Day 1
Animal Kingdom is composed of the Oasis, Pandora- The World of Avatar, Dinoland USA, Discovery Island, Asia, and Africa.
Pandora- The World of Avatar
Avatar- The flight of Passage
This is the newest attraction in Animal Kingdom. The main ride here is ‘Avatar Flight of the Passage’ and the wait is long. This is probably the first fast pass you should try to reserve if you have them. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to so headed there first when we arrived at AK. The park offically opens at 9am, but they start letting people in much earlier (from 8am). We still had to queue for 1.5 hours though! The ride is fun and one of the more exhilarating ones at Disney!
Na’vi River Journey
This is another popular ride in this section. You ride on a boat and travel through Pandora. The queue for this was pretty long, we waited around 70 minutes. As a ride, it’s quite boring. The visual aspects are really good, but that’s it. We only waited as we had time in between our fast passes. If you don’t have much time or if the queues are very long, I wouldn’t bother.
Asia
Expedition Everest
One of the best rides at Animal Kingdom is Expedition Everest which is more of a traditional roller coaster. It’s not the fastest or the highest, but it still provides plenty of thrills. It is worth trying to reserve a fast pass on this ride as the queues for this do tend to get quite long, especially towards the afternoon.
Kali River Rapids
A day at the theme park wouldn’t be complete without a water ride. These are like any other rapid rides, but without the splash or the thrill. You do get a little wet here and there, but overall it’s quite tame.
Africa
Kilimanjaro Safaris
This is a nice attraction, especially for families. If you have never been on safari before, it is really cool and you do get to see a wide assortment of animals. We even managed to see a sleeping leopard (which we didn’t see in Africa). You can also do a night safari, which provides a better chance to see lions and other big cats.
Gorilla Falls Exploration Trail
This is a self-guided walking attraction where you can see many different animals including gorillas, chimpanzees, and okapis.
Dinoland USA
Primeval Whirl
This is a cute little rollercoaster ride, which caters more for the younger clientele. Nevertheless, it is fun and we did enjoy this ride. We managed to fast pass this too so we didn’t have to wait long for it.
Dinosaur
This is an indoor roller coaster ride. It’s quite an old ride, but still pretty enjoyable. The premise of this is quite cool.
Finding Nemo- The musical
An abridged version of the film. This is really well done and impressive as they manage to condense the whole film into 45 minutes. The set/characters were well done and this was a very good crowd pleaser.
Discovery Island
It’s tough to be a bug!
This is another older attraction, but still one of my favorites. It’s a 3D movie style show with the characters from ‘It’s a Bug’s Life”. It is really well made and a general crowd pleaser. It’s also indoors so it’s nice to sit and utilise the air con!
Overall AK has improved quite a lot since we last went as young whippersnappers. They have added quite a few more rides as before it was more of a Zoo and less of a theme park.