Avatar: Flight of Passage. Animal Kingdom’s most popular ride, and for a VERY good reason. That’s an actual picture of me, btw, or at least how I felt.
In Avatar: Flight of Passage, we’d be strapped into what looked like bikes but what were, in reality, saddles for riding Banshees!
At my old age, it’s hard to actually surprise me.
People doing stupid things? (I have a whole top 10 from Disney World coming up), but those things hardly raise an eyebrow. Something amazing invented? Well, of course, it’s the age we live in. A twist in a movie? Ack, I saw that coming in act 1.
But the Disney World’s Pandora area surprised me.
We arrived back at the Animal Kingdom Theme Park at about 4:30, rested, good mood restored and ready for some fun in the evening. Having a Fastpass for Avatar for 5pm, we raced to Pandora.
From the moment we stepped into Pandora, I felt like I’d gone to a different world.
It started with a great mountain surrounded by floating islands. Floating islands! So cool.
Then, as we marched to the ride, I saw they had a show with the Pandora Utility Suit (pic here.) The man inside the towering exoskeleton put on a decent show, though, weirdly, I was the only one who ran to see it. The rest of the family waited patiently with their magic bands for the 5pm Fastpass appointment while I got my nerd on.
Ah, the details! Look at the plants on the walls, the cracks on the floor, the rust on the barrel, the dirt on the storage case.
Once inside the mountain, a ton of details, big and small, made it seem like were inside an underground complex from a different world.
From the scuffed paint on the floor to the doors that whooshed open to the posters on the walls, the attention to detail was epic.
Yes, I said it, epic.
And when we were led from the waiting area into the ride, we didn’t just jump on the scooter thingee, no, we found ourselves in a decontamination room. A person appeared on the screen and explained what would happen, and why we had to do this whole avatar thing.
They scanned us (but didn’t probe us, thankfully – that’s a whole different and somewhat uncomfortable experience), decontaminated us (complete with 4D puffs of air), analyzed our DNA, and then we were assigned Avatars. Mine looked like he’d walked into a wall a whole bunch of times, but whatever, it was different from all the other avatars.
It was fantastic.
And it was genius.
See, the time we spent outside looking at the bulbous, alien plants, or me pointing out how even the guard rails were all Pandora-ish (which, spoiler alert, no one really cared about), to the organic-looking drums the boys drummed, to the decontamination room, it all built up the expectation.
A spooky, hulking plant, but look at all the details around it. They really out-did themselves in the Avatar-themed part of Animal Kingdom
They created a world (and a ride) better than anything else in Disney World. Not entirely unique, as Star Tours still had that feeling, but it’s like they took all the best things they learned and applied it here, in Pandora.
I won’t lie, I became like The-Youngest, giddy and as excited as a boy on his first date.
Then the door leading out of the decontamination room whooshed open and, like good Canadians, we followed directions, put our packs away, sat on our bikes, and strapped in.
But ‘strapped in’ isn’t the right term. As we gripped the handlebars, braces were placed against our backs and sides. It was oddly snuggly.
Like good Canadians, we put on our magical glasses and waited.
Then the bikes began to vibrate. Right on our tummies and backs where the braces had been placed.
We waited for the doors in front of us to open. My heart drummed inside my chest.
What would the actual ride be like?
The Boyz get ready to ride the Expedition Everest Rollercoaster
I had thought that our first day at the Magic Kingdom would be our toughest. We’d be jet-lagged, we hadn’t figured out how things worked, and we had no idea how the weather would affect us.
But I was wrong. It would be the day we spent at Disney World’s Animal Kingdom.
A day that almost became a disaster.
We actually managed to arrive at Disney World’s Animal Kingdom in time for the ‘rope drop’ (opening time) and made our way to our first ride. We had 3 booked for today. Expedition Everest at 9:10. Kilimanjaro Safari at 10:20. Avatar: Flight of Passage at 5:00.
So, first up, the Expedition Everest rollercoaster which had terrified me when I’d gone on it in my Joe 1.0 life. Now, older, a lot wiser, a lot less comfortable with plummeting 10,000 feet, I had zero desire to risk a heart attack, complete paralyzation or listening to myself scream like a little girl. So, The-Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World and I stayed behind.
The Boyz, however, were super keen to test it out.
They soon found out that this ride was not for the faint of heart. The-Oldest had to shut his eyes as it tore downwards like a rocket plunging to earth, and while The-Youngest said he had fun, he declined to go on it, again. Ever. Like never, again. That Yeti had really terrified him.
Still… First ride: A success, I say, a success!
However, by 9:30, it was already getting hot and humid, and morale began to plunge like the stock market during a trade-war with China. Yesterday’s crazy day of theme-parking and a night of little sleep had left us all weary.
Hoping to shift the mood, I talked the boys into doing the Kali Rapids (since it would get them wet and cool), while we adults chose a nice, dry bench in the shade.
The rapids weren’t that great, according to The-Youngest, but they did get SOAKED with a capital WET.
But by the time we reached the Kilimanjaro Safari ride, grumpiness was settling in like a spaghetti stain on a good dress shirt.
There’ll be lions, I said. Giraffes. Elephants. Hippies. Unicorns.
But the best I got was a shrug and a look that said I’d rather be sleeping (The-Youngest) or playing the piano (The-Oldest).
The safari wasn’t quite like the San Diego Safari, this was a large zoo, somewhat like the Calgary Zoo, but with only the most popular animals on display, (yes, I’m sure there was a survey done and those poor, ugly warthogs were left out.)
Lots of pictures here!
No matter. I loved seeing the animals, I won’t lie. The giraffes were magnificently elegant. The lions were sleepy but cute. The rhinos were content that no one was trying to murder them for their horns.
Crocodiles lurked menacingly in the water. The boy elephants play-fought each other for fun. And the hippos submerged themselves waiting for a moment when you thought they looked cute and wanted to pet them, then they’d bite your freaking arm off. Those buggers kill more people in Africa than any other animal due to them being complete assholes.
Vids here.
As well, the tour guide was lovely, if very scripted, but the real bonus was that we could do this ride sitting down.
Tired and hot, by 11, the boys were done, so it was time to implement the NEW PLAN
Sadly, though, the animals didn’t raise the spirits of the Boyz so we went in search of food. Food usually perks them up. A bit.
I found the Dole Pineapple Whip counter which made my day since it was on my Disney Bucket List. I had mine without rum. Maybe a mistake. It was still very yummy, even if it melted all over my hands and I became that sticky, chubby kid everyone hates.
The-Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World had a dole float, which was far less messy and (surprisingly) she also had hers without alcohol. The boys, being now thoroughly in a bad mood, refused any food. They grumped at each other, at the weather, and at the food. Everything became either boring or stupid.
Oh oh.
Time to put our brilliant new plan into effect. Time to head home. Time to rest in a nice AC room. Or float in a pool. Then head back to do Avatar, maybe get some food, or maybe even see the River of Light show.
But when we got back, we found something even more fun! The arcade was open and it was free!!! (we had no idea why but weren’t going to look a gift-arcade in the coin-slot), so the Boyz played Guitar Band, raced motorcycles and zapped aliens, forgetting how grumpy they’d been.
While the boyz played, I caught up on my writing at the Pop Century cafeteria, and the Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World got to spend some boy-less time alone, meditating and thinking girl thoughts.
For the moment, everyone was happy.
But would it stay that way? Would the rest of our trip to Disney World’s Animal Kingdom be doomed?
As always, thanks for reading about our adventures! Please like or follow for updates.
Welcome to the Amazing Disney World
Ok, in theory, every post I’ve done on my website, HERE, should have gone to all the people who follow my blog on this site.
It didn’t.
So, first off, I’m sorry for the technical errors.
The quick reason is that I’m old and learning new stuff is hard.
The longer version is that my blog theme is so customized that it screws up MailChimp and I have failed to fix that error (mostly because I need to figure out how to recode the site).
However, I want to catch everyone up, so below are the links to the blogs I’ve posted – in case anyone wants to see what happened on our wacky adventures.
First up, Day 1, The arrival at Orlando, (plus the trip to our resort in Disney World.) Spoiler alert, there’s a great video in there. Find it here
Next, Day 2, the first day in the Magic Kingdom – when all our hopes were high. Here.
Day 2 – The Realities of Disney World in the Summer. Our epic adventure continues here, as we struggle with heat, humidity, and crowds. Here.
Day 2 – Some Lessons are Learned. Here. Anyone going to Disney World needs to read this. We goofed up some things in an epic way. But, as I’ve always said, when things go wrong, it makes for a better story.
Magic Kingdom – 10 Fails on the First day. Oh, I know, there were things we should have known about before we left. Find out what the fails were HERE.
Well, we survived the first day. Sort of.
Day 3 – Animal Kingdom. Find out what our new plan was HERE.
And now you’re up to date!
Also, I’ve found a workaround for posting here, so all the next blogs will be mirrored here if you’re following me via wordpress.
The next one will be tonight, Aug 17th, around 8pm
In the meantime, here is something special for your troubles. A music video of sorts, from the Animal Kingdom Park in Disney World.
All bags packed and ready to go to Disney World and Universal theme parks, Orlando Florida
The Beginning of the Start
We had to get up very early to catch our flight to Disney World and Universal Theme Parks.
Like 3 am early.
We wanted to have plenty of time in case things went wrong.
Things always go wrong on every vacation. Not always big things, like forgetting a passport or no place to buy coffee, but small things: Misspelled names on tickets. Luggage weighing too much. Kleenex forgotten. No charger cords for iphones (ok, that’s a HUGE thing!)
So it’s good to have some extra time to deal with any random events, and since our flight boarded at 5:45, leaving by 4 seemed about right.
To my utter amazement, the previous night, the boyz had showered, one of them shaved, and were both in bed before 10pm.
I’m pretty sure it’s one of the signs of the apocalypse.
Being in bed that early would give them a solid 4 hours sleep. Not enough, but way better than getting just 1 or 2 hours sleep.
Then, again to my utter surprise, both boyz got up on time. No dragging them out of bed. No shouting. No use of water cannons. We did the final packing: Electronics. Chargers. CPAP machine. 40 bottles of meds, supplements, and vitamins. Some pharmacies are not as well-stocked as we were.
By 3:45, we were all ready to go. Again, shocking. I was pretty sure I was dreaming.
We packed up, set the alarm, made sure the stove, iron and nuclear reactor were turned off, then stuffed all the luggage into the car. Vegas-the-dog had been dropped off at her spa, yesterday.
So far, so good,
We left just a little after 4.
I won’t lie, I was a little anxious. Not about the drive, that was simple enough, but about all the things that could go wrong.
All stupid stuff, but at 4am, yeah, the panic is real.
In my other life, I honestly didn’t worry about any of this. It was just me and Margot. But with the boys and a very tight schedule, any major failure could mean a disastrous vacation. I’m not sure if it’s an old age thing, that you worry a lot more, or a parenting thing. Or both. Or lack of booze.
But we arrived at the parking lot without any problems, The-Youngest talking for the entire ride, excited and sleep-deprived, which caused one of The-Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World’s eyes to twitch, which was a bit of a concern.
The price to park cost an arm and a leg but it was efficient, secure and easy, except the pay machine wouldn’t recognize when The-Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World tried to use the touch-screen buttons. She said it was because she had no soul this early in the morning.
Inside the terminal, we hit our first hiccough.
Yes, the online check-in worked, but the kiosks where you needed to print up the tags did not work. Gack!
We had to get in line for an assistant like the other 200 people. It was too bad, too, because up to that point, Air Canada had been awesome. Awesome when I called them. Awesome with their online stuff, but at the last moment, that fleeting instant when they could have had a clean sweep of awesome, they failed with the kiosk.
But remember. We’d arrived early, so even that lineup, even the line-up at security and even the line up at the café on the other side of the check-point didn’t cause us to miss the flight or even panic about missing the flight.
We boarded the flight, ready for a great adventure in Disney World and Universal Theme Parks!
But in the back of my mind, I still wondered what would go wrong?
Together, Disney World and Universal Studios, have more rides, more cool restaurants and more exciting things to do than any place on the planet.
Want a donut the size of your head? Yup, they’ve got that. Want to ride up a mountain and come down with a splash? Yup, they’ve got that. Want to get a wizarding wand and wander around Diagon Alley and cast spells, oh yessireeeee, they have that! OMG! OMG! OMG!
Sorry Nerd attack there. Lemme take a moment.
Ok, doing Disney World and Universal in a week would be hard, if not impossible so we had to make a plan.
Me? I LOVE planning. Oh sure, I know most planning goes to hell as soon as you arrive, but part of the fun of going to Disney World is finding out what’s cool, thinking about it a lot, then going and doing it.
The-Youngest is with me on this. In fact, he’s far keener on the whole planning thing than me and ended up doing a ton of research on the rides.
He would become our official tour guide.
First I booked the flight. Holy hell, that was expensive, but I kept telling myself, trip of a lifetime, trip of a lifetime, trip of a lifetime.
Then, perhaps not surprisingly, I became overwhelmed with all the choices, the deals, the Fastpass system, the early openings, the meal plans and booking events.
So, I decided to find a good Disney World agent.
Being me, I did my research and found a great person. Her name is Alyssa and she works for Mouseketrips.com.
I can’t say enough about her. She’s been there a ton of times and knows the ins and outs. Plus, she LOVES Disney World so she’s genuinely excited for us to become Mouseketeers or whatever they’re called these days.
Then, we had to figure out what fast passes to book. Since we decided to stay at a Disney Resort, we could get our fast passes 60 days out! The fast pass allows us to bypass lines and feel super special. But we could only book 3 rides in each park, so we had to choose wisely. Plus, even at 60 days, some of the rides were already taken by annual pass holders or worshipers of Satan.
So we watched every Youtube video we could find, The-Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World brought home books from the library, and I read blogs like Disneymoms.com and hotrussianbrides, the latter of which (perhaps not to anyone’s surprise) had a complete lack of information of Disneyworld.
Having gathered a ton of information (and a few requests from the Russian brides for marriage), we had a family meeting about what to do in Disneyworld, and did what all families do – We compromised so everyone was vaguely unhappy.
To find out what we chose, check out the next post.
The last thing we had to do was find out what HAD to be done in each park.
Booking the Fast Passes was not enough. We booked a restaurant. We looked up what quick-service places to visit. We figured out how long it takes to get from point Mickey to point Minny.
Now, we couldn’t plan every minute, (sadly) but we did have an idea what would be nice to do given the limited time. I mean, if we miss the tea-cups, not a big deal, If we miss the Haunted Mansion, (which we couldn’t book a Fastpass for), then that would be, you know, a thing.
With our plan made, we were good to go.
Oh, sure, there’d be clothes that needed buying (I wanted to do the Don-Johnson-Miami-Vice look), but we’d organized as best as we could!
Bring on that donut the size of my head!
Check out the links for more help. 🙂 And a neat checklist from Lil Luna below.
What to Pack (really an outstanding site for a whole bunch of plannin’.) 
Disney World in Orlando Florida. Our destination
So, why go to Disneyworld? Why Walt’s Wonderland? Why the Magic Kingdom? Why not the equally exciting city of Calgary? Or camping in the mosquito-infested forests of BC? Why even go anywhere?
Simple. But maybe not what you think.
See? Time is running out. The-Oldest graduates next year, and The-Youngest will (all too soon) be a YouTube billionaire, software engineer, mountain bike professional or plumber (depending on the day he’s planning this out).
So, we wanted to take advantage of a week’s vacation and go someplace amazing.
Calgary and camping don’t quite fit the bill.
Sooooooo…Disney World. Florida.
And, although there are other amazing places to go (NY comes to mind, maybe the Amalfi Coast in Italy, maybe Mars), Disney World was one place we could all agree upon.
To be fair, it’s not just Disney World. It’s a trip to see Disney AND see Universal Studios AND, maybe, just maybe, take a ride out to see the Kennedy Space Museum.
All in 8 days, including a flight.
That’s no small task.
Seems there’s a lot to see and do in Disney World (and Universal). Seems there are, like, 4 theme parks in Disney World, and in Universal, 2 parks plus a waterpark. Doing the math, we’d need 7 days, plus 1 for looking at rockets, plus 2 days for travel. That’s ahhh, lemme do the math in my head, ah, carry the two, invert pi, and, yeah, that’s 10 days.
And we have 8.
So how would we do that? How could we design a vacation that wasn’t a stresscation where we ran around desperately trying to see everything, probably literally running from ride to ride?
We would have to compromise. The simple truth was, we couldn’t see or do everything. So we began to look at what was important.
It’s why Disney World and Universal were the go-to vacation locations. The boys had already been to Disneyworld and, long, long ago, Legoland. I wrote a ton about that vacation. There was so much to see and do.
I mean, just look at what Disney World has to offer.
Rides like Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Avatar’s Flight of Passage, a Tower of Terror, a Haunted Mansion, a ride soaring above spectacular scenery, safaris, loads of Disney characters wandering around, parades, fireworks, shops that sell authentic Dug backpacks from Up.
Then there’s eating a donut the size of your head, tasting the oddly popular dole whip, or munching on a huge pretzel in the shape of Mickey’s head.
So, we came up with a plan. A basic plan to be sure, (that’ll be the next post), but a plan nevertheless.
All we had to do was figure out what was important to us. What did we HAVE TO see and do?
The-Youngest had a LOT of opinions. Even The-Oldest, after trying his teenage best to pretend this wasn’t going to be fun, had a few ideas. Both The-Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World and I had ideas as well, but let’s face it, this was a trip for the boyz and we wanted to make sure they had the BEST time ever.
More to come!
As always, thanks for reading this. Below is a neat video on planning a Disney World Trip. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR94x19RnEU
This is my first blog in a while, but it’s also the first on my new website. The site is still a work in progress, but I hope you check out everything there, sign up for the super exciting newsletters, and share the post if you like it. Any comments and feedback would be greatly appreciated. 🙂
Alberta – Did you know Alberta hosts an annual testicle festival?
The Great Alberta Adventure – Day -1
Why? Why Alberta?
Being on-call for work, the Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World can’t get a ton of time off, but this year, she managed to get nearly a week. Not quite a whole week, but 6 days. Hard to do Europe in 6 days. Hard to even do Disney World in 6 days. Or Hawaii.
So we planned to see a place the boys had never been. Alberta.
Not as many leaning towers there. No spectacular seaside resorts. No cities with gangster tours. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t things to see.
First and foremost, many of our peeps are out that way. The-Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World’s parents live in Oliver and Osoyoos, and her bestest bestie had settled in Stony Plain (near Edmonton), which (coming from Calgary) is like someone choosing to live in a smelly basement rather than a penthouse suite. I mean, who could really like Edmonton? It’s either too hot or too cold. There are far too many mosquitoes, and their hockey team cheats. A lot. And looks funny.
The road to Alberta lies this way ->
But aside from Edmonton, we’ll see the incredible Rockies, Drumheller with all its dinosaurs, the Calgary Zoo, the various monuments erected to celebrate my years in Calgary, and up north, near the polar bears and Santa’s hut, Edmonton’s famous mall.
Anyway, so, yeah, lots of reasons to head east.
And all doable in 6 days.
No planes, no trains, just one automobile. 30 hours driving, all told.
So a plan was made by the Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World and me, a balance between play-it-by-ear and making sure we have a place to stay each night.
I think we arrived at a good balance. No specific times, like at 8:24 we get up, peeing will happen from 8:24-8:27, handwashing from 8:27-8:28, then getting dressed from 8:28… nor nothing too generalized – like we’ll drive until we find something then do something then do something different and then come home.
We tried to lock down the key things, like the Calgary Zoo and since we have to actually book an appointment to see his majesty the panda, we had to be at the panda pavilion at 3:45, but what time we actually arrive at the zoo, well, we’ll play it by ear.
As well, we booked all our hotels so we wouldn’t have to search for a place to stay at the last minute. We could park our bags, take a nap, check out FB, Twitter, Instagram, youtube, and all things internetie, and chillax at the pool while deciding what’s most important.
The Rockies, the prairies, Drumheller, Calgary, Edmonton… there’s a lot to see
But no sooner had we made our generalized plan than The-Youngest took over. The oldest, even right now, still doesn’t quite know what we’re doing even though we’ve told him 10 times, spent an evening showing him our plans on a map and even made a colorful file
folder he could consult at any time.
But The-Youngest, well, bless him, he loves to plan. It’s part of the trip for him. It’s the anticipation. It’s ‘see what others have done.’ It’s imagining himself doing all sorts of cool things.
So, come read the next post and see how an 11-year-old mind works.
How much do you plan for your adventures?
Mother’s Day
In honor of Mother’s Day ..
10 Words I want to see in the English Language.
‘Mommage’ is doing everything.
hard or carrying all the weight. “Wow, that’s some serious mommage there.”
What happens when a mom hears someone’s hurting her child
Momminator – that which the mom turns into when someone has hurt their child.
For me, I lost my mom a long time, ago. Before I could tell her how right she’d been, before I could thank her for all that she gave up for me and my brother, before I could apologize for all the times I made her angry or made her cry.
I miss you mom.
Missing my mom
I Have A Dream
I have a dream
Like Martin Luther King Jr, I too have a dream. Nothing as grand as his. Mine is a lot smaller and far, far less likely to happen.
I have a dream that toilet paper will be replaced when the last roll is used up, that no one will leave one sheet on the roll hoping someone else will use that one sheet and then replace the roll.
I have a dream that I can find scissors in the office supplies drawer when we have 40 of them in the house. Somewhere.
I have a dream that bread will be thrown out when the crust part is reached. I get that no one wants the crust, but why keep 10 packages of ‘only crusts’ hanging around. Why? Whyyyyyy?
I have a dream that the butter dish will be refilled when there is only enough to butter a mouse’s crumb. How can this be so hard?
I have a dream.
I have a dream that the dog will get fed without asking, though to be fair, the dog has the same dream as well.
I have a dream that the dishwasher will be emptied when the dishwasher has finished washing dishes – Or at least within 12 hours of it finishing – and that the difference between a dishwasher full of clean dishes and one full of dirty, disgusting, caked-on egg dishes will be recognized.
I have a dream that all school forms will be delivered to the parents without us finding them scrunched up in their backpack and soaked with something I’m scared to touch.
I have a dream that things not get lost within 24 hours of buying them. This, sadly, mostly applies to me.
I have a dream.
bathroom flooded
I have a dream of walking into the bathroom after the boys have had a bath or shower and not stepping into a cold puddle the size of Lake Erie.
I have a dream that one day, all children will have children exactly like themselves so they may experience the joys of parenthood as we have experienced them. (Honestly, this is both a good and bad thing.)
In other words, I have a dream that so much more will be done without asking, nagging, prodding, yelling, begging, bribing or threatening the removal of electronics for a thousand years.
I have a dream.
But for those of you who might want the real speech for MLK, here it is below. One of the great speeches of all time. It still sends shivers up my spine.
About A Stepdad 