AK plan ... Why is that par so hard to plan?

[NicholeB630]

So Im just trying to get an idea of what we'll be doing for our Feb trip. I plan on doing a half day or so at AK. We will get there at Rope drop well prior so were close to up front. I want to FP FOP and Na'vi river. For obvious reasons. Now that only leaves 1 more FP to choose from. Do we do Safari or EE. There is 4 of us. My son will not be tall enough for EE. Now the problem with all this is both are on opposite sides of the park so we'll have to do which ever one we don't FP first thing correct? To avoid waiting in long lines? I feel like going to either one just puts us at a weird spot to then start touring after? Suggestions?

 

[DisAWin]

The park is so large, I understand the dilemma. Unless tiers change, you will have to pick either FOP or the River. If you're not rope dropping Pandora, I'd FP FOP.

You could rope drop and start at Everest, ride it quickly and then head counterclockwise to Safari. Ride it, perhaps consider a Festival of the Lion King show, and then continue counter clockwise down to Pandora. Use your FP for FOP and standby River.

The other option would be rope drop in Pandora and ride River first thing. Then use FP for FOP, Safari, and EE for whatever times are available. It would leave you walking from your last FP to the exit.

My experience at AK leaves me thinking your son will love the Safari and Lion King, so I am partial to any plan that includes those two attractions.

 

[NicholeB630]

The park is so large, I understand the dilemma. Unless tiers change, you will have to pick either FOP or the River. If you're not rope dropping Pandora, I'd FP FOP.

You could rope drop and start at Everest, ride it quickly and then head counterclockwise to Safari. Ride it, perhaps consider a Festival of the Lion King show, and then continue counter clockwise down to Pandora. Use your FP for FOP and standby River.

The other option would be rope drop in Pandora and ride River first thing. Then use FP for FOP, Safari, and EE for whatever times are available. It would leave you walking from your last FP to the exit.

My experience at AK leaves me thinking your son will love the Safari and Lion King, so I am partial to any plan that includes those two attractions.

AK has tiers now??? UGH Where is info on that and how they are tiered. Disney really wants to make planning more difficult. Correction my son will be able to ride EE. I forgot that one was 44 as well.

 

[NicholeB630]

Correction my son can ride EE I forgot is was 44'' so we all as family get to ride everything together. Except Primevil whirl.

 

[DisAWin]

Correction my son can ride EE I forgot is was 44'' so we all as family get to ride everything together. Except Primevil whirl.

I'm not sure I ever want to ride PW. It's miserable.

 

[NicholeB630]

I'm not sure I ever want to ride PW. It's miserable.

Ha its jerky. My daughter and I enjoyed it though last time but Im fine skipping Dino land all together.

 

[DisAWin]

I believe it's only the two Pandora rides in a tier, then everything else. So you can only pick one Pandora ride.

 

[ChristineOH]

Are you onsite? What day in your trip are you doing AK? If your AK day is late enough in your trip that you think you could get a morning FP FoP, then I would RD Na'vi, FP FoP, then FP Safari, FotLK, then EE with FP. If you can't get a FP for FoP, I would just FP Na'vi and RD FoP instead. If you want to do an early lunch at Satu'li before you walk over to EE, you could do that and schedule your EE FP a little later. Africa and Pandora have a path between them, so it's not a far walk.

 

[Neverbeast]

How long would it take to walk from EE back to pandora?

 

[CAS239]

How long would it take to walk from EE back to pandora?

About 10 min

 

[NicholeB630]

Are you onsite? What day in your trip are you doing AK? If your AK day is late enough in your trip that you think you could get a morning FP FoP, then I would RD Na'vi, FP FoP, then FP Safari, FotLK, then EE with FP. If you can't get a FP for FoP, I would just FP Na'vi and RD FoP instead. If you want to do an early lunch at Satu'li before you walk over to EE, you could do that and schedule your EE FP a little later. Africa and Pandora have a path between them, so it's not a far walk.

Yes we are staying at BC. Our AK day is Sunday and we get in Friday. So its towards the beginning but its the only day that it worked with the others days and doing other parks. I really hope I get it so I don't have to stress. We did Tusker House breakfast at 8am last time and we were done probably 20 minutes before park open. I wonder if doing that again would help at all? I know we will be further away from Pandora though correct. I really just hate the whole rush and feeling like cattle trying to get to a certain attraction right at RD. If doing Tusker may help I'd be willing to eat there again.

 

[disneyvoice]

The problem with AK for us is we always think it is going to be a park that we won't need much time for (even with the addition of Pandora) but then we get there and we end up needing two days for it! There is so much to see and do that I have started just planning more than one day for it now. While you can probably get through all the rides in a day, for us the best part of AK is taking time to just look around at everything. It's easy to just blow right past the Oasis but there are a lot of things to see there. And we really enjoy taking our time on the various animal trails. I also think AK is a "tough" park because of how hot it gets - compared to other parks there tends to be no air movement at all because of all the foliage.

 

[Danimal]

So Im just trying to get an idea of what we'll be doing for our Feb trip. I plan on doing a half day or so at AK. We will get there at Rope drop well prior so were close to up front. I want to FP FOP and Na'vi river. For obvious reasons. Now that only leaves 1 more FP to choose from. Do we do Safari or EE. There is 4 of us. My son will not be tall enough for EE. Now the problem with all this is both are on opposite sides of the park so we'll have to do which ever one we don't FP first thing correct? To avoid waiting in long lines? I feel like going to either one just puts us at a weird spot to then start touring after? Suggestions?

Couple of things here. As someone posted before, the 2 Pandora rides are in the 1st tier of FP, while everything else is in the 2nd tier. If you're going to rope drop, I'd highly suggest getting your FP for FoP and hitting Na'vi River first as the lines have been much shorter for that than for FoP.

I'd also suggest that AK has become much more of a full day park (especially now with Pandora open). Pandora should take some time to explore by itself and Windtraders has some pretty cool merchandise you won't see anywhere else. There are shows your kids will love as well. Festival of the Lion King is amazing and Fights of Wonder is all my kids (7, 5, and 2 at the time we went) still talk about. Tusker House is a great character meal as well.

For my 2 cents. I'd rope drop Na'vi River, and hit FoP on a pre 10 AM FP. FP Safari next and then try and get into the 11 AM Festival of the Lion King. Lunch at Tusker House, and hit Flights of Wonder after that. You've got Kali River Rapids and then use your last FP on EE. If you're not into any of the animal trails, see if you can land a 4th FP for Dinosaur as you make your way out of the park. Even following a schedule like this, you probably wouldn't leave the park until 4 or so. If your kids spend any time in the Boneyard, it might make sense to grab dinner at Flame Tree, hit Tough to be a Bug and just stick around for Rivers of Light at that point. Having your kid do Wilderness Explorers is a great way to kill some time if you end up doing the full day.

 

[Danimal]

Yes we are staying at BC. Our AK day is Sunday and we get in Friday. So its towards the beginning but its the only day that it worked with the others days and doing other parks. I really hope I get it so I don't have to stress. We did Tusker House breakfast at 8am last time and we were done probably 20 minutes before park open. I wonder if doing that again would help at all? I know we will be further away from Pandora though correct. I really just hate the whole rush and feeling like cattle trying to get to a certain attraction right at RD. If doing Tusker may help I'd be willing to eat there again.

I originally booked a Tusker House 8 AM for that very reason. However, I found out that they're letting people into the park earlier than offical "open" and lining people up near the entrance to Pandora around 8:30. Seeing as that negated any advantage in taking a PPO reservation at Tusker House, I cancelled the reservation and made it into a lunchtime ROL package. I'd say skip the Tusker House breakfast if early entry s the only reason you want it

 

[NicholeB630]

Couple of things here. As someone posted before, the 2 Pandora rides are in the 1st tier of FP, while everything else is in the 2nd tier. If you're going to rope drop, I'd highly suggest getting your FP for FoP and hitting Na'vi River first as the lines have been much shorter for that than for FoP.

I'd also suggest that AK has become much more of a full day park (especially now with Pandora open). Pandora should take some time to explore by itself and Windtraders has some pretty cool merchandise you won't see anywhere else. There are shows your kids will love as well. Festival of the Lion King is amazing and Fights of Wonder is all my kids (7, 5, and 2 at the time we went) still talk about. Tusker House is a great character meal as well.

For my 2 cents. I'd rope drop Na'vi River, and hit FoP on a pre 10 AM FP. FP Safari next and then try and get into the 11 AM Festival of the Lion King. Lunch at Tusker House, and hit Flights of Wonder after that. You've got Kali River Rapids and then use your last FP on EE. If you're not into any of the animal trails, see if you can land a 4th FP for Dinosaur as you make your way out of the park. Even following a schedule like this, you probably wouldn't leave the park until 4 or so. If your kids spend any time in the Boneyard, it might make sense to grab dinner at Flame Tree, hit Tough to be a Bug and just stick around for Rivers of Light at that point. Having your kid do Wilderness Explorers is a great way to kill some time if you end up doing the full day.

Thanks thats a good plan. We just never really take our time at AK and seem to get done. But maybe this time we'll have the time to really explore more. Last trip in Sept it down poured our AK day so it got split up and we didn't stay as late as wanted. I don't think we'll do Kali as its Feb. Unless its really hot for some reason which I am praying its NOT. I don't think we'll wanna be soaked if its under 80. I'll go ahead and skip Tusker we ate there last time and did enjoy it but if it doesn't benefit us for early morning stuff than I'll just skip. I will plan on just getting to the park really early in case they let people in sooner. We are doing AK on Sunday. I hope I can get FOP but if not I'll try for Na'vi and then rope drop the other one.

 

[NicholeB630]

I originally booked a Tusker House 8 AM for that very reason. However, I found out that they're letting people into the park earlier than offical "open" and lining people up near the entrance to Pandora around 8:30. Seeing as that negated any advantage in taking a PPO reservation at Tusker House, I cancelled the reservation and made it into a lunchtime ROL package. I'd say skip the Tusker House breakfast if early entry s the only reason you want it

Good to know. I will not do Tusker than and instead just be at the gates even earlier. If its a 9am open maybe we will try and be at the park by 7:30.

 

[NicholeB630]

The problem with AK for us is we always think it is going to be a park that we won't need much time for (even with the addition of Pandora) but then we get there and we end up needing two days for it! There is so much to see and do that I have started just planning more than one day for it now. While you can probably get through all the rides in a day, for us the best part of AK is taking time to just look around at everything. It's easy to just blow right past the Oasis but there are a lot of things to see there. And we really enjoy taking our time on the various animal trails. I also think AK is a "tough" park because of how hot it gets - compared to other parks there tends to be no air movement at all because of all the foliage.

We def never spend much time at this park looking around but our last trip it was hot as hell and was just hard to just enjoy ourselves and walk around in any park really. Praying in Feb we'll have nice weather!! I think we will just try and get there really early and rope drop Na'vi if we get a FOP FP. Otherwise we'll do the opposite.

 

[ChristineOH]

If you're going to AK on your third day, which also happens to be a weekend, you'll be lucky to get a FP for FoP, I think. If it's not President's Day weekend, you'll have a better chance. If you do, it will probably be in the evening, so you may want to go into planning with that in mind.

 

[NicholeB630]

If you're going to AK on your third day, which also happens to be a weekend, you'll be lucky to get a FP for FoP, I think. If it's not President's Day weekend, you'll have a better chance. If you do, it will probably be in the evening, so you may want to go into planning with that in mind.

It's not even close to Presidents' Day. I picked this week based on crowds and yourfirstvist website has it has the lowest week. Weather that's accurate or not I'll find out. I hope I get it. But guess I'll see at 60 days. I'd like to be out of that park by 4 but if I have to do a night FP then I'll take it.

 

[Neverbeast]

I could only get an evening FoP FP at 60 days. Still checking to try to move it up but it's messing with my plans.

So is the consensus that it's just way too hot there to spend the full day even with shows and drinks?