We attended the opening day of Pandora: World of Avatar in Disney's Animal Kingdom, & it was an amazing day. I've never attended an opening day event at any of the parks, but unlike most I knew I was in for some heavy traffic. What I got however, blew me away. Upon entering the Animal Kingdom, about an hour & a half early, we we're herded with many others to the far right pathway after entering the gates by Rainforest Café. It was in this area that I realized the Force was with me that day. I figured some of the people who got "magic hours" (extra hours before & after park openings for people staying in Disney Resorts) had Fast Passes & we're using them. Sure enough I snagged a 8-9 Fastpass while waiting to get in. At this point it's 8 'o clock, time to open, & we see no one else is being let into Animal Kingdom's gates. The line starts to slowly move & we're hearing the land is reaching capacity so they're letting people a little at a time. In line for about 35 mins. we finally make it to the bridge. There we were told anyone with a Fastpass will get let in 10 mins. before pass time. That was our big break of the day, considering we were told that wait stayed at least 5 hours to get back in all day. So needless to say, from 8:45am on thru 11:00pm we were staying the remainder of the day in the Valley of Mo'ara, Pandora.
So for the only moment of the day everything sped up & we were onto our first ride. However, we will be covering the rides, merchandise, landscape, & food in further entries. This post is strictly for the madness that was opening day. A very controlled madness much to Disney's credit, but madness nonetheless. After our refreshing river ride we found ourselves in what do we do next mode. That's when we figured we'd get the shopping out of the way. Sounds easy enough right? Wrong. there was a 2 hour plus line just to get into Windtraders, the resident store of the Valley of Mo'ara. Which we had to brave as I had some specific things in mind, opening day merch, a Na'vi translator, & most importantly adopting a Banshee. More on that to come in further posts. I was amazed at how many people were standing in line just to see what to spend money on. This line, like all the others, stayed like this throughout the day. Eventually becoming the smallest wait time of 30- 45 minutes.
After the store it was onto nourishment. In the course of which we found the line going out the doors of the Satu'li Canteen surprisingly was the fastest moving line of the day, both times we went to eat. We ate almost everything on the menu which we will share with you in further posts, right before we set out to finish our adventure, braving a 5 hour line for Flight of Passage & returning to the Na'vi Journey river ride one more time via a 3 hour line.
All in all it was a jam-packed day. We used the little bit of time we had yet to get some good night-time landscape pics of the park all lit up in it's bioluminescence glory. I don't regret it at all as it was an amazing experience. Most everyone was taking all the waiting very well, with very few exceptions. Things I've learned from this time around? At least one Fastpass on opening day is a must, annual passholders get all the cool exclusive merch for opening day, get ready to wait around a lot, & it is probably worth it to stay in a Disney Resort for opening days to take advantage of the extra "magic" hours. So that was the craziness that was opening day. Can't believe how many different people touched the Valley of Mo'ara in just that day. It was definitely a sight to behold. Anyway, like, share, & keep looking as we'll have more to come with further details of Pandora: World of Avatar. Find it by clicking here.
