FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX: Animal Kingdom

The whole family did well to make it to Animal Kingdom by 7:30am. It was extra magic hour at Animal Kingdom from 8am to 9am. As half expected, we were pleased to find that Disney had opened the gates early and resort guests were already streaming into the park. We strode as fast we could to Flight of Passage in Pandora, the newly opened Avatar themed land. By the time we reached the standby line, the wait time was already 40 minutes. As this was likely the only other time we were going to be able to go on this ride other than using our fastpass, we took it. We were not prepared to wait 180min in line (this was what the wait time ballooned out to later in the day). As Alana was too short for the ride, Malcolm volunteered to take her for some quality Uncle and niece time.

The queue for Flight of Passage in front of us

The queue behind us!!!

The amazing Pandora

Umm...thanks Lara

There was only one word for Flight of Passage...awesome! It really was like Soarin' on steroids. It was only after coming out of the ride that we were able to truly appreciate how well themed Pandora was. The area was quite small though. We tried the night blossom drink from Pongu Pongu and gorged on the various meat bowls from Satuli Canteen. The servings were gigantic! The fresh greens that came with it though was refreshing and a very welcomed break from the usual sides of fries.

Night blossom drink from Pongu pongu

One of the massive bowls from Satuli Canteern. I didn't think anyone would appreciate me posting all 5 different variations of it...

Dessert!

We hit most of the big attractions during the rest of our time at the park before making our way to the Animal Kingdom Lodge for our dinner at Sanaa. We sure were glad that we were sharing credits as again the servings were extremely generous. How could 1 person eat 5 naans with 9 dipping sauces as an appetiser?!? Then eat a main as well as dessert?