Avatar Flight of Pasage Strategy

[davedvf]

When we visited Animal Kingdom this past January, the following strategy worked beautifully for gaining us access to the Avatar - Flight of Passage attraction.

1. Arrived at the gates 1 HR before opening (and I mean the AK entrance gates... we actually parked 75 min before opening to be at the AK entrance gate 1 hr before opening).
2. As the lines at the entrance grew they let us in about 20 minutes before opening (seemed like almost everyone headed directly to Flight of passage to wait for the 'rope drop')
3. 'Rope Drop' took place precisely at the official opening time (9AM) and the huge crowd moved toward the Flight of passage attraction.
4. We walked into the queue and finally stopped near the end of the hall just before ride entrance (it ended up being less than 10 min to board the ride once we actually entered the queue).
5. Afterwards we enjoyed the generally lower morning lines for a couple of hours thereafter (easily did Everest and the Dinosaur attraction afterwards with the most minimal waits)


Now here is my issue:
Our next trip is in early/mid June and I see that the AK has extra magic morning hours every singe day of our 9-day trip. Since we are not staying at a Disney resort this time, I am guessing that the above strategy will likely be pointless since resort guests would already be enjoying the attractions (presuming the Flight of Passage line could already be quite large even with resort-only guests being in the park?).

Thus... Just wondering if anyone has had any experience doing Avatar-FOP during the morning extra Magic hours (trying to get a feel for what the lines would be like when resort-only guests are present). I would hate to waste our time trying the above strategy on extra-magic-morning-hour days if there is really is no advantage (as I suspect anyway).

Thanks!

 

[Babe the Blue Ox]

There have been several recent reports of 30 minute waits close to closing time most evenings. That may be a more efficient use of time than waiting outside the gate for an hour.

Just keep in mind that the posted times are intentionally inflated at night to discourage late riders. A posted time of 120 minutes may very well mean an actual wait if only 30.

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

The line for FOP was an hour at 8:40 on Fri 5/4 with EMH. I assume it stayed pretty close to that at regular park RD. And it was a pretty lightly attended EMH (it was one that was added 2 weeks before and MK also had morning EMH that day). I would go with @Babe the Blue Ox suggestion although you do risk that if there is a ride closure you may not have another chance to ride.

 

[davedvf]

There have been several recent reports of 30 minute waits close to closing time most evenings. That may be a more efficient use of time than waiting outside the gate for an hour.

Just keep in mind that the posted times are intentionally inflated at night to discourage late riders. A posted time of 120 minutes may very well mean an actual wait if only 30.

Great tip. Thanks for that

 

[davedvf]

The line for FOP was an hour at 8:40 on Fri 5/4 with EMH. I assume it stayed pretty close to that at regular park RD. And it was a pretty lightly attended EMH (it was one that was added 2 weeks before and MK also had morning EMH that day). I would go with @Babe the Blue Ox suggestion although you do risk that if there is a ride closure you may not have another chance to ride.

Many Thanks!