Confused about ROL/AK... Need help in Planing

[LeeAnn]

I'm at 180 days so I trying to figuring out which parks I will be at to book my ADRs.

I had planned on going to AK on an early Magic Hours day. The hours show 9-5p so for that day it would be 8-5p. We usually don't use the whole day. We leave and have dinner elsewhere. It gives us an opportunity eat at a resort or downtown.

But I starts seeing ROL. And I'm confused.

ROL has to be when dark so I'm thinking the park hours will be extended. Til how how late?

Now, not sure if I should do an Early Magic Hours day. Do I need to be that the park that many hours? We usually run out things to do.

Then I see something about Dinner Packages and I'm totally lost. So people see it and some don't. Has anyone booked it? So it looks like I should eat at AK. Does anyone have more info? I book tomorrow.

If staying later in park, do I skip Early Magic Hours? How does the nighttime Safari play into this late night. Guess I'm needing a Plan of Attack on AK. What day do I go? What time do? Where do I eat? What do I do?

AK has never been this hard.

 

[frannn]

I feel your pain. Between this AND the uncertainty of early September hours AND the possibility of an early MNSSHP, my normally easy planning is now gone and everything is up in the air. I have to do my ADRs this week, so I will try to work my schedule based on a crowd calendar, leaving room to flip a day or two if ROL package come out. Problem is, I always schedule Boma on our AK full day, because it is a must-do. If it is necessary to have a dinner package to see ROL, I will have to decide which of our must-do's I'm willing to give up. This will put our park hoppers to good use. I'm thinking it will need to be at least sundown before this show can take off, so I'm using FDP as a guide, and thinking about 8:30. Worse comes to worse, we'll just go after we're done with whatever park we are planning on earlier in the day.

 

[ArielSRL]

First off, Disney has not announced anything so most likely, dining packages won't be available until they do. Secondly, park hours will most likely be adjusted when ROL is announced, as well as closer to your dates.

As far as us, when we booked yak & Yeti at 180 days out, AK's hours were listed as 9-5, so we booked at 4:45. Just a couple weeks ago they extended to 8 (for June) so I went online and modified our ADR to 5:45. I still expect more adjustments to park hours before our trip, though.

So, IMO, if you think you want to do ROL, plan your day out that way. You can always adjust it closer to your trip if you want.

 

[lovethattink]

Everything about RoL is rumor at this point. Rumors suggest 3 nightly shows. Not known if FP+ or not. From searches on MDE looks like a very strong possibility of dinner packages. Park hours are expected to change. Possibly an Earth Day opening?

 

[bigbabyblues]

We are planning for our trip in June. They have already adjusted AK's hours and now close at 8:00 during our trip. I have a rough plan for our AK day, and I am assuming I will need to watch for RoL dining packages to be announced and be ready to jump on that, or else have a FP that I can change ASAP if they open it up for FP. If the rumors hold, it will be open after I make our FP.

 

[LeeAnn]

So it seems that an Early Magic Hour is no longer necessary. Should it be avoided?

So the parks will be opened later. And there's a nighttime safari so there's no need to get there early for a morning safari. So what time would you get to AK?

Would you schedule a lunch or dinner at AK? I know no packages have come out yet but doing my best to plan.

At Tusker House, there's only a character at the Breakfast, right? Does anyone think that one will be included in the ROL package?

 

[ArielSRL]

We are doing a full day with a midday break. We will try to do both the day and night safari. We have a ADR at Tusker House for breakfast and Yak&Yeti for dinner (both already scheduled before ROL dinner pkgs were rumored). The glitch on the android app that showed dinner pkgs was for Tusker House, so it's safe to assume they'll be there but even if you make an ADR now, you would still need to change it to the pkg once released. Tusker house has characters at every meal, I think.