Flight of Passage by Reece Smith
Flight of Passage in Pandora
By Reece Smith
Pandora is the world from the movie Avatar that was released in December 2009 in theaters and soon became the number 1 movie in box office earning over $2 billion. Recently Disney bought the company 20th Century Studios which had the rights to Avatar and Disney took that advantage and added the land of Pandora to Animal Kingdom. So far Pandora has only two rides: The Na’vi River Journey and The Flight of Passage. Both attractions are both great but the one that most people have heard of is probably The Flight of Passage.
The Flight of Passage is an extremely amazing ride that has a few similarities to Soarin’, a ride in Epcot. On Flight of Passage you get to have your own Avatar and get the experience of riding an Ikran or more commonly known as a banshee. While on the ride you wear 3-D glasses to simulate the effect of you actually being there as well as scents and some water is tossed on you to make sure you have the feeling of being fully immersed in Pandora.
However if you want to ride this ride you’ll have to wait in a line that’s usually about 2 to 4 hours depending on time of day and the time of year. But you can get a fastpass to bypass most of the line and get on the ride faster. Before entering the ride queue you enter the land of Pandora which feels and seems completely separate from the rest of the park. Around you are floating rocks and there’s mountains surrounding you as well as plants and trees all that can be seen in the movie Avatar.
The ride queue gives the feel that you’re really on Pandora with the trees, lights, animal animatronics, and the overall feel of the room. There are multiple parts of the queue. Before you enter you’re outside walking around the wildlife and even a small waterfall and then you enter a cave. The cave seems to be where Na’vi once lived before moving to the tall trees or perhaps they still live in those caves. Then you come to a few doors where they look like part of an old facility of the RDA which was the giant company of humans in the movie Avatar. Then you come to a darker room where there is wildlife growing such as bushes and trees. Then you walk a little further and you find windows looking into the lab you’re about to enter. In this room you’ll find lots of cool high tech looking devices and machines also there is an avatar in its tank. After that there’s a tall room with screens in it. These screens are displaying people as avatars going on banshees with a guide across Pandora however none of that data is real. Then you are sent into a hallway that leads up from there you’ll be sent to a door that leads you to the ride.
The whole ride including pre-shows is about 15 minutes however the actual ride where you’re on a banshee only lasts for about 4 to 5 minutes. The 10 minutes before that is where you get your avatar and learn about how this flight is a rite of passage for the Na’vi and how you get to experience that. It is my favorite ride because of the technology and the efforts of Disney to make it immersive. I really feel like I’m flying through Pandora on a banshee.