AK Planning Strategies

[IowaGirl86]

I'm working on planning our AK day. I'm having trouble figuring out how best to make this happen... We are me, husband and daughter (will be 16 months).

The plan is to do Early Entry at 7:30. Then head over to Na'vi River Journey. After that, go to Satuli Canteen for breakfast. At that point I'm a bit lost on how best to proceed. I know I want to do lunch at Tusker House. It was a tradition for myself and my mom to do Tusker House on our AK day, and I want to keep that with my daughter. My reservation window opens up soon, and I'm not sure what time I should aim for to best maximize my day. I know I want to go to Festival of the Lion King and Finding Nemo. I'd like to take the Wildlife Express to the Affection Station and Rafiki's Planet Watch. I do not think my daughter will sit for Kilimanjaro Safari's, so I figured this is the next best thing. I also want to fit in Dinosaur for myself because this will be my last chance to ride it. I enjoy walking the trails so I'd like to do The Gorilla Falls Trail and the Maharaja Jungle Trek. I'd like to try to figure out a way to do all this with as limited back tracking as possible, and to try to be heading out somewhere between 2:30-3:30, because daughter and husband will be grumpy and want their afternoon nap about that time. We plan to be there on Veterans Day, and it's also a few days after the Zootopia Better Zoogether opens, so I'm wondering if the crowds will be worse than I expect them to be. But I hoping since we're not doing Kilimanjaro Safari, Expedition Everest or Avatar Flight of Passage we'll avoid the worst crowds.

I should add my original plan was breakfast at Tusker House, but I changed it to lunch because I worried that breakfast might take up too much time in the morning when crowds might be lower, and a later breakfast threw off my plans to attend Festival of the Lion King since it starts at 10:00AM.

What ideas or strategies do people have for maximizing their day? Any suggestions on how to maximize our day?

 

[_19disnA]

I think how well your daughter adapts to the vacation schedule is probably a big factor in how much specific planning you can do and how long a park visit would last. If you plan to be at the park by 7:30, likely that involves getting up earlier than when you are at home. Small children will often be cranky/restless/etc. for any number of reasons when exposed to a new/different schedule and unfamiliar surroundings like you have on vacation. We went to Disney with 2 other families that included small children and just never knew how they would react from day to day. We went to AK on a weekday and it was wall-to-wall people making it nearly impossible to even walk around, much less be at specific places at exact times. We got annoyed and left to go to Epcot instead. No amount of advance planning will reduce the number of other people who are there when you are.

Certainly you avoid a lot of zig-zagging by doing things in one area and then moving to the next. You just never know when a ride line will be too long to worth waiting, something is down for maintenance or inclement weather causes some ride to temporarily close. I would decide on a small number of the most important rides/shows/restaurants you want to visit and go from there.

 

[Stitch'sCousin]

Various crowd calendars are predicting crowds to be high at AK on Veterans Day.

If I were to be visiting that day, my plan would be as follows for 7:30 EE
(1) Na'vi River Journey (wait times should be quite reasonable for EE)
(2) Breakfast at Satu'li Canteen
(3) Gorilla Falls Exploration Trail
(4) Wildlife Express Train: Africa Station to Rafiki's Planet Watch Station
(5) Affection Section
(6) Wildlife Express Train: Rafiki's Planet Watch Station to Africa Station
(7) Maharajah Jungle Trek
(8) Lion King (aim for 11 am show)
(9) Tusker House lunch (try for 11:45 reservation - setting aside 1 hour for lunch)
(10) Go to 1 pm Finding Nemo show
(11) Ride Dinosaur (husband and daughter find somewhere to rest while you ride or you can ride Dinosaur while they are at Finding Nemo to get out of the park a bit earlier)
(12) Exit AK around 2:30

If it turns out that EE is not until 8:30, the plan would be similar but modified around lunch time as follows:

(1) Na'vi River Journey
(2) Breakfast at Satu'li Canteen
(3) Gorilla Falls Exploration Trail
(4) Wildlife Express Train: Africa Station to Rafiki's Planet Watch Station
(5) Affection Section
(6) Wildlife Express Train: Rafiki's Planet Watch Station to Africa Station
(7) Maharajah Jungle Trek
(8) Tusker House lunch (still try for 11:45 reservation - setting aside 1 hour for lunch)
(9) Go to 1 pm Lion King show
(10) Ride Dinosaur (husband and daughter find somewhere to rest while you ride
(11) Go to 2:30 Finding Nemo show
(12) Exit AK shortly after 3pm

This plan does not require you to do much backtracking.