Aug 28, 20203 min read

My Highlights from Animal Kingdom Review

Best ride: Avatar: Flight of Passage!

I cannot express just how much I *loved* Avatar: Flight of Passage. We waited in line for about 30 minutes before going on it and I was obsessed! It was so much fun that my parents suggested we go on it again. The only reason the line was so short was because a. we went in the middle of a pandemic and b. we got to the Pandora section of the park early on and this ride was our first. We waited around 40 minutes to go on it the second time, and it was just as good an experience. *If you haven't been on this ride, stop reading and move on the the next section of the review as there are spoilers coming up* Basically on this ride, you were brought into a room with a bunch of motorcycle-looking things, you sat on them and put on these special glasses. You're on the back of a 'banshee' which is a flying dragon-type thing. They made it really realistic putting in smells, wind and the bikes rotated to make it feel as if you actually were flying, not just flying, but flying on a living, breathing creature. At the end of the day, I'd gone on that ride 3 times, that's just how much I loved it. I believe we spent about 115 minutes or almost 2 hours just waiting in line for this ride, itself that day. And I'd just like to say it was 100% worth it. They also got so creative in the line area, what with avatars in water tanks, all these fancy scientific instruments and samples from Pandora. Not to mention when you first get in the line with the giant 'floating' rocks!

Restaurants:

At Animal Kingdom, my family went to Tiffins for lunch and The Rainforest Café for dinner. I feel a little bad hating so hard on Spice Road Table last week, but I suppose that is what these posts are supposed to be about--letting you know which restaurants deserve the love and which...don't. To be completely honest once again, I wasn't hugely impressed by Tiffin's. Overall, it was fine. The food was alright, the service was pretty good but, of course, everything was definitely way overpriced. To be fair, that's Disney for you. The Rainforest Café, however, was surprising for one reason. The food was your average casual restaurant food, it was somewhat reasonably priced and I liked how they decorated it to look like we were in a jungle. You could tell the staff really loved working where they did as they were excited to bring birthday treats to people celebrating. My mom wasn't feeling great while we were there and didn't eat much. Our server was so nice the entire meal, at the end she took off the price of my mom's meal! For our last meal at a Disney park, I think it was pretty good and if you want good service, check out The Rainforest Café! Finally, I think both Wawa's Restaurant Design award and Wawa's Restaurant Food award go to The Rainforest Café. With the excellent service as well as the food, I'd pick that over Tiffin's any day.

Longest line{s}:

I think the longest lines were Avatar: Flight of Passage and Expedition Everest. If you've ever been on either of those two rides, you will wholly understand, as they are the best rides in the park {in my opinion}. I believe Expedition Everest was only about a 20 minute wait, whereas Avatar's was around an average of 30-50 minutes. Check out the pictures below, the ones from Expedition Everest are miracle pictures because my mom sacrificed her phone trying to take them.

Other rides I recommend/what I liked about this park:

As stated above, I believe Avatar: Flight of Passage and Expedition Everest were the best rides in the park. However, the Kali River Rapids were a huge refresher because we went on them around noon. If it's particularly hot on the day you go to Animal Kingdom, I highly recommend the Kali River Rapids. Also, as you can see below, we really enjoyed the Kilimanjaro Safaris tour. We saw lions, giraffes, gorillas, hippos and, my personal, unbiased favourite, elephants! :)