Animal Kingdom in the rain?

[amg35]

Soooo, our Animal Kingdom day calls for torrential downpours all day. - of course I choose late October for best chance of no rain...


Anyways, we have rain hats, ponchos, fast drying shoes...anything else? Is this park doable in the rain at all? I figure we'll have to pay close attention to rides if they close and jump on as soon as they open.

We still plan to go to the park that day.

thanks!

 

[ain0004]

Very doable in rain. If it's a light rain the animals will be more actibe

 

[faneuil]

Animal Kingdom is very doable in the rain.

Everest and Kali might be closed - but the animals are fun to watch in the rain.

With that said, of course bring rain gear just in case, but the forecast will change.

 

[daisyduck73]

Very doable in rain. If it's a light rain the animals will be more actibe

I completely agree, and witnessed this first hand in September. The safari was great! The elephants were especially fun to watch. They were all playing in the water.

 

[siskaren]

According to your ticker, your trip is 8 days away. I wouldn't rely on a weather report that far out.

 

[amg35]

According to your ticker, your trip is 8 days away. I wouldn't rely on a weather report that far out.

maybe so, but doesn't hurt to ask and be prepared.

Okay thanks everyone, looks like AK will still be okay in the rain!

 

[theSurlyMermaid]

Oh, the rain on our Ak day made it awesome. We were on Kali when the sky opened up and buckets of water came down. It was hilarious! My sister and I (and our kids) were the only ones not wearing ponchos. We got completely, utterly drenched. The most hilarious part was the sun came out the second we stepped off the ride.

It rained off and on the whole day. Very doable in the rain…make sure you see the Nemo show. That will get you indoors for about 45 minutes.

 

[CTDisneyfan816]

I am a ride person and if it's raining out, I skip AK. I only go for 4 rides and if Safari and EE are closed, no sense for me to waste a day there as I would just go for 1-2 rides (1 if it's too cool to go on River Rapids).

 

[skier_pete]

Hmm, AK in the rain? I think I can talk about that!



OK, I admit we purposefully posed that shot to look miserable, but that was at the end of about 4 hours of mostly heavy rain in the park. We ended up cutting out pretty early.

Definitely the worst park for bad weather. We didn't have a choice, though. We were on our last full park day, and had only had an afternoon at AK.

We rode the safari in the AM, then did FotLK. Then we headed over to do Flights of Wonder, which DD an DW did while I rode Expedition Everest. This was NOT fun at all. The ride goes inside and outside frequently, so you would move outside and be pummeled with rain for 10 seconds, completely blinding you.

After that we left. (And understand we LOVE AK, so this was very disappointing to us.)

My first choice would be to switch to another park if you can. If that's too hard, understand you will be able to see the shows (we had already seen the Nemo Musical the previous 1/2 day), the Safari, and Dinosaur. I suppose you could also take the train out to Conservation Station. The animals do come out more, but looking at them in the pouring rain isn't much fun.

We had some friends we were supposed to be meeting that we missed out on that day, but they showed up at the park after we left. They said once the rain stopped, the crowds were non-existant and they rode EE six times with no wait. So it really is a tough call what to do.

If I could've switched, my first park of choice on a rainy day would be Epcot Future World, then MK (only because the rain keeps the crowds away) then HS (more indoor than MK, but I think you see the opposite effect on a rainy day - more crowds).

That said, at EIGHT days out, I wouldn't sweat it just yet. Heck, I would barely think about it 2 days before. The forecasters in Florida don't have any more of a clue than anywhere else. Probably even less because they have those crazy "pop-up" Thunderstorms, so it can be a downpour in one park while the other one is dry.

 

[nanhol]

Soooo, our Animal Kingdom day calls for torrential downpours all day. - of course I choose late October for best chance of no rain...

Anyways, we have rain hats, ponchos, fast drying shoes...anything else? Is this park doable in the rain at all? I figure we'll have to pay close attention to rides if they close and jump on as soon as they open.
We still plan to go to the park that day.
thanks!

We were at AK when it poured...of course, we weren't prepared & bought the famous Disney ponchos--so you're ahead by having those already. We found that the park was less crowded, and we didn't mind the rain at first.

We were there on a cool day in February and some of us were wearing jeans--which was a mistake, as they wicked the water up & we were totally soaked & cold. In October you're probably already planning for shorts or capri pants, but if you own quick-dry athletic shirts and/or shorts then that might be a good day to plan to wear them.

Have fun! A rainy day at Disney beats a sunny day at work, right?

 

[stinkpickle]

You can smell the animals better after the rain.

 

[amg35]

You can smell the animals better after the rain.

mmmm, wet animals.....



We are pretty stuck there as it's our first full day and fast passes have been made. We plan to get there at rope drop, so hopefully if it does indeed rain most of the day, we can get on EE once (or twice).

We won't be in jeans, but lightweight shirts/shorts, with ponchos if need be (and my cute rain hat )

We will make the best of it, will love looking at the animals! AK is also my favorite park.

We can return again later in the trip.

 

[Good Morning Dewdrop]

We've been in AK for a few torrential rain days

- note some areas in the park - I specifically remember Dinoland and Camp MM(which obviously is no longer an issue) - the paths flood badly or at least don't drain very well...or maybe it was all of the water running over our feet rushing to get to a drain. In any case we were ankle deep in water multiple times. So quick drying / meant to get wet shoes are a must IMO.

 

[K93]

There's a unique bonus to riding Kilimanjaro Safaris just after a light rain. Like others said before sometimes a light rain will make the animals more active. The shows at AK are inside and I consider them to be some of the best things AK has to offer. So even if it rains you can conquer a good portion of the park.

But don't forget it's DW! and great opportunities and memories can come from the wettest days!!

 

[nanhol]

You may already know this, but bring if you don't already have a water-proof case, zip-lock bags do pretty well to protect phones and cameras. Have fun!

 

[ktlm]

We had a day at AK in the pouring rain a few years ago. We loved it. On Safari the animals were all out playing in the rain. Also, the park was not crowded at all and there was no line for Safari, so they just let us stay on and ride as many times as we wanted. No big deal getting wet on Kali- if you are already wet anyway (our rainy day was cold so we didn't do that though). We really enjoyed it in the rain. The only issue is if your kids really want to do the Wilderness Explorer book/badges, you may have some trouble trying to keep the books dry. Our trip was before they were doing the whole book of badges.

 

[nkereina]

Never done AK in the rain but I'd have to think it's not one of the better ones to do in the rain. Some of the main attractions are outdoors - safari, EE, Rafiki's, the trails, Flights of Wonder show, some of the rides in Dinoland.

If it's at all possible to do DHS that day, I'd recommend DHS as the best park for the rain. Almost all rides and queues are indoors and being that its a small park, it was easy to dart from ride to the next.

 

[amg35]

Never done AK in the rain but I'd have to think it's not one of the better ones to do in the rain. Some of the main attractions are outdoors - safari, EE, Rafiki's, the trails, Flights of Wonder show, some of the rides in Dinoland.

If it's at all possible to do DHS that day, I'd recommend DHS as the best park for the rain. Almost all rides and queues are indoors and being that its a small park, it was easy to dart from ride to the next.

Not really possible to change fast passes at this point, but thanks!

We'll be okay, I'm sure. Kind looking forward to the River Rapids in the rain (if open), I can wear my poncho w/out looking like a big baby. Seems like Safari is open and we'll try to get EE done when it's dry.

Anyways, hopefully this thread is pointless and we will have brilliant sunshine the whole trip.

 

[GatorChris]

Of all the winter season days we've spent at WDW, it's only rained on us once and that was at the AK. I had a self-professed Disney-snob friend who changed plans and skipped because he said the animals don't come out in the rain. Well, we had ADRs booked and we weren't budging! Glad we didn't. That was such a fun and memorable day! Guess what? Animals in the wild get rained on and so do animals in a park. The Safari was one of the best ones we've experienced as the warthogs were having a time in the water. Also, we went to the character meet area near DinoLand and the place was vacant. We were there with the characters by ourselves (kids were 2&4) for about 15 minutes.

Sure we got wet, and sometimes soaked, but the rains eventually stopped and were able to hit ExEv later in the day. If I had to do over, that's the park I would want to hit in the rain. Can you imagine the hordes of people crowding into shaded areas at MK? Or how about walking World Showcase in rain? DHS might be OK, but AK definitely was a good day for getting wet.

 

[csjordan]

We did AK in the rain in August and it was great! Probably the best safari ever! Everest was closed for most of the day but off and on reopened. Dinosaur was open and the shows were all still on, and the crowd was significantly lower