Animal Kingdom at night??

V2000

DIS Veteran
Joined
Nov 4, 2011
Messages
848
Is it worth trying our Animal Kingdom at night? I'm trying to plan using a whole day a AK or splitting it with HS. If the new events are worth the night time at AK I'll make the effort. We are planning on going late October. What's is there to do at AK at night?

:dumbo:
 
What's is there to do at AK at night?

All of the rides. The safari. The Jungle Book show, the Tree of Life projection show, plus a couple of dance parties/ live entertainment in Harambe and the Oasis.
 
AK is our least favorite park which we actually skipped last trip. Next time, since they're open until 11pm now, we plan on going in the morning and doing a few rides, then going back to the resort to swim etc, then heading back to AK around 6. We have enough trouble entertaining ourselves when it's just 9-5 hours, so 14 hours is a tad much. I scheduled two of our FPs for early in the am and one at night. I don't even care about getting a 4th at that park. I think the tree of life thing will be nice to see, as well as trying the safari at sunset. I watched Jungle Book show on YouTube and wasn't impressed, so not too worried about seeing that. I wish River of Light was going to be running by then.
 
I don't know if the trend will continue, but we noticed that the crowds dropped significantly in the evenings. 15 minute stand by for Everest one evening for several hours. If the rides are your goal, short lines might be a huge bonus. If you are wanting to see the LK or Nemo shows, you might want to arrive a little earlier.
 

Depends on what you want to do. The safari in the dark, while neat to see it from a different "perspective" isn't all that great. We saw very few animals, and most we saw were really hard to see. Not that I want or expect Disney to shine bright lights on the animals, but it's just hard to see in the dark. We did it a few days ago at late afternoon/dusk, and it was wonderful. Saw tons of animals. Jungle Book show is so-so in my book. Not terrible, but could be so much better. The parties on the streets in different parts of the parks are pretty neat. Ride lines are definitely much lower.

We're heading there tomorrow night. We're going to try Kali and Expedition in the dark.
 
This last week we got to AK at 10 and stayed until 1 then went back to the resort and took a nap then went back at 5 and stayed til close. It was less crowded at night and almost a ghost town after 9 which we could just walk on anything we wanted.
 
We're going in August and we plan to do a half day in the morning /early afternoon like we always do & then one night head over there after another park closes, since AK is open til 11 and ride EE at night! I heard it's really awesome at night!
 
Last time we went we did a full day but that was 9-5 hours and it was more than enough time to do everything we wanted. So this time we are going early, eating brunch at TH with jungle book package, riding a few rides, then either going back to hotel or to the water park until later in the evening around 5 or 6 will come back to AK.
 
I don't know if the trend will continue, but we noticed that the crowds dropped significantly in the evenings. 15 minute stand by for Everest one evening for several hours. If the rides are your goal, short lines might be a huge bonus. If you are wanting to see the LK or Nemo shows, you might want to arrive a little earlier.

This is what i'm hoping for. I love AK, and can't wait to see what it looks like at night. Add in the idea that it will be light on the crowd and I'll be in heaven.
 
AK is our least favorite park which we actually skipped last trip. Next time, since they're open until 11pm now, we plan on going in the morning and doing a few rides, then going back to the resort to swim etc, then heading back to AK around 6. We have enough trouble entertaining ourselves when it's just 9-5 hours, so 14 hours is a tad much. I scheduled two of our FPs for early in the am and one at night. I don't even care about getting a 4th at that park. I think the tree of life thing will be nice to see, as well as trying the safari at sunset. I watched Jungle Book show on YouTube and wasn't impressed, so not too worried about seeing that. I wish River of Light was going to be running by then.

The safari at sunset! Now that is a nice idea!
 
AK at night is an interesting concept, but one that holds little appeal for us (at least until Avatar is up and running, and then we shall see). For example, tonight, AK is open until 11:00. But here are the things that we typically do at AK each time we visit, and as you can see, many of them shut down by 8:00. So I'm not sure what the value is in those last 3 hours.

Flights of Wonder-Last show at 4:30
Gorilla Falls Trail-Closes at 7:45
Maharajah Jungle Trek-Closes at 7:45
Finding Nemo Show-Last one at 6:00
Lion King Show-Last one at 8:00
****************************************************************************
Safari-Can do until 11:00 but reviews of nighttime viewing have been mediocre to bad.
EE-Can do until 11:00
Dinosaur (most trips)-Can do until 11:00
It's Tough To Be A Bug-Can do until 11:00
Kali Rapids-Can do until 11:00

So while there are 5 attractions that we can do between 8:00 pm-11:00 pm, one of them doesn't seem to be all that highly recommended, and the other four we will have had no trouble doing two, or maybe ever three times during the "old" hours of 9:00-5:00. So it seems as if the later hours are OK if you choose to arrive at the park in the middle of the day or in the later in the afternoon. But if you arrive at RD, the idea of staying for an extended period of time doesn't seem too appealing. I can easily fill the time between 9:00 and midnight at the MK without getting bored or repetitive. Can't say the same for AK. So the later hours are a great tool which allow you to start your day there later. But they are rather useless in terms of extending out a full day. At least to us.
 
Depends on what you want to do. The safari in the dark, while neat to see it from a different "perspective" isn't all that great. We saw very few animals, and most we saw were really hard to see. Not that I want or expect Disney to shine bright lights on the animals, but it's just hard to see in the dark. .


Wait....they didn't add any lights? I wasn't expecting Yankee Stadium, but I thought there would be spotlights near the animals.

How are you supposed to see in the dark? I guess that's your point.

"night time safari: your chance to experience the safari like a blind person" (I hope I didn't offend any blind person reading this)
 
Do you ride Expedition Everest? If so, then visit AK at night. It's absolutely amazing in the dark. We rode it with a full moon overhead, which made it even better.

Dinoland was also more fun at night. We didn't even get to see a lot of the street performances, but we still enjoyed being there late.
 
Wait....they didn't add any lights? I wasn't expecting Yankee Stadium, but I thought there would be spotlights near the animals.

How are you supposed to see in the dark? I guess that's your point.

"night time safari: your chance to experience the safari like a blind person" (I hope I didn't offend any blind person reading this)
It's supposed to start with a glowing "sunset" around the Savannah and transition to "artificial full moon-like lighting" by the end of the safari.

If you have stayed at AKL, they have always had the artificial moon light on the savannah at night.

I haven't yet experienced a night safari, but I imagine the ride may be too fast for eyes to fully adjust and actually see most of the animals.
 
If you want to enjoy all AK has to offer is is EASILY a whole day park now. We did two half days and that didnt include night time yet. The nature trails that many miss are NOT to be missed and take a bit of time and stopping to really enjoy. ..I love sitting watching the gorillas in their amazing enclosure for instance. There is so much walking we like to split two days one for each side of the park.
 
Well if they had that river show open in October it would def make a difference for us. I have two days to split. HS I would like to go at night because of Fantasmic. I was going to split HS with Typhoon Lagoon in the morning.
Animal Kingdom I can go all day or split with something. Then I have to choose whether to go to AK at night or day.
 
Expedition Everest at night now surpasses Rockin Rollercoaster as my favorite. Very little lighting and the Yeti is VERY pronounced in the near darkness. It was amazing!!!!
 
We were there just over a week ago. Expedition Everest was amazing at night. Standby was 5 minutes for most of the evening. The safari was okay, but better during the day. We only saw a few animals at night. I won't bother to do the evening safari again. Jungle Book: Alive was a major disappointment. The park is lovely at night although not very well lit. Other evening entertainment out in the park was quite good. It's something different to do since the park hasn't been open at night in the past, but it's not a must do I don't think.
 
Wait....they didn't add any lights? I wasn't expecting Yankee Stadium, but I thought there would be spotlights near the animals.

How are you supposed to see in the dark? I guess that's your point.

"night time safari: your chance to experience the safari like a blind person" (I hope I didn't offend any blind person reading this)

We just got back from AK 15 minutes ago. Yes, there are some lights in the safari at night, but it's very dim in most spots (only brighter really close to the lights). I'm sure they do this for the sake of the animals, which I understand. Doing it at dusk is the way to go. We got on it tonight at 7:30ish. Plenty of daylight left to see and the animals were everywhere. The savannah area was incredible.

The park crowd is very light after 6pm. We got there at 4:00 today. Went to the last Flight of Wonder show, which had a moderate crowd. After that, nothing had a crowd. We walked right into Dinosaur, and the entrance to actually get on the cars was empty, waiting for us to come. We walked right onto Kali...twice. We also walked right onto the safari, the trucks were lined up waiting for people to come. It's really weird to see it that way, because during midday most of those rides are mobbed.

For now, if you want to do AK, early evening is the time to be there. No crowds, good weather.
 












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