Last Minute Advice for Animal Kingdom
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Anonymous
| Were there in early December. We did the safari 3x (animal lover child) and each was great. Did not do Avatar (too late for passes and not wasting the day in line). Loved the Lion King show! Yeti coaster was great but will be too much for motion sick kids. Nothing else about the park stands out to me. |
Anonymous
| I would go to Safari at rope drop b.c the animals are more active first thing in the AM. |
Anonymous
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Do Pandora at night for best effect. They may also Raffikis animal watch if you want to avoid lines and take a break from crowds. Expedition Everest and Dinosaur are intense. If your child gets motion sickness watch out for the simulator rides - they’ve triggered my motion sickness more than once.
Are you doing other parks as well? |
Anonymous
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My 7 year old loved Expedition Everest.
All my kids hate the Dinosaur ride -- sad, because I feel like they could re-work it into a decent ride, but it's so jerky and the darkness is sort of unnecessary. I thought the Avatar ride was going to be over-hyped. It was not. Also, none of us got motion sick (sort of surprising because one of my kids always throws up on boats and planes, and I get very motion sick myself). The boat ride is fine...my kids did like it. It's like Small World on acid or something -- trippy wild plants instead of singing dolls. I think the bird show closed, unfortunately. It was cool. |
Anonymous
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My kids are about the same ages and we are one week out from WDW.
Our plans aside from Pandora include festival of the lion king, the Safari, Boneyard play area, triceratops spin (which I hear is lame but my smaller guy likes tame rides), Kali River Rapids and some of the animal trails. Given that plus the “thrill ride” time we have planned there, here is what we are skipping that I though sounded cool if we had more time: - acrobats in Africa - evening “party” type event on the middle island part of the park - Wilderness Explorers where they earn badges as they learn about the animals - Nemo show Do you have your fast passes set already? |
Anonymous
| Definitely do the Safari. We haven't been there in a few years, but I remember this Passport game thing - go around to different stations to get your passport stamped. My kids enjoyed that. |
Anonymous
We were staying on a Disney property and they have certain days where they let hotel guests in an hour earlier than normal. We got there an hour earlier even than that and they were already letting people into the park to queue up. We busted over and got in line for Avatar/Pandora and the wait was only 45 minutes. By the time we got out the wait was over three hours. Insane. It might be worthwhile to get there early and give it a try. |
Anonymous
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Flight of Passage isn't really a roller coaster and isn't really all that intense. FPs do occasionally pop up so if you change your mind, get the app on your phone and check religiously. The alternative is to get to the park BEFORE rope drop and make a made dash for it as soon as the gates open.
My kids' (7 and 10yo boys) favorite ride in the park is Everest. If you skip the mad dash for FoP, you can go straight to Everest at RD and ride 4 or 5 times before there is much of a line. It is a coaster. There is darkness. It goes backwards for a little ways. Do Lion King. There is no "bad" seating, but if you are at the tail of the line on a busy day, there won't be enough room. If you FP, you'll be right in the middle of it. Awesome show and a good air-conditioned break. Nemo is a good air-conditioned break but the kids are kind of meh about it. Boneyard is a hit with my kids. Make sure to go over the bridge to the dig site. It's not indoors, but it's covered with lots of fans blowing. It's also quite comfortable to bury your aching feet in the sand ... until some kid walks across them. The kids might like Primevil whirl. Adults hate it, me included. It's a carnival style ride and really jerky. DINOSAUR was surprisingly fun. Fastpass the Safari if you can. It's a classic and the lines are consistently longish. I don't remember if Flights of Wonder (the bird show) is still running (it's being replaced with a different bird show themed on Up!). If it is and you have time, it's a great show. Not as must see as Lion King but we all really enjoyed it. My 10yo was in a snit with me on our last trip and sat all the way in the back on the raised bleachers. He ended up having a giant bird take off and land right next to him and he was just over the moon. Yak & Yeti is probably one of our favorite table service restaurants in the parks. If you do Tusker House, though, you can get the show package for FP seating at Rivers of Light. Kali River Rapids is fun if you don't mind being soaked. You're more likely to be get a bit damp, but there's always one person who ends up getting drenched head to foot. I have a suspicion it's seating related and CM can seat you away from it, but I'm not 100% sure. |
Anonymous
| We loved FOP, Everest, Kali River, and the Safari. The food in the park is very good. Did the quick service in Pandora (make your own bowls) and Tusker House. But have also heard great things about Yak and Yeti and also the quick service BBQ. |
Anonymous
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Was just there two weeks ago - there are people lined up at 6:30 AM to run to Flights of Passage. It's very very cool, but if you are prone to motion sickness, it is rough. I spent about half the ride praying I wouldn't vomit. One of my kids felt the same, while the other one loved it.
If it's hot, Kali River Rapids is fun - but you get completely soaked. Safari is great. We really liked the Nemo show. Everest is fun, but you mentioned your kids don't like intense rides -- not a good fit. Have fun! |