Animal Kingdom, little ones, half day?

[teachmedis]

Hi all! We have our first trip to the world planned for April. I'm considering changing one of my dining ressies so that I can include Raglan Road, but the only way to fit in Downtown Disney is to do a half day at AK. So I have a 1 yr old, a 4 yr old and two senior citizens, we aren't doing thrill rides on this trip (we hope it's the first of many). Also no Kali River Rapids or Rafiki's Planet Watch. My goals are the safari, the Asia paths (I've forgotten the name...obvious rookie), Lion King, Nemo and Dinoland. The day I've picked to go is a morning EMH. Can I be out of the park without crazy rushing by 12 or 1? My bunch needs an afternoon break if an evening out is planned. Sorry this is so long!

 

[kdfogliano]

Yes

We aren't huge fans of AK (I know a lot will disagree with that) but we still go every trip and spend right through lunch and we are done

And we go on the thrill rides too

 

[missmun52]

Yes you will be fine. Get a fast pass for lion king, nemo, and the safari. If you want to meet characters then I would skip the fast pass for shows and just arrive early for them and use the fast pass for the meet and greets instead.

 

[Dis703]

Most of the time AK hours are only 9 to 5 anyhow so it should be easy to fit in a dinner at another location. I'm not always sure by what people mean when they say a half day park. With shorter hours like 9 to 5 we could certainly spend the whole day there. Last trip we got rained out on our AK day and left after lunch and had lots we didn't get to do.

 

[teachmedis]

Thank you for your responses! In the future I look forward to getting into the more educational and thrilling parts of AK with my boys, but for this year I think this is a good plan.

 

[Mambo Junkie]

I just returned from a December vacation and we did AK in half a day. We fped the Lion King, and went to catch Pocahontas while the grown ups rode Dinosaur (fp) and Expedition Everest. We did not do the rapids (too cold) or the Safari (while we love it, we felt it would be a little rough for the little ones). The 3D effect would be lost on the 2 year old, and the 4 year old doesn't like it so we chose not to do Tough to be a Bug, and the only thing we would have liked to do but didn't was Nemo. The kids played a little at the Boneyard then we left. We ate lunch at the Rainforest Cafe at 1:30 and were done. I really miss the Pocahontas animal show they used to have. It was so cute for the kids.

 

[dwbrewster]

I agree - maybe we were missing something but were a bit underwhelmed with AK.

If you have little ones and are staying at the resort having the EMH does you no good as the shows and most of the animal exhibits we found were not accessible until the full park opening.

 

[Delirium]

Your plan will work fine. But, as the kids get older, don't fall into the trap that some have. AK can actually be a 2 day park (assuming a close at 5) if you want to enjoy everything it has to offer.

 

[elittleton]

Your plan will work fine. But, as the kids get older, don't fall into the trap that some have. AK can actually be a 2 day park (assuming a close at 5) if you want to enjoy everything it has to offer.

I agree. AK has been my DD favorite park since we started going when she was 20 months. We have to visit it first every trip and go at least 1 other day. We don't do thrill rides and have only in the last couple of trips started riding Dinosaur.

 

[newdeal]

Hi all! We have our first trip to the world planned for April. I'm considering changing one of my dining ressies so that I can include Raglan Road, but the only way to fit in Downtown Disney is to do a half day at AK. So I have a 1 yr old, a 4 yr old and two senior citizens, we aren't doing thrill rides on this trip (we hope it's the first of many). Also no Kali River Rapids or Rafiki's Planet Watch. My goals are the safari, the Asia paths (I've forgotten the name...obvious rookie), Lion King, Nemo and Dinoland. The day I've picked to go is a morning EMH. Can I be out of the park without crazy rushing by 12 or 1? My bunch needs an afternoon break if an evening out is planned. Sorry this is so long!

Well, you really don't need to spend much time in downtown disney just because you want to go to Raglan road. Downtown disney really is just gift shops and stores, and restaurants, you could easily just go for your dining reservation and skip the rest. That said, you will be bound a bit by show times, you can do safari first thing but then when does the first lion king show start? likely not until 10am perhaps, you could do the pangani forrest trail while you wait for that to start. Then the Lion king show that takes half an hour. Nemo is on the other side of the park, so then you have to walk over there (which if your kids want to walk instead of ride in the stroller could take awhile) and hope you make it for the next showtime, whatever time that is. Then that show takes 45 minutes. Dinoland depends on how long your kids want to play in the bone yard, there really isn't much else there for little ones other than triceratops spin. Don't forget about flights of wonder, that show is pretty enjoyable. I do think you could be out by noon potentially, however it would likely be pretty rushed. I would plan to just do AK until you are done, then go to downtown disney and just kill whatever time is left until your reservation for dining. Hopefully that time is minimal

 

[ladyjubilee]

We really enjoy AK. For us it is at least a 2 day park, and even then we do not get everything done. A half day just wouldn't be enough for us.

 

[MinnieSweetheart]

Our touring plan for Animal Kingdom includes a late breakfast at Tuskerhouse.

You might also want to look into the dinoland dance party, the triceratops (yes it's like dumbo but toddlers love it), and some of the character meets like baloo and Louie.

I would personally skip downtown disney and enjoy more of the small attractions at animal kingdom; they have a lot that are toddler friendly. Or I would plan to get to downtown disney right in time for dinner and maybe shop after.

 

[RustManFan]

this is probably my #1 park! We (adults) stay from opening until closing but when my DD and DS were younger we would have done that too. So I vote stay as long as everyone is enjoying themselves and then rest a little before a Raglan Road dinner in the evening.

and we don't do thrill rides at any park

 

[nat8199]

I would never give up any AK time to go to Downtown Disney. AK was my kids favorite park last year. They were 2.5, 2.5, and 4. We actually scrapped our original plans and added in a second AK day because they loved it so much.

 

[lizard1]

I would never give up any AK time to go to Downtown Disney. AK was my kids favorite park last year. T

Ditto this. My kids were 9, 7, and 4 when we visited last and AK was definitely one of their favorite parks....I wouldn't skip it to do DTD.