Animal Kingdom day has finally arrived. The plan was to rope drop NRJ before heading out of Pandora. Unfortunately technical difficulties meant NRJ was not open on time. We hung around the area until 7:55 before deciding to give up and head to Dinoland. We got there just as they were letting people enter and quickly queued up for Dinosaur. We were within sight of the cars when they announced that they were also having technical difficulties! I was ready to give up and cry at that point. Thankfully, two minutes later the difficulties were cleared up and we were on our way.
After Dinosaur, we walked onto Primeval Whirl then did Expedition Everest twice back to back. We did our first ever walk through of the Maharajah Trail. The tigers are awesome to look at.
Took a break for a snack of popcorn and candied nuts. Then it was time for our Kilimanjaro Safari fastpass (9:55). This may have been our best ever ride on the safari. Tons of giraffes really close to the truck. A white rhino that strolled across the road right in front of us. The male lion walking slowly along the tops of the rocks making loud grunting sounds. Plus a ton of other animals. We followed that by going through the Gorilla Trail. The gorillas were fascinating. One of the little ones was causing trouble, tossing dirt and being chased by one of the adults.
Back to Expedition Everest for a third ride using a fastpass. This is such a great coaster. My thrill loving family thinks it is awesome, but a chicken like me can still ride it and enjoy it!
Satuli Canteen for lunch. The choose your own ingredients bowls were really good. We all had different combinations and everyone liked them.
We had a bit of time before our FOP fastpass so we planned to look around Pandora. However, when we came outside we saw that NRJ had just come online after a second shutdown and had a 15 minute wait posted. We decided to hop in line. Disney was lying to us about the wait. We got almost to the entrance to the boats when they all but stopped letting standby people in. They sent about 100 people from the fastpass lane in and then 8 to 10 standby. This repeated 5 or 6 times before we finally got through! Our 15 minutes turned into about 35. Still, we did get on the ride and really liked all of the lighting and especially the shaman.
Finally, it was time for FOP. I had really been looking forward to this ride and was a bit scared it wouldn’t live up to the hype. It exceeded all of my expectations! This just passed Forbidden Journey in Universal as my favourite ride of all time. Everything from the ride vehicle to the visuals to the theme just works beautifully. So glad we have another fastpass for it tomorrow!
After that we headed back to Pop for a break. Grabbed Pineapple Floats from the foodcourt and chilled in our room for an hour or so. Heading back to AK shortly for dinner at Tusker House, a few more rides and River of Lights.
