We headed to Animal Kingdom on our third Disney day. After two days of speeding through lines at Universal with their Express Pass and two days of crawling through Disney lines, we decided to splurge and purchase Genie+ for our Animal Kingdom day. Our priority in Animal Kingdom was Avatar Flight of Passage and that wasn’t even available as part of Genie+. That ride had to be purchased as an Individual Lightning Lane at $20+ per person. There was no way we were paying for that so we opted to try to minimize our overall waiting by spreading out our Genie+ reservations around the wait on line for Avatar.
Genie+ can only be purchased the day of use so I logged in that morning and purchased it for $17 per person and immediately booked the Lightning Lane for Expedition Everest. We arrived at the park around 10:30 and headed straight there. We did get to board almost immediately, but honestly there was hardly any line so it saved us maybe 5-10 minutes. In retrospect we should have ridden Expedition Everest first as a standby and then booked a Lightning Lane for later in the day when the lines were longer. Live and learn.
As soon as we finished on Expedition Everest, we headed towards Pandora – The World of Avatar to get on line for Avatar Flight of Passage. But first I booked our next Lightning Lane for Na’vi River Journey, the other Pandora ride. It was around 11:30 and the next available Na’vi slot was at 2:30. (Already I could see that the Genie+ purchase was not going to be worth the money.)
We did get to see some cool birds – both real and make believe – along the way. We loved seeing Kevin, the giant bird from Up, and we were amazed when a flock of brightly colored macaws swooped just barely above our heads as part of the Winged Encounters bird show.
I haven’t actually seen the movie Avatar, so although the theming of the world was a little lost on me, the visual grandeur was not. The whole area was stunning just to walk around. The scale of the landscaping features was awesome and the details were amazing. The line itself was enjoyable to wait in because the surroundings were so gorgeous. (Enjoyable up to a point of course…)
We waited about an hour for this ride but it was absolutely worth it. It is an immersive flying simulator experience similar to Soarin’. On this ride, you climb aboard an individual motorcycle vehicle, which simulates riding a mythical Banshee. You have to lean forward on the ride vehicle and the safety restraint rests on the small of your back. Once your Banshee “takes off”, you swoop through the air and fly all around Pandora. The visuals are stunning and the effects make you feel like you are actually flying. Special effects include wind, scents, and mists of water. (Apparently my husband was next to a faulty water sprayer because what was supposed to be a light mist for the whole row of vehicles was a constant spray of water directly on him.) I was blown away by this ride. It vastly improves upon the technology and overall experience of Soarin’, which is a great ride in its own right. Avatar Flight of Passage was well worth the wait.
Our Lightning Lane for Na’vi was still about an hour and a half away but our window had opened up to book another so we grabbed an immediate spot for Dinosaur and headed over there. The timing worked out so that it made sense for us to use the Lightning Lane for Dinosaur, but again, we didn’t really need it as the line was super short. Some people claim Dinosaur is one of the scariest rides in Disney World because it is loud, dark, and jerks you around a good bit. I would say it could be really scary for kids but not for most teens and adults. I am glad we got to ride it again because shortly after our trip they announced that all of Dinoland USA in Animal Kingdom will be replaced by a new world, Tropical Americas, and Dinosaur will be replaced by an Indiana Jones ride.
After lunch and an ice cream break, we headed back to Pandora for our Lightning Lane at Na’vi River Journey. This ride is a slow boat ride through the Pandora rainforest… and we all hated it. It was slow, boring, and kept backing up. We were stopped several times to the point where the boats behind us bumped into us and we kept hearing the same narration over and over again. A lot of people rave about the visual effects. They were impressive in spots but overall it just didn’t hold our interest. When we entered the Lightning Lane, the standby line had an almost two hour wait and I would have been furious if we had waited that long.
At this point we were losing steam and a little bit of interest so we decided to do one last ride before calling it a day. My older son wanted to do Expedition Everest again and my younger son wanted to do Kilimanjaro Safari so we split up. Before leaving Pandora, I checked the app to see if it made sense to book Lightning Lanes. I was so disappointed to find out that you can’t book a Lightning Lane for the same ride twice in a day! To me, when you are paying an extra fee for the Genie+ service, you should be able to use it however you want. If you want to ride the same ride 5 times in a day, you should be able to book that ride whenever you have a Lightning Lane selection available. This was the final of many disappointments with Genie+. I can say for sure it was not worth the money and we would never buy it again.
The standby for Kilimanjaro Safari was only showing 5 minutes so I didn’t bother to book the Lightning Lane there (which was available). That turned out to be a mistake as the standby line ended up being significantly longer than advertised. Still, the safari is always a great time. We love seeing all the animals and it was a great way to end the day.
On our previous two trips, Animal Kingdom was one of our favorite parks. I was always surprised by people who said there wasn’t enough to do there. Aside from the rides, there is so much to walk around and see at the park. The kids loved all the trails and the animals that were everywhere, and the Wilderness Explorer activity was so much fun. I was a little sad to discover that now that the boys are older, we didn’t love the park quite as much. It was still a great experience – Expedition Everest never disappoints and Avatar Flight of Passage was an absolutely incredible ride. But a little bit of the overall park magic was gone for us. But this just reinforced my belief that Disney should be visited at a few different ages because the experience is so different each time.
