'll see these huge lines to get in Pandora or 4 hour waits. Could, but I doubt it.

However both rides will have long waits for quite some time. These Pandora rides for AK are what 7dmt and Frozen are for MK & Epcot.

 

[lovethattink]

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