Animal Kingdom - difference between Saturday & Sunday?

[ArielSparrow]

I was informed in another thread that morning EMH don't really affect the crowds much anymore. Is that irrelevant with AK because everyone is going to be rushing Pandora no matter what?

I'm trying to decide between Saturday (with has a morning EMH) & Sunday. Both in September, both 6/10 UT crowd rating. My natural inclination is to choose Sunday because of EMH, but if that doesn't matter, they are equal. I have a 8:40a Tusker on Sunday and 8:15a on Saturday. I don't like how late breakfast starts because that only gives 20 minutes before it cuts into our day. But if it's less crowded, then I'll make that time up elsewhere.

We plan to visit AK two days and rope drop on the other day.

 

[CAS239]

Early morning magic, the ticketed event doesn't affect crowds

Extra magic hours, for on site guests definitely affects crowds.

If you are on site and can park hop then I would take advantage of emh. If not, then I would avoid emh in the morning.

Also keep in mind that if Pandora is your goal to ride in the morning, you won't want to do an ADR as it will put you behind the rope drop crowd

 

[vicb]

I'm going to AK on a Saturday in May but not entering the park till 3pm for our first FP which is FoP. We are planning to do a few leisurely hours at Epcot without FP that morning (using our FP at Epcot another day). I am hoping the crowds will thin out a bit later in the day at AK given the early start with emh. Also, park hours were expanded to 10:30pm that day with 2 ROL show times so we are hoping to get everything we want done in that one visit which opens another morning for pool or other park.

 

[ArielSparrow]

Pandora isn't my goal to ride first thing in the morning, unless it should be? I guess I don't know for sure until 5 months from now when I see if I can get a FP. There's also the end of the day. I figure animals are most active in morning and dusk, so the Safari and other exhibits would be better at those times.

We were thinking about Thursday being an option, and moving Epcot to Sunday because it has EMH 8a for Thursday. But Thursday will be lower crowds overall so I didn't know if the early opening would increase crowds so much that it makes it worse than Sunday.

Because Animal Kingdom is recommended for Thursday, but we are going there twice, whereas we are only going to Epcot once.

This is what we are thinking:
Saturday: Kennedy or AK (with or without 8:15 TH)
Saturday: AK (with or without 8:40a TH) or EPCOT
Thurs: AK (RD) or EPCOT

 

[ArielSparrow]

Oh, and Tusker House is the dining package so that we get preferred seating for ROL without using up a FP.

 

[Mr. Drauer]

Pandora isn't my goal to ride first thing in the morning, unless it should be? I guess I don't know for sure until 5 months from now when I see if I can get a FP. There's also the end of the day. I figure animals are most active in morning and dusk, so the Safari and other exhibits would be better at those times.

We were thinking about Thursday being an option, and moving Epcot to Sunday because it has EMH 8a for Thursday. But Thursday will be lower crowds overall so I didn't know if the early opening would increase crowds so much that it makes it worse than Sunday.

Because Animal Kingdom is recommended for Thursday, but we are going there twice, whereas we are only going to Epcot once.

This is what we are thinking:
Saturday: Kennedy or AK
Sat/Thurs: AK or EPCOT

To answer your original question, Sunday mornings are typically slightly lower crowd days because of reduced local guests (Church, etc.) and the end of week long vacations checking out on Sundays, though AK has bucked all traditional expectations since Pandora opened.

For the bolded statement: Maybe in the wild that is true, but the animals at AK are manipulated based upon feeding schedules, so there is no truth to one safari time being better than others. Lions sleep 20 hours a day in the wild, but you might still see one of them walking to change position on the Kopi Rock at any point in the day. If you go to AK early, you will find reduced lines for everything except the Pandora rides, which have no reduced lines.

 

[DWeav]

Currently Animal Kingdom is showing a 9 PM close time during our June trip. Surely that will change to 11 PM if they are closing at that time in March, right?

 

[ArielSparrow]

Now I'm wondering if I should do Thursday/Friday since those are both recommended days for AK (Epcot's only recommended day is the day we are going to Universal). Originally, I wanted to do both HS and AK early in the week so we could decide then which park to do twice, but now we are 80% sure that it is AK we'll be visiting twice. So if we move AK to Thursday, we'll have a better chance with Pandora I think. However, since we have two days there and only one day at Epcot, then maybe Epcot deserves the slower day. On another thread I was told to avoid F&W Festival on weekends, but it was a Sunday during F&W that we went last time. We spent the day in World Showcase (hit FW on Monday) and never really had to wait for anything. Plus, I think Frozen is the only new thing, so I'm not as concerned about crowds at Epcot as I am with Pandora/AK.

Also I may be complicating this more than it needs to be, because that's what I do.