ShopDisney is now selling the Pandora – World of Avatar Interactive Banshees online! If you missed your chance to get them at the parks because they were sold out, here is your chance to get them now! Online, they are coupled with the perches to display them when not in use.
Pandora – The World of Avatar Interactive Banshee Toy – Blue – $84.99
Pandora – The World of Avatar Interactive Banshee Toy – Red – $84.99
Pandora – The World of Avatar Interactive Banshee Toy – Purple – $84.99
Pandora – The World of Avatar Interactive Banshee Toy – Green – $84.99
Pandora – The World of Avatar Interactive Banshee Toy – Yellow – $84.99
To see what it’s like to adopt a Banshee in person at the park, check out our video below:
The Banshee Rookery inside of Windtraders in Pandora is completely empty as of 10:45am on June 3rd, 2017
The Banshee Rookery inside of Windtraders in Pandora is completely empty as of 10:45am on June 3rd, 2017
According to guests visiting this morning, there were a few Banshees on the shelves when the day started, but now there are none. Cast members are telling guests it will be a few weeks until more are in stock (take that for what its worth). Either way, it is clear that Disney sold way more of these neat toys than they ever expected to.
The full contents of a Banshee Rookery box, and the optional perch.
If you are unfamiliar with what these are, you can check out our review of them here. The product was selling well during previews, but it wasn’t uncommon to wait 30-60 minutes just to enter Windtraders over the first week of it being open to the public. Guests would then have to wait another 15-30 minutes if they wanted the full Banshee experience, but Disney was also offering “grab and go” pre-boxed Banshees at temporary tables inside of the shop all week.
We will continue to provide updates on the status of the Banshee Rookery as many a guest have told us they were looking forward to doing this on their first trip to Pandora. Well, some guests will have to wait a little while longer.
The Windtraders shop in Pandora: The World of AVATAR at Disney’s Animal Kingdom has some rather unique merchandise experiences, one of which is the ability to adopt a “Shoulder Banshee” creature to bring back with you to Earth.
These creatures are available near the front of the shop after you wait in a small queue area for your turn to make an adoption. Interested guests are then brought closer to the perches where dozens of the Ikran sit (Ikran is what the Na’vi call these creatures). Guests are given a few moments to pick out a Banshee that “speaks to them” (you can try a few on and test the controls until you are happy with one), then you can choose to adopt and take a pledge to do so. You can see us go through this entire process in our video below:
Once the oath is taken, guests may purchase (or adopt) the creature, and a display perch at an additional charge. The price to adopt a Banshee is $49.99 and no discounts of any kind are applicable. Perches for the Banshees are $14.95 and can be discounted (annual pass, cast member, etc.). Perches are obviously not a mandatory purchase with any Banshee.
Why are these so cool? As illustrated in the video above, the creatures have three ranges of motion (wing-flap, head turn, and mouth movement) and also have sound effects. On top of that, they are just a really neat thing to wear on your shoulder and certainly garner a lot of attention around the parks (at least during these early days of their existence). Cast Members on Pandora are very receptive to those wearing the creatures, and we saw some really cute interactions during our previews, especially with younger guests.
The Banshee stay attached to you via magnets underneath, with a magnetic pad provided that you can put under the shoulder of your shirt to hold them in place above it. I was worried that they would easily fall off, but they stay on there pretty well. The magnetic pad for under your shirt and a belt clip for the controller are provided upon purchase. The Banshee can also be boxed upon purchase should you decide that you don’t want to wear it just yet (or ever, I suppose).
Magnetic shoulder harness
The motion is all accomplished by a pneumatic control connected via a black wire to the back of the creature. The control is probably my only grievance with the piece, as it can be a bit hard to use at times, especially for children, but it’s not enough to not want to take one of these guys home with you.
I did buy the perch as well (for both of my adoptions), which is really great for home display. The long cord connected to the Banshee is held nicely underneath the stand, and there is even a place to lock in the controller on the back, out of sight. I highly recommend this if you will want to display it at home.
Once Pandora: The World of Pandora opens on May 27th, 2017, don’t be surprised if you start seeing these shoulder Banshees all over the Walt Disney World Resort.
