Pupletts in Sweden: USA - Disney World, Ohio & Saginaw (July 1-16) part 1

As I mentioned in the last post, we arrived late in Florida after several delays and arrived at our Disney hotel - Port Orleans Resort quite late. We had selected the meal plan for each day of our visit, so we set up our room and then headed out to get some dinner. After that we headed to bed so we were ready for the parks the next day.

This time we were only going to do the Disney Parks (not the Universal Parks like last time). This was purely a financial and time decision as we had really enjoyed Universal.

Our park visit plan was:
Monday 2nd - Animal Kingdom & EPCOT
Tuesday 3rd - Hollywood Studios & Magic Kingdom
Wednesday 4th - Disney Springs & Magic Kingdom
Thursday 5th - Animal Kingdom & EPCOT
Friday 6th - Hollywood Studios

As always it was ridiculously hot and humid (38-40 degrees and 95% humidity), but after a big rain storm on Thursday, the weather became a bit milder. It was also really crowded due to Independence Day (4th July), which meant that the line for rides was really long. In the end we mostly rode the rides that we had set up Fast Pass for.

We didn't take as many photos this time, as we had lots of shots from the first trip, but there was some new areas and cool Memory Maker Professional shots.

Our accommodation was in the Port Orleans Resort - Riverside, which was located in the Disney complex:

Port Orleans Resort - Riverside

Our first park on Monday was Animal Kingdom. We'd planned to start pretty early, but we were tired from the late night, and got to the park around 9:30. It was about 37 degrees and 90% humidity, so it was a hot one. The pictures below are a mix of our two trips to Animal Kingdom.

On the bus to Animal Kingdom

Animal Kingdom

The Tree of Life

View from outside in 2016

There was a new attraction in Animal Kingdom - Pandora, the world from Avatar. We had seen it being constructed when we visited in 2016, but had no idea what it was going to be:

Pandora opened up two new rides - the Na'vi River Journey, a slow boat ride through a themed world and the Avatar Flight of Passage, a 3D motion ride where you ride a Banshee through Pandora. The lines for both were pretty bad, but we managed to get a Fast Pass on the Na'vi ride. The Flight of Passage was booked out before we even got the option to add Fast Pass and the line was always about 180 minutes. Eventually we managed to get on the Flight of Passage on the 5th of July (while the big firework show was on at Magic Kingdom). The line had dropped to 2 hours, but it was a long wait.

Entering the Valley

Heading into Mo'ara Valley

Strange plant that spat mist

The floating islands over the crowd

Posing by the Pandora Utility Suit

A talk from a Pandora Utility Suit operator

Entering the Flight of Passage ride

The next few photos show the themeing in the line for the Flight of Passage ride. The queue starts outside and works its way up the mountain and then inside into a cave. You then move through an abandoned facility with warning signs and plants and then into a science lab and finally into the ride area itself.


Gardens outside the ride at night time

The Na'avi River ride was themed as a journey to find a Shaman of Songs. It was a dark ride with music and lots of glow in the dark plants and animations. The most impressive things were the amazing animatronic Shaman at the end that moves so fluidly and some of the effects, like those of frogs jumping on the leaves above the river.

My video didn't turn out too well because of how dark it was, but there are full videos of the ride on youtube.(Na'avi River Journey video).

The Avatar Flight of Passage was amazing, the video was super crisp and the ride had you mount a motorbike like saddle which simulated the movement of the Banshee, including the pulsing of breath. Here's a youtube video of the ride: (Avatar Flight of Passage).

We also visited the rest of Animal Kingdom, getting our photo taken with some of the Ducktales characters, riding the Dino ride and our favourite Expedition Everest. I had a pretty decent fall when I clipped the back of Camerons shoe and ended up doing an epic sprawl in the middle of dinosaur kingdom.

Welcome to Dinosaur Land

Looking down the Kali River Rapids

Who wouldn't like an adventure up a great bird...

One of our secret Mickeys - the bubbles on the Coke cups

Parrot

Cam being eaten at the Rainforest Cafe

Posing with the Rainforest frog

Cam and the frog on their first date

The double-sided frog made it so the frog was always looking at you, but made it freaky from the side

The van from the Kilimanjaro Safari

Looking out over the river towards Mount Everest

Here's a few of our professional photos from Animal Kingdom:

Flying with Launchpad McQuack

Launchpad McQuack

Outside the Harambe Africa area

Scared of the hyenas

On the bridge overlooking Mt Everest

In the Africa area overlooking the lake

Tree of Life

Representing Sweden at the Tree of Life

Falling leaves

Happy 4th of July!

Meeting Daisy Duck. Tomas wanted to wait for her to go so he could get a photo with the dinosaur

On the Dinosaur ride

Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of Animal Kingdom

20 Years of Animal Kingdom

Mount Everest

Pretending to sleep (except for me being a Vampire) on Expedition Everest

Posing by the plant in Pandora

Floating islands in Pandora

Meeting Scrooge McDuck (or Farbror Joakim von Anka as he is called in Sweden)

At Everest

Tree of Life at night

With the Animal Kingdom Frame

After Animal Kingdom, we returned to the hotel for a change of clothes, shower and swim, and then headed out to Hollywood Studios.

There was a new Toy Story Land at Hollywood studios, that had opened only a few days early, but it was so crowded we avoided it on the first day. We came back on our 2nd-to-last day and went on one of the rides - Toy Story Mania - which was a 3D shooting gallery ride. The wait was about an hour. There was also a new rollercoaster - Slinky Dog Dash, but that had a 3 hour wait the whole time, so we never bothered with it.

Here's our photos from both trips to Hollywood Studios: