After update to ios 8.4, photos not restoring

As "insanely great" Apple can be sometimes, Apple can also be "insanely stupid".

For example, why are all my photos gone when updating software? Not even Microsoft does such stupidity. I can patch/update Windows and all my files (i.e. photos) are right where I left them.

Three days ago I wanted to update to ios 8.4., but first I had to do the update to ios 8.3, so I did both back to back. Now for three days my photos says "restoring". I cannot access any new photos taken. I had about 2,000 photos on my Camera Roll, now there are 105 old ones while this "Restoring..." just churns away for three days now with zero progress.

I know my photos are on iCloud. And I have seen this "restore" happen before when I get a new iPhones, but for three days ?!?!? with no progress.

Clearly, this is not right, so how do I kickstart the restore process again and get my photos back?