 We were lucky enough to be able to attended the Disney Annual Passholder preview of Pandora: World of Avatar at Disney's Animal Kingdom this last weekend. I was expecting it to be pretty amazing and let me tell you Disney did not disappoint. It was well above my expectations. There are two new rides that have been added to the new area. The major attraction is Avatar Flight of Passage. This has got to be one of the best rides I have been on in a long time. Best way for me to describe it is an amped up 3D version of soarin. You fly on the back of a mountain banshee during an 3-D ride through Pandora. This was full of visual effects, sounds, smells plus a few surprises. My only complaint was the queue was incredibly long for as few people who were there. I am not sure if this was because they might have not been running at full capacity or working out kinks but hopefully by opening day this will be worked out if not expect astronomical wait times for this ride. The second new ride is Na'vi River Journey. A boat trip into the bioluminescent of Pandora's rain forest. I really enjoyed this ride. My only regret is we didn't do this ride first. After riding the Flight of Passage anything else seemed less impressive, but this ride is beautiful, relaxing and I did like it. The landscaping alone was just stunning. There was so much detail everywhere you looked. It really felt like you stepped into a different world, the world of Pandora. I of course took about 2000 photos and no matter what I just couldn't really capture the beauty of the landscapes. Luckily for you I have spared posting all of the photos I took but have selected a handful just to get an idea of the detail Disney has done.            As you can see there is a lot to look at just walking around. There are also sound effects of the animals and bugs you might hear on Pandora. I wish we were able to have seen this at night. I imagine it is just beautiful in the evening/night time. On to one of my favorite topics: food. Pandora offers a quick service restaurant called Satu'li Canteen. I liked how this offered something more interesting than the burgers, pizzas and other typical fast food. There wasn't a big menu selection but we were happy with the choices offered.   Disney extended their creativity to the inside of the restaurant. It was a fun atmosphere.   Chris decided to have the create your own Satu'li bowl. He picked the wood grilled chicken, red and sweet potato hash and a charred onion chimichurri sauce. This was delicious the red and sweet potato hash was really good. There was something just comforting to me about the taste.  I picked to try the cheeseburger pods. I really enjoyed the cheeseburger taste in a steam bun. I did find the steam bun a little hard to cut but I enjoyed the flavors. This came with vegetable chips and both meals had a crunchy vegetable slaw topped with boba balls (these were so flavorful and fun).  Inside of the cheeseburger pod  Blueberry cheesecake with passion fruit curd. This was very delicious and both of our favorite out of both desserts we tried.  Almost too pretty to eat, but we did.  The chocolate cake. This tasted like a rich chocolate mouse with crunchy cookie at the bottom. This was very good but super rich. I was satisfied with just a couple spoon fulls. It was topped with a banana cream and goji berries. I didn't think the banana cream had a very strong banana taste which was perfect. Next door to the Canteen there is a drink/snack stand called Pongu Pongu. So of course we stopped to try a few items here as well.    Pongu Lumpia. Pineapple cream cheese spring roll. This was a tasty little snack.  Night Blossom. A non-alcoholic drink which was a frozen limeade with apple and desert pear flavors topped with passion fruit boba balls. This was very sweet drink. It was good but maybe a little too sugary after all the treats we had already eaten.   Face Painting is available  On the way out I noticed this spectacular view of Nomad lounge at Tiffins (which is a great little bar area. If you haven't had a chance to try it yet you should!)
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 We were lucky enough to attend a soft opening of Animal Kingdom's Rivers of Light this last weekend. We have been waiting almost year to see this show since it was supposed to open May of 2016. My thoughts on this show? Don't miss it! It was visually stunning and the music was beautiful. I am so happy they have added nighttime elements to Animal Kingdom because it has become one of my favorite parks to see when the sun sets.  The Tree of Life is beautiful at night. They have 4 different projection shows that take place on the tree in the evenings. There is a short pre-show when they bring out the lotus flower floats. I was a little confused since I thought this was the start of the show and there wasn't much going on other than a couple of animal projections on the trees and the flowers moving around on the water. When the actual show starts there is nothing uneventful about it. There is a lot going on!  The pre show.        They have lots of new merchandise for Rivers of Light. My favorite is this glowing lotus popcorn holder. |
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