TWO Sneak Peeks at Pandora The World of Avatar

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

5 minutes ago, Travisma said:

Yippee!  Maybe they will have everything working by then.

I did see a previous post that said to try to see it lit up at night.  Even at 8 it'll still be pretty light out, so I don't know if we will get the nighttime effect.

Our CM preview time ended at 8, but we were able to go in to the quick serve restaurant at 7:55 in time to order.  We were not chased out of there, but did not wear out our welcome, and headed out around 8:30.  We got to see some of the lighting effects, but there were CM's stationed around to keep us on the path out of there. I imagine it will be the same way for passholders. 

This time, our time slot ends at 5.  I don't think they were real vigilant about chasing guests out from the earlier time slots at the CM previews, and we may try to linger, but I don't think we will try to stay until dark.  They are going to have night EMH's at Pandora from May 27th all the way through (and probably past) July 4th.  We will have plenty of chances to see it in the dark.

TCD

[Travisma 1,317]

2 hours ago, Tri-Circle-D said:

Our CM preview time ended at 8, but we were able to go in to the quick serve restaurant at 7:55 in time to order.  We were not chased out of there, but did not wear out our welcome, and headed out around 8:30.  We got to see some of the lighting effects, but there were CM's stationed around to keep us on the path out of there. I imagine it will be the same way for passholders. 

This time, our time slot ends at 5.  I don't think they were real vigilant about chasing guests out from the earlier time slots at the CM previews, and we may try to linger, but I don't think we will try to stay until dark.  They are going to have night EMH's at Pandora from May 27th all the way through (and probably past) July 4th.  We will have plenty of chances to see it in the dark.

TCD

This will be our only chance to see it until fall since 6/5 starts our Silver blackout dates and I'm definitely not going to fight the crowds opening week.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

21 minutes ago, Travisma said:

This will be our only chance to see it until fall since 6/5 starts our Silver blackout dates and I'm definitely not going to fight the crowds opening week.

Chicken.

We are going to be there for opening day, have Pandora FP+'s for every day that weekend, and I think I'll be there for at least one of the 1 am closings.

I am looking forward to the hot mess.  And it will certainly be both of those.

TCD

[Travisma 1,317]

4 minutes ago, Tri-Circle-D said:

Chicken.

We are going to be there for opening day, have Pandora FP+'s for every day that weekend, and I think I'll be there for at least one of the 1 am closings.

I am looking forward to the hot mess.  And it will certainly be both of those.

TCD

It's Memorial Day Weekend, sure to be mobbed and based on the way long weekends usually go, it'll probably be raining !

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

5 minutes ago, Travisma said:

It's Memorial Day Weekend, sure to be mobbed and based on the way long weekends usually go, it'll probably be raining !

Absolutely.

I hope you're right about the rain.  We sure could use it.

TCD

[Travisma 1,317]

3 minutes ago, Tri-Circle-D said:

Absolutely.

I hope you're right about the rain.  We sure could use it.

TCD

Once Pandora is officially opened, are there going to be multiple entrances into that area?

 

If not the entrance next to Pizzafari is going to be a major bottleneck.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

33 minutes ago, Travisma said:

Once Pandora is officially opened, are there going to be multiple entrances into that area?

If not the entrance next to Pizzafari is going to be a major bottleneck.

There are two paths, but the one that leads to the Lion King theater has been closed for all the previews so far. I wouldn't be surprised to see them use one path as an entrance and the other as an exit for a while. That will help with crowd control. 

If they don't use both paths I agree there's going to be a bad bottleneck at the pizzafari entrance. 

TCD

[Starbuc71 162]

TCD. Great report I'm still on the fence about this land. I agree Disney took a huge risk on this. Who am I to say but 5-6 years to create a relaxing boat ride, one great ride and a restaurant is a little extreme.  I'm sure I will not visit this for at least a year or so since as you say, it will be super busy. I think the best part of Avatar land is hopefully it will take the crowds from other parks

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

On ‎5‎/‎13‎/‎2017 at 9:36 AM, Starbuc71 said:

TCD. Great report I'm still on the fence about this land. I agree Disney took a huge risk on this. Who am I to say but 5-6 years to create a relaxing boat ride, one great ride and a restaurant is a little extreme.  I'm sure I will not visit this for at least a year or so since as you say, it will be super busy. I think the best part of Avatar land is hopefully it will take the crowds from other parks

You are right, in the final analysis, it took way too long for them to build this new land, and they could have and should have included another attraction at least. 

You make a good point about it hopefully siphoning off crowds from other parks. I hope you're right about that.

TCD

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

I just edited the title of this thread.

Because the Bragging Rights continue.

The TCD gang had its second sneak peek at Pandora-the World of Avatar for the passholder preview conducted on Saturday, May 13th.

I signed us up for this as soon as I heard about the previews, and I was lucky to be able to snag a time on the first day.  By the time I got to the sign-up page, the earliest time slot available was the 3-5 slot, and I took it. 

As news filtered in from the CM previews, I regretted picking that time slot, because it seemed that the Flight of Passage ride was consistently down during that time slot.  But reports from the last couple of CM previews were that FOP was open during the 3-5 slot, so that was potential good news for us.

In typical Disney fashion, the communications about when to report for the preview and how check-in would be handled were vague and confusing.  Everyone who signed up for the 3-5 pm AP preview received what looked like a FP+ for the Na'vi River Journey ride at 2 pm.  Which was confusing since our time supposedly didn't start until 3 pm. After that, we received an email that said the FP was not a FP, but was our admission to the preview. So did that mean we would be let in at 2 or 3? Since we had the experience of attending a CM preview, we decided to arrive an hour before our original start time, and hope that it would be handled the same way.

We all arrived at AK right a bit before 2 pm.  New for this arrival was a separate AP bag check area.  That's the first I have seen a separate AP bag check at any park.  We took advantage of that, as I don't think many guests saw it.

After that, the AP tapstiles were busier than the regular ones.  Which made sense since there were a lot of AP holders showing up for the previews.  We still used the AP tapstiles, and would have been in the park faster than using the regular tapstiles but for the fact that we were cut by a family of Castmembers!  There was just one guy who walked fast past us and got in front of us in line. Then, he was joined by his family of 8 people!  This guy had striped pajama pants on like cooks wear, and he had a CM Maingate card in his hand. One of the other members of his party had the same cook pants on and another Maingate.  An adult female from that group ran up to the front of the line and kissed and greeted the CM who was checking the lights on the tapstile, which held up other guests from entering. Then she rejoined her party, and all 8 of these non-AP holders were let in by that CM.  I wanted to get the CM's name from his name badge and go right to Guest Services to report this, but Twin #1 asked me not to.  We didn't have time for that, and it wouldn't have done any good.  But it's a huge pet peeve of mine when I see CM's breaking rules for other CM's.  They are very discreet about it, but it happens a lot.

When got to near the Pandora entrance at 2 pm, there was a line of guests stretching back to the gift shop, and we got in it. With our place in line secured, I walked up to the front to see what was going on.  They had a rope across the holding area that we went in to last time, and there were CM's there guarding the rope. They were telling guests that there was no official line, and no reason to wait in the line that had formed. I saw that there were guests starting a new line next to the existing line, and CM's were trying to shoo them away.  It looked like this could get chaotic.  I went back to the rest of the TCD gang and reported my findings. As we stood there discussing what to do, another CM came through and told us that we did not have to wait in this line, and that it was not an official line, and that we should leave and come back at 3 pm, when we would be able to walk right in.  But, there were now as many guests behind us in this unofficial line as there were in front of us, and we decided that it would be best to hold our ground and see what happened.

Sure enough, at 2 pm, the CM's at the ropes started to scan Magicbands and let guests into the roped-off holding area.  The unofficial line that we were in moved quickly, and we were scanned and let into the holding area.  People were kind of spreading out in there, but we continued on to get as far to the front as we could.  I am glad we did, because up near the front of the holding area, there were CM's passing out paper FP's for FOP, and we each got one with a return time of 2:30-2:45.  I took this photo at 2:06 pm as we stood in the holding area:

So this was good.  Our official time for our preview was from 3-5, but we now had FP's for 2:30-2:45.  We interpreted that to mean two things: 1. That we would be let in by no later than 2:30, and 2. That FOP must be operating.

Good thing we didn't leave like those CM's told us to.

That was kind of a bad thing for them to do, as there were guests who did leave.

I hope that they all got FP's when they came back.

This is what it looked like behind us:

Up ahead, they were already letting guests on to the bridge.  But, they were making everyone go through that one door.  Which was kind of dumb, but I guess it kept people from stampeding.  And AP holders will stampede without warning:

We shuffled our way to and through the door, and then we were stopped on the bridge.  It was now 2:13 pm:

There were guest casually strolling out of the previous preview, which ended at 2 pm.  I had heard that they didn't make guests leave at the end of the CM preview time slots (except for the one that ended at 8 pm), and it looked like that was the case today. That was good for us to know.  It meant that we didn't need to rush to get everything we wanted to do done before 5 pm.  Here are some guest leaving Pandora:

They didn't hold us on the bridge for very long.  We were only there for a couple of minutes, and we could see that the guests ahead of us were heading on in.

We slowly strolled in.  Since we thought we would have time to ride the river ride before our FP return time, we headed that way, just like we did for the CM preview.

We arrived at the face paint area at 2:17 pm:

We took a minute to study the models and look at some of the descriptions. Some of these might be spoilers for things that will happen in the sequels.  The viper wolf is a big deal in Pandora. They had them in the movie, and one of the scenes in the boat ride features viper wolfs:

The Great Leonnopteryx is also featured in the movie, and shows up in FOP:

I don't know who Turuk Makato is:

Just for giggles, I googled Turk Makato, and was led to a very scary Avatar Wiki page which told me this:

A Toruk Makto is a Na'vi individual who successfully manages to ride a great leonopteryx (Na'vi name: toruk). There had only been five Toruk Maktos prior to Jake Sully, and they are spoken of with great respect and honour. Using the prestige of the position, Jake unified the Na'vi against the RDA and led them to victory in the Assault on the Tree of Souls. Toruk Makto translates as "Rider of the Last Shadow."^[1]

http://james-camerons-avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Toruk_Makto

As the kids say, TMI.  Does anyone really care?

Here's the Banshee Face Paint:

I would get my face painted for a laugh.  But $25 is a lot of money to spend for a laugh.

We moved on.

For the first time in a long time, it looked like we might get some rain.  Here's how floating mountains look on cloudy days:

One thing we noticed right away is that there were a lot more guests milling about than there were when we were here for the CM preview. Guests from prior time slots must have figured out there was no way to kick them out, so they hung around.  That makes things not as good for guests with later time slots.

We could see a lot of guests heading in to the standby queue for the river ride. The email from Disney was correct that even though it looked like we did, we did not have a FP for the river ride.  The FP queue was not open-everyone had to use the standby queue.

Which is fine.  Hopefully, we won't ever have to use the standby queue after this visit.  And the standby queue is very scenic:

The whole standby queue was not open, and we continued walking right up to the last outdoor part of it.  This intricate weaving is on display right before you enter a cave-like area that is very similar to the Mine Train queue:

The last time we were here, we were a party of 4 and they put us in our own boat, two to a row. Today, they put all four of us in one row, and there were four guests in the row in front of us.  It felt crowded, but we did fit:

I know that the boats were designed to hold 8 guests, and it is more efficient to put 8 in a boat when possible, but it is less enjoyable.  If you get a big guy in front of you, like I did, there isn't room to slide over on the bench so his big fat head doesn't block your view of the bioluminescent plants and fancy projection screens.  In the future, I think we will break up into parties of two. I hope they don't cram two unrelated parties into one bench on a boat.

I'm already on record for saying that I like the boat ride. I still do. It's well done for what it is.

It was just about 2:30 when we exited the boat ride. Time to cash in our FOP FP's!

We headed that way.

And we felt a few raindrops as we did.

That was good, we thought- we'd be inside while it rained, and hopefully it would be done when we came back out.

The last time we rode FOP, the whole experience took as an hour.  We were prepared for that or more today, and agreed that we would wait for as long as it took to get a chance to ride again.  It was our highest priority.

Well, our plans got dashed when we arrived at the FP entrance and found a CM there turning everyone away. The official message was that FOP was down, and they didn't know when or if it would be operating.  We were welcome to try back later and they would honor all FP's past the printed return times. Nuts. These ACE CM's sound a lot like Disney CM's.

To make matters worse, it started to rain, so that plan to wait out the rain in the FOP FP queue wasn't going to fly.

They were letting guests tour the FOP standby queue.  We didn't get a chance to see that last time, so we decided that now would be a good time to do that, and maybe the ride would start running by the time we got done, and we would be right here.

The FOP standby queue is interesting.

It starts out with metal guardrails and light fixtures with the ACE logo:

Hmm, those fans look like old earth technology.  You'd think there would be something more futuristic here on a planet generations in the future:

The outside part of the queue is a long, winding ramp. There is plenty to see:

After we walked a while, and got to a higher elevation, it is clear that we are now in a part of the queue that was built by the Na'vi, as the guard rails are now natural materials, and the ACE logo lamps have disappeared:

Even though Twin #1's CM friend said that there are no Hidden Mickeys in Pandora, that is not going to stop me from looking. And, look, I found one!:

As we got further into the queue, we arrived at a rocky area, and we could see that we would be entering a cave.  Then we started to see paintings on the rock walls:

You can see that there are banshees represented in those paintings.

Then we passed by some big, intricate weavings that appear to have been done by the Na'vi.  These appear to be a depiction of a banshee:

It's hard to tell where the weaving stops and natural vines begin:

One last look at the weaving as we enter the cave:

As we enter the cave, we see an image of a human hand. We know that's human because the Na'vi only have three fingers and a thumb:

As we go deeper into the cave, the paintings become more elaborate:

There are openings in the cave walls as we walk along, which help provide light and air:

More paintings, and another human handprint:

This painting shows a Na'vi on a banshee. Even though there were humans here and they had paint, we didn't see anything that may have been painted by a human:

Hey look!  A Na'vi!:

Just kidding.

It's just Twin #1.

This is a good place to take a break.

I told you it's a long queue.

TCD

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

OK, we are still in the queue.

It's amazing how long this queue is.

It easily, by far is the longest queue in all of WDW.

And it might be longer than the famously long queue for the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland.

We are still walking through the cave.

Here's another opening:

And more cave paintings.  There are lots of human handprints on this wall:

Here's something interesting-they have the same kind of Exit signs on Pandora, generations in the future, that we have today on earth.  Maybe the contractors who installed these for the Na'vis are the ones who left all of those handprints on the walls:

Just when it seemed like we might never get out of the cave, we came to a door that looked like it had been built by humans:

This is something left over from the time that the evil RDA was doing bad things here:

We stepped in to a small room. There was another airlock door on one of the other walls in this room:

The Na'vi are very thoughtful, and installed a water fountain in this room which can even fill human water bottles:

Maybe it wasn't the Na'vi who installed the fountain.  There was an ACE tank of some kind attached to a pack of some kind leaning against the wall in this room:

After this room we walked out to an area that seemed like we were back in a cave. But there were a lot of bioluminescent plants in this room. And old RDA warning and instruction signs painted on the walls:

There is a sign here telling us to watch for falling rocks.  So, I guess we are in some kind of subterranean tunnel dug by the RDA?:

But there are bioluminescent plants in here, so it may not be a man-made tunnel.  But, we came in there through that airlock door, so I am not sure what's happening now:

At the end of this stretch, we come across this sign that says we are entering the facility for the Mountain Banshee Project operated by ACE:

Right next to that sign, there is a human skull painted on the wall:

Then we walk into what is clearly a man-made hallway of some type:

The old, weathered signs on the walls are all from the RDA's time on Pandora:

After passing all of that, we find ourselves walking into some kind of banshee research laboratory:

This appears to be a modern, operating lab.  There were no workers at any of the stations, but it looks like they had just been here working on things:

The lab workers' stuff is laying around, and all of their notebooks have been left open:

There are samples, testing equipment, and notes all left out, like the workers just stepped away for a moment:

I presume that this is a banshee skull:

Just like now, somebody left notes to an intern suggesting some work that needs to be done:

There is some kind of wind tunnel display over here:

I could see another big room with switch backs through the door at the end of this room:

Then we came to a big Avatar growing in a tank. Just like they did in the movie.  Note that this Avatar has four fingers and a thumb. That's how we know it's an Avatar and not a Na'vi:

There's a sign on the all here explaining what they're doing:

This mural is on the wall in the last room in the queue before you get to the long hallways where you will wait to go in to the actual ride. I am guessing that the Na'vi and banshee images are life-size:

After this room, you come to the place where the standby and FP queues merge.  It had taken us 20 minutes to get to this point,  And that was basically walking at a normal pace, with some brief stops to take photos.  That is a long queue!

 Guess what we saw in the FP queue? 

Guests!

Coming in to ride.

FOP was back in operation.

And we had FP's.

We went around the corner, and transferred into the FP line and walked up to the CM who was taking FP's and she directed us into a corridor to wait to load on to the ride.

Sweet!

We were going to ride the banshees again.

TCD

[CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547]

How good it must be to be TCD!

That standby queue looks phenomenal.

I've read that the motion sickness potential on this ride is 10 times what it is on Soarin'.  I get sick on Soarin', so I guess I'd better skip this ride.  What do you think?

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

12 hours ago, CCIntrigue...aka Gwen said:

How good it must be to be TCD!

That standby queue looks phenomenal.

I've read that the motion sickness potential on this ride is 10 times what it is on Soarin'.  I get sick on Soarin', so I guess I'd better skip this ride.  What do you think?

You're right- it's really good to be TCD.

The standby queues for both rides are phenomenal.  But really long.  That's a sure indication that the standby waits for both attractions are anticipated to be LONG!

I will be discussing some further information about the FOP ride mechanics in the next update, which I hope to post later this morning.  Bottom line- if Soarin' causes motion sickness for you, then this is not a good ride for you.  But, I have to tell you it's an amazing ride, and I'd take some motion sickness meds and give it a try.  Seriously, it's worth it.

TCD

[Beckers 1,136]

I don't know if this is true but I'd think you need bathrooms in there!

 

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

10 minutes ago, Beckers said:

I don't know if this is true but I'd think you need bathrooms in there!

In case that IG post disappears, this is what it said:

After we rode the ride they let us walk through the stand by que, there's so much to see and the cast member said it's made for a 6 hour wait.

I don't know what to think about that comment. I already commented that it felt to me like that standby queue was by far the longest ever built at WDW.  But building it with the idea that guests will wait 6 hours to ride one ride?  I hope that's not true.  I might wait 30-45 minutes to ride a ride at WDW, but I wouldn't wait beyond that.  Not for what it costs to get into the park.

TCD

[Beckers 1,136]

How's cell reception in there? I'd like to see if someone walked as much of the line as they could to see how long it is using an app like MapMyWalk or something. Or I guess a Fitbit would work but I always feel when I'm walking slow they aren't accurate 

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Let's continue on.

That famous TCD luck worked in our favor big time for Flight of Passage.

We had walked through the standby queue with the expectation that we would be walking right back out and then finding something to do while we waited for FOP to resume running.  But, it was running right as we exited the standby queue.  Since we knew where the FP queue was, we skipped over to it, and we were directed up a ramp to one of the long hallways to wait out turn to board.  This his where we had to wait for 45 minutes for the CM preview.  And the AC wasn't working on that day, and it was a hot and unpleasant wait.

Not this time.  No sooner had we joined the line that they took 16 or so guests from the front of the line, and ushered them into the preshow rooms.  The AC was cranking in this hallway, and the line was moving.  Sweet.

The line moved very quick, and we were soon in the first pre-show room.  We had to walk up stairs this time, so we knew that we would be on an upper level of the theater.  We didn't have any steps to walk up last time.  I wonder if guests in wheelchairs will always have to ride on the lower level?

The first preshow area is strange.  Guests are requested to stand on a numbered circle, and we are "scanned," allegedly to match us to an Avatar:

Those images are actual images of the people standing on the circles. It's strange that they do this, and I wonder if it has any actual purpose.  Like if they somehow calibrate the ride vehicles based on guest size or something?

Then we are matched to our Avatars.  I am pretty sure that they don't really try to make your Avatar look like you:

I have a tidbit that was told to us by Twin #1's CM friend the last time we were here.  According to her, the image used for Avatar #6 is an Avatar version of Joe Rohde.  I think this might me true:

Take a closer look.  I see it.  But, they should have included the ear thing:

The spiel in this first pre-show room takes a while.  Then you go into a second pre-show room.  Which I think is strange.  Why?  Here, we see an animation of the ride vehicles and are told about how the restraints will automatically rise toward our backs and the backs of our legs:

The guy blocking my view of the screen was a big fellow.  I have seen lots of reports of guests not being able to ride because of not being able to fit into the space provided on the ride vehicles, and I wondered about that big guy.

I didn't notice this detail last time, but the ride vehicle rooms are actually divided in half, so there are 8 riders in each room.  As a party of 4, the CM loading us had two of us in each room. There was a party of 2 behind us, and they were put in the same room as 2 of us.  I thought it was odd that they didn't put all 4 of us in the same room.  As it ended up, there were only 4 riders in our room, and 8 in the other.  They did not make any announcement about no photography this time, so I kept my camera in my hand.  Here's a blurry shot of the ride vehicles to the right of me in the ride vehicle room.  There are 4 empty spots:

The door you see at the right of that photo is the door we used to enter this room- look at the floor.   Do you see that crack?  Remember it.

As I mentioned, there are two rooms on each theater level. There were 8 guests that walked in to the first room and just 4 in ours.  We sat down and our restraints came up.  Then we sat.  And nothing happened. A CM had walked in with us, but he was doing something that we could not see or hear in the other room.  After a few minutes, he came and checked our restraints, and then the ride began.  I'll skip ahead and tell you what we found out from the other half of our party after the ride- the restraints would not click into place for that big guy, and the CM spent a lot of time trying to make them fit, to no avail.  The guy was told he couldn't ride, and he had to leave. Then there was a much shorter woman in that room whose leg restraints would not close, and the CM told her to get up and leave without even trying to help her fit.  So, just in that group of 12 guests, 2 could not ride.  That's a big red flag to me.

Once we were all seated, the ride begins.  At first, all you see is a screen on your ride vehicle, which shows a bunch of mumbo jumbo about linking to your Avatar and banshee:

The next part is cool- lights start flashing on the console in front of you, and then on the screen in front of you, and then the wall in front of you opens somehow without being seen, and you are flying!

There's a big dive at the very beginning, and it made me realize that there was not way that ride vehicle I was sitting on moved that much.  So, I looked behind me and was shocked to see that the whole room was moving! Remember that crack I told you to remember a few photos ago? That level floor we walked in on was now split by a good two feet:

After my first ride, I was somehow convinced that all of the moving sensations on this ride were from the little ride vehicle.  I had no idea that the room itself was actually a big ride platform and that it moved. A lot.  Here's a video from one of the big blogs that shows the room moving at about the 1:06 mark:

Here's my blurry photo of the moving room, taken from the back of my banshee:

We all liked the ride the second time.

It is really cool.

I can't wait to ride it again.

All together, between the long queue walk and the actual ride, we had spent about 45 minutes on this experience.

Like last time, we exited right into the gift shop.

It was super crowed.  Way more so than for the CM previews.  The word is out that they aren't chasing guests out at the end of their time slots, so people were in here looking at all of the merchandise, and buying banshees. Oh, and it was raining out too.  It hasn't rained much in Florida for the past couple of months. But, it rained during our Pandora Passholder Preview.  Oh well, we are the first guests to experience Pandora in the rain.  The inside stuff all gets very crowded.

I suggested that we take a drink break.

The drink stand, Pongo Pongo, is right outside of the gift shop:

I hadn't paid much attention to Pongo Pongo the last time we were here.  But, Joe Rohde posted about it on Instagram:

To me, it looks like a thrown-together drink window.  But Joe shared the thought process behind it:

Narrative placemaking is not a "push" form of storytelling. You are not forced to look in any particular direction, pay attention to any particular character, or place yourself in any particular place. Instead you are free to look at anything you please, and think whatever you choose to think about it. However, whatever is there to be seen should be filled with meaningful detail, so that if you do look, and you do think about what you see, there is story, emotion, and philosophy to be absorbed. Not very different than the real world. The tiny Pongu-Pongu tiki-style walk-up bar on Pandora is such a place. Because I grew up in Hawaii, I remember tiki bars that were not retro… they were sincere. They were made by vets who had returned from World War II in the South Pacific, which ended only 10 years before I was born. The idea of people returning to peace, of taking the trash of conflict and up-cycling it into something that will be used for celebration, friendship, and fun is poignant and meaningful. The idea of the power of a creative soul to recover beauty out of destruction is important. Or. It's a great place for a tasty colorful drink. And that is true too. Only depends on how closely you look.

I wonder if Joe Rohde is some kind of alien creature?  Because the man is definitely on a whole different level than I am.

Speaking of Joe.  Did you notice the dog tags hanging on that pole under the Pongo Pongo sign?  I did last time, and even posted a photo of them. But, like Joe says, we need to look at stuff more carefully, so let's look again:

See that black one up top. Guess who?:

Yup.

That's Joe.

He's everywhere.

If I've learned anything about Imagineers, it's that there are no random details in their creations.  So, I wonder why they chose the number 15 for the AMP suit?

Is someone a Tebow fan?

Go Gata?

We got a round of drinks, and were lucky enough to find an open table in the covered area outside of the quick serve to drink them.  It was crowded under the cover, since it was raining:

I got the strawberry margarita again.  If guess there's some liquor in these things, but it can't be much:

We enjoyed our drinks, and it kept raining.  This was supposed to be an isolated shower, and we didn't have to leave at the end of our time slot, so we decided to wait it out. We were going to ride the river ride again after our drinks, but we changed that plan, and decided to head in to eat.  The restaurant was busy, with a lot of guests just parking it to stay out of the rain, but there were plenty of open tables, and we grabbed one.

We headed in to the order area.  I hadn't noticed this show kitchen last time, but there were CM's in there grilling stuff:

I was still trying to figure out what the theming of this restaurant is supposed to represent. The area where you order and pick up your food is clearly something man-made.  I think this is the abandoned RCA commissary:

The CM behind the pick-up counter chatted us up.  She asked how we liked this planet, and asked about things back on earth.  That whole thing was already getting old to me.  But, I played along, and told her we were enjoying our visit to this planet.  I asked her what this facility was that we were in, and she explained that this part we were in was a former RDA facility, and that the Na'vi then added the dining area and some museum displays about their culture for us humans to look at.  I asked her where the museum displays were, and it turned out that we had walked right past them on the way in.  After we ate, we went and looked at those displays.

But, we ate first.  Even though I really liked the rice and chicken I got last time, I decided to try something different for the sake of science.  This is beef on a bed of sweet and regular potato hash:

That was good.  And so much food!  These meals are priced at the typical quick serve meal price point, but the food quality and quantity is very good.  I recall that it was like that at the Be Our Guest restaurant when it opened, and then the prices soared and portion sizes shrunk.  I am predicting that will happen here too.  The food is unique, so they're pricing it low so guests will try it, and hopefully spread the word that it's good.  Then the beancounters will swoop in.  Watch.

We had another great meal.  I like the chicken and rice better than the beef and potato hash.  But next time I'm going to try the cheeseburger pods.  Pray for me.

After lunch, we took a look at the museum pieces the CM told me about. This reminds me of Animal Kingdom Lodge where they have artifacts and works of art on display in the hallways and public areas.   But, this is Na'vi stuff:

OK, but what I'm still not getting is why did the Na'vi do all of this, and then leave?

After lunch, it was barely drizzling outside.  It was actually a good thing.  That was better than one of the 95+ degree days we have had lately.

I took some more AMP suit photos:

I don't think I posted a photo of this entrance to the gift shop, so here you go:

This shot kind of shows where everything is in this area.  The gift shop is to the left, the bar window is behind the AMP suit, and the restrooms and the quick serve restaurant are to the right:

There was a Photopass photographer taking photos with the AMP suit as a backdrop.  We wanted to get some Photopass photos, but we found the photographers mainly hiding from the rain:

As the rain lightened up, more people started to be out and about.  Plus the next Passholder group was about to be let in, so it was starting to feel congested again:

These are beer kegs, right?  I guess they're supposed to be from the beer they serve at Pongo Pongo?:

Another #15 on the AMP suit-plus a very distinct decal.  I don't remember that being on the AMP suit that was featured so prominently in the movie, but maybe it was there.  I will look for it in the unlikely event that I ever watch the Avatar movie again:

One more look at Pongo Pongo-note they aren't real busy.  Maybe if they put some liquor in their drinks?:

From here, we went off to explore some of the outdoor areas that we skipped the last time we visited this planet. 

TCD

[TN22.....Brady 22]

Thanks for sharing this great trip, and the ride details are very much appreciated.

 

Less liquor = larger portions of food ( for now)

[wdwpoohbear...Jennifer 40]

3 hours ago, TN22.....Brady said:

Thanks for sharing this great trip, and the ride details are very much appreciated.

 

Less liquor = larger portions of food ( for now)

Smaller portions of food (later) = larger amounts of liquor (later)?

[Beckers 1,136]

Don't hate me for the source people. It's an interesting read about people not being able to ride due to their size.

 

http://www.wdwinfo.com/walt-disney-world/the-scoop-on-flight-of-passage-for-guests-who-are-of-a-certain-size/

[DaveInTN 3,247]

I'm surprised that Disney designed this ride in a way that 20% (per the experience of that blogger) not only can't ride, but are embarrassed in the process. At least come up with a test seat at the entrance of the queue or some way for people to determine whether they can ride without not only wasting potentially hours in line but being publicly humiliated.

Sent from my handheld doohickie

[Travisma 1,317]

32 minutes ago, DaveInTN said:

I'm surprised that Disney designed this ride in a way that 20% (per the experience of that blogger) not only can't ride, but are embarrassed in the process. At least come up with a test seat at the entrance of the queue or some way for people to determine whether they can ride without not only wasting potentially hours in line but being publicly humiliated.

Sent from my handheld doohickie

On a FB site, a CM told the poster that there is going to be a test seat out front, it just wasn't there yet.

Also another person posted that she is a larger sized woman and listed her various measurements.  She said the CM at the ride gave her some tips on getting comfortable, and she fit fine.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

23 hours ago, Beckers said:

How's cell reception in there? I'd like to see if someone walked as much of the line as they could to see how long it is using an app like MapMyWalk or something. Or I guess a Fitbit would work but I always feel when I'm walking slow they aren't accurate 

That's a good question.

On our first visit, when we had to wait for 45+ minutes in the hot hallway, we had no service.  No guest Wi-Fi, and no cell signals, because we were on the bottom of this huge building surrounded by all of the infrastructure that it takes to make the rides work. It was really hard for the millennials I was with to be cut off from the world like that.  The odd/frustrating thing about that is that there were several Wi-Fi networks available, but not a guest network.

On the second visit, when we practically had no wait, we had comfortable air conditioning, and a strong Disney Parks Guest Wi-Fi signal.

But, I wonder if the Wi-Fi capacity is going to be able to handle the thousands of guests waiting in that 7 hour long queue?

I think not.

18 hours ago, TN22.....Brady said:

Thanks for sharing this great trip, and the ride details are very much appreciated.

 

Less liquor = larger portions of food ( for now)

That's a good point.

But, what do you want to bet that the opposite of that equation will not be true once things get up and running at full capacity?

14 hours ago, wdwpoohbear...Jennifer said:

Smaller portions of food (later) = larger amounts of liquor (later)?

LOL.

That's great wishful thinking.

It will definitely be less food and less liquor for higher prices.  It's the Disney way.

11 hours ago, Beckers said:

Don't hate me for the source people. It's an interesting read about people not being able to ride due to their size.

http://www.wdwinfo.com/walt-disney-world/the-scoop-on-flight-of-passage-for-guests-who-are-of-a-certain-size/

Thanks for sharing that, even though I dislike the source.

I think the anecdotal experience of this woman is not enough to say that 22% of all guests will be unable to ride the ride, but that does not invalidate her points.

The first time we rode, no one was kicked out for not being able to fit.  I didn't mention this, but there was one seat in our room that had yellow tape on it indicating that it was out of commission- which is odd considering this a brand new ride.

The second time we rode, they only attempted to site 12 people on our level.  Even though there were 16 seats, they intentionally left the 4 closest to the theater wall empty.  I wonder if there is a distortion problem on the edges or top of the theater?  Of the 12 they attempted to seat, 2 didn't make it.  That's only 16%.  But, that's still too high for a brand new flagship ride.  That is definitely an issue.

1 hour ago, DaveInTN said:

I'm surprised that Disney designed this ride in a way that 20% (per the experience of that blogger) not only can't ride, but are embarrassed in the process. At least come up with a test seat at the entrance of the queue or some way for people to determine whether they can ride without not only wasting potentially hours in line but being publicly humiliated.

Good point about the humiliation. 

The blogger described her experience with a sympathetic CM.  From my experience, they have quickly lost their sympathy.  The lady who was kicked out of our ride was waiting for her party when we exited and she was clearly upset, embarrassed, and crying.  I saw no effort at guest recovery.  It was just tough luck- get out. 

Not cool Disney.

1 hour ago, Travisma said:

On a FB site, a CM told the poster that there is going to be a test seat out front, it just wasn't there yet.

Also another person posted that she is a larger sized woman and listed her various measurements.  She said the CM at the ride gave her some tips on getting comfortable, and she fit fine.

That's still a problem, and the CM's have been inconsistent on how they have handled this.

The large man on our ride was given a lot of assistance, and he could not fit.  The lady was given none, as the CM had spent so much time with the man, and was clearly frustrated, and the experience was being delayed for the whole theater, so he unceremoniously told the woman she could not ride and that she needed to go.

Not cool, Disney.

TCD

[DaveInTN 3,247]

Since humans come in a variety of shapes and sizes, I'm surprised Disney designed the seats and restraints without broader tolerances, or perhaps they could have designed a number of the seats for folks with larger statures if it would have been problematic to make all the seats able to accommodate a wider variety of sizes.  And speaking of "accommodation", is body size covered under the ADA?

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

We left with us hanging out in the area around the Windtraders gift shop, Pongo Pongo, and the quick serve restaurant.  This is also the area of the Moss Wall that you may have seen or heard about on the Instagram.  It is becoming a thing with the kids and IG moms, like the Purple Wall at the MK.  There may or may not be a photo of me in front of the moss wall.  All of this is along one edge of the new land.

Now, we are walking toward the central area, where we didn't spend any time on our first visit:

Right in the middle of all of this exotic distant planet flora, we have an old fashioned Disney fire hydrant- just like they have at the Fort:

What's real?  What's fake?:

Passholders from the 6-8 time slot were now in Pandora.  They arrived at the entrance to Flight of Passage to find that it was closed and would not be running any more that evening:

Note that there is no sign posted at the entrance of Flight of Passage informing guests that this is where the ride is.  I've heard that this was something that Joe Rohde insisted on.  He wanted guests to wander around and discover things on their own.  Noah Fence, Joe, but sometimes you're really dumb.  What's the point of having no entrance sign?  Authenticity? But then you sneak in an Avatar that looks like you, and your dog tags hanging under the Pongo Pongo sign?  And, we have regular, unthemed Exit signs and fire hydrants?

From what we heard, we were very lucky that we got to ride FOP.  The girls ran into friends who had come in for the 6-8 preview. They told them that when they arrived, they were told that they would not be able to ride FOP, but that they could have a paper FP that would be good until November, or a coupon for a free non-alcoholic drink.  Fail.

I took this photo to show that there was a construction wall right in front of the FOP ride entrance, where it looks like they are still installing a fake Na'vi weaving of a banshee. I inadvertently caught a family standing there on the left looking very bored, and wondering what to do:

This raises a good point- when FOP is down, there isn't much to do in this new land.  There's the boat ride. Which is a nice boat ride.  Then there's the gift shop, which has way more Avatar stuff than anyone could possibly want, and the grossly overpriced crappy dragon puppets.  And the drink window and quick serve restaurant. Oh, and lots of fake plants and waterfalls.  That's all there is folks.  Unless you want to pay $25 to have your face painted blue.  This could be a problem.

For now, though, we liked it, and were having fun.  I'm sure I wouldn't have enjoyed it as much if we had been told that we couldn't ride FOP at all.

There are paths and overlooks along those paths in the central area of this new land. With lots of waterfalls:

And mysterious plants:

You can walk under the floating mountains here:

Another path and more landscaping:

Guess what they have on Pandora that I haven't mentioned?

Those Wilderness Guides like they have all around the Animal Kingdom theme park.  They even have the same earth umbrellas and costumes that they use in Animal Kingdom!:

Now what in the name of Joe Rohde is that guy doing here on Pandora?

He was teaching those folks about buzzards, which are a species of bird on earth.

But why tho?

I thought we are supposed to be on a distant planet generations in the future.  Heck, they don't even have Disney bags in the gift shop.

But here we have Skip with a regular Disney name tag and costume?

How does that make any sense?

Around the corner from Skip, there was a pool of water where some fake looking Pandorean snails will spit at the guests:

There's a warning sign here about watching out for the spit, but nothing telling us what these big hunks of plastic are supposed to be or why they're spitting. Joe wants us to figure that out for ourselves?  Maybe they could put Skip over here, and he could explain things?:

I tried to get a photo of the spitting snail, but he was too quick for me.  Imagine a stream of water shooting up here, just like they have in the water play areas around the parks.  It's like that.  Very unique and imaginative:

The spitting snails seem to be a hit with the guests- that guy took a selfie with them for Pete's sake:

Wait a minute.

Do you see something over there towering over the roof of the quick serve restaurant in the background of that last photo?

Look what they have on Pandora!  Cell phone towers that look like fake trees!  Just like back on earth!:

Even though none of us had to go, we decided to stop by and take a look at the restrooms on the entrance side of the new land.  Twin #1's CM friend told her that this restroom building was the only structure that remains in this new land from when it was Camp Minnie Mickey.  I have since checked that fact via aerial photos, and that is true.  They have obviously re-themed the building.  It's supposed to be an old RDA decontamination facility.  We can deduce that from the old signs posted outside:

I did not go in to the men's room.  I had visited the new men's room outside of the new quick serve on the other side of the new land, and despite it being brand new, it obviously has very poor ventilation, as they could have used a decontamination facility over there.  I just wasn't up for having to smell that really bad men's room smell again.  You would think they would have figured out a solution to that problem on this foreign planet generations in the future.  But no.

There is a path that runs along the side of the restrooms that I explored.  It didn't have a Castmember only sign posted, but it did at the end of the path:

This might be a good place to escape from the crowds that will be invading this area in a week and a half:

This open area is where you arrive after the entry path into Pandora.  It's where you get your first clear view of the floating mountains.  It was easy to move around here today, but I think it will be wall to wall people when Pandora opens to the masses:

I guess someone overrode Joe's no sign policy for the restrooms:

Hey, look, the custodians on Pandora use the same smelly plastic Rubbermaid carts that the custodians on earth use:

So, let's review. We can't have signs for the ride entrances.  We can't have Hidden Mickeys.  We can't have Disney World bags in the gift shop.  We are on a foreign planet, and that is all earth stuff.  But, we can have Exit signs, fire hydrants, Hidden Joe Rohdes, Skip the Wilderness Guide, and Rubbermaid trash carts. 

Got it.  Must make perfect sense to Joe Rohde.  If I can't reconcile those inconsistencies, its on me.  He's the smartest guy in the room.

These chains create some kind of queue along the side of the entrance path.  We couldn't figure out why.  There must be some kind of photo op planned for this area:

Here's one more look at the old/new Pandora restrooms:

When we had entered Pandora for both of our previews, we walked straight past a feature that we came back here to see.  It's some kind of big plant, and it's interactive.  A CM was there telling guests to hit on the plant to make it angry, and that it would then spew out acid.  That didn't sound right.  Is there such a thing as plant abuse? I guess this mist is the acid:

You can see Twin #1 and her friend over there on the right trying to get the plant mad:

I have a feeling Joe Rohde's wouldn't approve of this CM encouraging guests to beat on that fake plant.

There's a lot of fake moss growing on all of the fake rocks in Pandora. I thought maybe I'd see a Hidden Mickey or Hidden Joe Rohde in this colorful fake moss, but I guess not:

The stream that runs along the back of the big fake acid spewing plant looks like the same stream where Donald and his nephews could be seen on the way in and out of Camp Minnie Mickey.  But, they're gone now.  Instead, we have colorful plastic clams and things:

It's all very pretty to look at.

Supposedly, it's going to be better at night.

Next, we will head over and check out the drum circle.

And then take another ride on the river.

Then we will head out.

And then I can tell you about who we ran into on the way out.

And share details about the extensive survey I was asked to take.

So don't go away.

TCD