We were up early again this morning to return to Animal Kingdom to try and mop up some of the things we didn’t manage to do last time. The park opened for the general public at 8am, for resort guests at 0730. We got there around 730 and progressed in as far as we could before they held us till 8am. Then, we scurried along to get to the Pandora area so that we could get on the Avatar: Rite of Passage ride. This is an amazing amazing ride that we last experienced in 2017 when it was relatively new. It’s a 3D virtual experience ride with a bit of pre-show. You sit on chairs that are a bit like the front of a motorbike in front of a gigantic wrap around screen and you wear 3D glasses. The bikes lift off the ground and tilt and move and the screen in front makes it appear as though you are riding on the back of a banshee and you fly through the world of Pandora, diving down into the rainforest, over the sea with giant whales, through dense forest, along the curl of a great wave….. It feels as though you are really doing it, you would swear that you were dropping from great height at times, and soaring at others…. the cinematography is beautiful and it is a most enjoyable, thrilling if slightly queasy experience. Very intense.
After that we went on the Na’vi River Journey again. It’s so beautiful in there but the whole of the Pandora area is. Just lovely. We will go back one evening to experience it after dark. I remember that being even better.
We walked along to the Africa area and had a bit of light breakfast and coffee. Then we went to the Gorilla area and walked the trail there. There is a big family of gorillas plus some young males that tend to live outside the group. It’s a big area, takes perhaps 15 minutes to walk the trail through there bit but they have acres of grounds with all sorts of different scenery – trees, streams, waterfalls, grassland. We saw quite a few of the gorillas and watched them for a while. We also saw some meercats in there. They were cute.
Then we walked a big circuit through Asia and back to the park exit. We were going to do a few more things but the day was hot 25C and sunny and we decided to leave and go to Blizzard Beach water park and just relax.
On the way out of Animal Kingdom though I wanted to see a performer called Di Vine. She is so amazing. She is a stilt artist who is completely disguised as a luxuriant vine and she semi conceals herself amongst the greenery and then puts on a little act of moving and posing, often interacting with children, sometimes taking people by surprise as she is hard to spot in the lush landscaping of AK. We found her near the entrance and watched for a while, then off to the water…….
Set up camp along the edge of the big pool in the centre of BB and had a lot of water time both in the big pool and on the Lazy River. It was bliss to just drift around that, chatting and cooling our poor downtrodden feet. Gosh it was hot.
Eventually we came out and moved two beach chairs down to the edge of the big pool and sat with our feet in the water. I was just sitting there when I felt a tap on the back of my head. I instinctively put my hand up to see what it was – I though something had fallen from a tree or something. Then…. an agonising pain and I pulled my hand down and there was a big stinger stuck in the pad of one of my fingers. It must have been a big bee or hornet that had landed there – I never did see it – and it had disappeared off to die having wounded me! My gosh, the pain was really bad. Terrible. I pulled the stinger out – it was the biggest I’ve ever seen, not like a hair, more like a thorn – and then my finger started to turn red and slightly swell. We got ourselves off to the First Aid hut where a doctor was waiting. He confirmed it was some sort of bee and he put some anti-venom medicine on it and then more on a band-aid and covered it and said I must keep it on at least 30 minutes and that it would stop the pain and stop the venom spreading. It did indeed and although my finger is still sore, it’s not the agony it was post sting. What a horrid thing!
Anyway, we had a lovely day at the two parks. Came back to the apartment, facetimed with Stuart and Fi and had a nice dinner in.