A Disney Attraction Review: Expedition Everest

Expedition Everest a ride review:

Everest was at the top of my bucket list for our recent trip to Disneyworld.  It was still being built the last time I was in Orlando-- so I had been waiting over 10 years to go on this ride.  As I had described in an earlier blog we had fastpasses for the ride and it broke down --right when our fastpass time came up which lead us to hit this ride at the end of the day.  (I wasn't leaving Animal Kingdom without tackling this mountain).

When you build something up in your mind for that long you are bound to be disappointed like many people were with the Phantom Menace.   Well this mountain definitely looked menacing from a distance....but would it just be a glorified Matternhorn?

Would I be disappointed???

We made our way past all the warning of a dangerous  Yeti.

 Here is a cool shot of the Mountain as we got closer to our goal.

 The ride actually lived up to the hype.  I absolutely loved it and as I described in my blog about "sometimes a ride breaking down can be a good thing"  --we ended up doing it 3 times in a row at the end of the day with a minimal wait time.   

The design and look of this ride is incredible.  The details in the line that give you clues of what to expect are amazing.  The imagineering trips to Nepal was worth it.  Like the rest of Animal Kingdom the attention to detail is stunning and really takes you on an adventure.

The ride itself is designed so well (despite its barely functioning Yeti).  It starts out kind of slow and then picks up and gets better and better as the ride goes along.   The point when you hit the top of the mountain and see the broken track in front of you is epic.  Then you are sent hurtling backwards and then back forwards again after an encounter with the fabled Yeti.   The thrills on this ride are top notch and it definitely is the E Ticket attraction of the Animal Kingdom.  Well worth the wait and a 10 out of 10 in my book.   

I would say that it is too intense for younger kids.  My stepdaughter that is afraid of coasters in general (despite taking on and loving both Test Track and Seven Dwarves Mine Train) would have found this ride too intense

Here is some cool Merchandise from the ride.

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Sometimes a Ride Breaking Down can be a Good Thing: 3 Times on Everest in 25 Minutes

When we went to Animal Kingdom on our recent trip we had of course gone online ahead of time to secure a Fast pass time for Expedition Everest.   This was my most anticipated ride of the trip, since they were still building it over 10 years ago,  the last time I was in Orlando.   So when our Fast pass time was approaching --my stepson and I headed over to make sure we got on this beast of a ride.  The ride time was already showing at about an hour online so we were happy we had a Fast pass.  Well as luck would have it we arrived just in time for the ride to be shutdown and we were told that our fast pass would be good for the rest of the day if the attraction started up again.

Thwarted in our attempts to scale the peaks of this thrill ride we headed of to do something else.   We headed over to Kali Rapids which was already building up into a long line as well.  We tried our Magic Bands and it worked for this ride so we headed up to the front of the line.   Then minutes before we were on the ride ---It broke as well.  It was about a 7 minute shut down and then we were back in business,  but I began to worry that since our Fast pass worked for a ride that we didn't have a pass on that it wouldn't later work on Everest.

Hours went by as we meet back up with the rest of the family for Festival of the Lion King and dinner at the Rainforest.  We figured we would have to try Everest at the end of the day.   Hopefully the line would be shorter.  After diner we hit Dinosaur which we did twice in a row since the line was really short --then off we went to finally get our ride on the mountain that hung in the distance.

We arrived right before park closing using our fast passes.  (They didn't work).  We were told you only get to use them once  (I guess Kali Rapids used up our Everest Fast pass).   We told them we hadn't ridden it--because it had broken down and away we went into the Fast Pass line.  By the time we did this great ride (Review to come in a different blog) the line had pretty disappeared --so we were able to do it two more times before closing.  (We could have done it  times --but the girls were waiting for us).  So sometimes a ride breaking down can be a good thing.   If the ride hadn't broken down we may have only rode it once in the middle of the day,  but since we had to change plans and try it later --we ended up getting 3 rides instead of one.

This also begs the question....was it worth getting a Fast Pass for Everest in the first place?  Was it just a fluke or is the end of the day at Animal Kingdom always the best time for the big rides?

After all we were able to get 2 rides on Dinosaur and could have done 4 times on Everest.

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