**Disney After Hours - Animal Kingdom** FAQ & Discussion Thread

[lurkyloo]

Here’s the schedule from last night, Feb. 6, for reference:

I’d been studying this thread for weeks, but then we kinda went rogue and didn’t follow some of the best tips. We started in Pandora at 8:30 and rode Navi River Journey twice in a row, then rode FOP twice in a row, then took a snack break (which involves walking alllllllll the way out of Pandora to find the cart, we learned), hit FOP one more time, did The River ride twice more and were outta time. Fortunately FOP was always a walk-on, but as others have pointed out, it takes at least 20 minutes (24 for us — I timed it!) by the time you walk through the in queue and the out queue and do both preshows.

We did learn that Line 3, Door B2 and numbers 7, 8, 9, and 10 is supposedly the best combination for a view of FOP, according to the CM who sent us there, but that’s probably subjective. Also, we weren’t the only nerds who wanted to see what the FOP standby queue looked like, so a nice manager took four of us on a quick tour, which I thought was nice!

 

[Haley R]

Here’s the schedule from last night, Feb. 6, for reference:

I’d been studying this thread for weeks, but then we kinda went rogue and didn’t follow some of the best tips. We started in Pandora at 8:30 and rode Navi River Journey twice in a row, then rode FOP twice in a row, then took a snack break (which involves walking alllllllll the way out of Pandora to find the cart, we learned), hit FOP one more time, did The River ride twice more and were outta time. Fortunately FOP was always a walk-on, but as others have pointed out, it takes at least 20 minutes (24 for us — I timed it!) by the time you walk through the in queue and the out queue and do both preshows.

We did learn that Line 3, Door B2 and numbers 7, 8, 9, and 10 is supposedly the best combination for a view of FOP, according to the CM who sent us there, but that’s probably subjective. Also, we weren’t the only nerds who wanted to see what the FOP standby queue looked like, so a nice manager took four of us on a quick tour, which I thought was nice!

Wow I’m super jealous of your tour in the standby que. I would’ve loved to see that!

 

[maryj11]

I was just trying to set up plan in Touring Plans and it had After Hours listed for Animal Kingdom on our Wednesday in June. I was excited until I went to the Disney site and none were listed. Must be a TP error

 

[Iowamomof4]

I was just trying to set up plan in Touring Plans and it had After Hours listed for Animal Kingdom on our Wednesday in June. I was excited until I went to the Disney site and none were listed. Must be a TP error

Where were you seeing that? I just looked at the crowd calendar and don't see After Hours listed anywhere past April.

 

[maryj11]

Where were you seeing that? I just looked at the crowd calendar and don't see After Hours listed anywhere past April.

It was on my dashboard where you select a park for a certain day. I had selected Animal Kingdom and it said After Hours on that day. It wasn't on the crowd calendar but where I was personalizing my plans.

 

[SimplyTink]

I was referring to the multiple people who have said they decided not to go after reading your review. I'm sorry to hear that you didn't have a good night!

It wasn't just what @Haley R had to say about AK DAH that I based my decision as to not want to go. AK is my least favorite park because of how difficult it is for me to get around. I use a rollator and it is very hard to push it there during the daytime and DH feels it would be even worse at night.
I on the other hand could probably go on Everest and stay there all night. I'm glad to hear about your positive experience at AK as well so thank you also for posting!

 

[SimplyTink]

I think people who have recently decided NOT to do DAH at AK were really on the fence already and probably leaning toward not doing it. Hearing Haley and others talk about long waits for FOP and other issues may have been just the push they needed to make a decision to forego the event. People always have to make the best choice for themselves as to how to spend their limited vacation funds. By not doing this event, they'll be able to do other things that might fit their needs better. It's all good.

This exactly

 

[eeudj]

new to thread and asked this question on another thread... are new dates going to be added? I will be there the week of May 12, 2019.. crossing fingers, celebrating my 50th!!!

 

[Iowamomof4]

new to thread and asked this question on another thread... are new dates going to be added? I will be there the week of May 12, 2019.. crossing fingers, celebrating my 50th!!!

We don't know yet if they will add more dates, but hopefully we will know soon! Subscribing to this thread and the other threads for the after hours events you're interested in is one of the best ways to stay up-to-date on what we know. We'll be there the same time as you!

 

[maryj11]

new to thread and asked this question on another thread... are new dates going to be added? I will be there the week of May 12, 2019.. crossing fingers, celebrating my 50th!!!

We are hoping they do. A lot of us are waiting. We are going in June.

 

[NICE8x]

I hope they add dates the week of May 5th. I may be doing a Universal trip this year instead of Disney but I would LOVE to go back to Animal Kingdom and ride FOP, Expedition Everest, and DINOSAUR with no wait. FOP was such an amazing ride-I went on it twice last trip and I really just want to ride FOP again. I could just tack this Disney event onto the end of one of the 4 days we'll be at Universal.

 

[eliseisawkward]

One thing I forgot to mention! If you have only 1 or 2 in your group for FoP you can ask the CM to reride without leaving and going around. We didn’t do it, but we heard another group do it and the CM had them wait to see if there were extra bikes with the next group. They definitely got on because we didn’t see them come out the exit. It probably depends on the CM, but always worth asking if you want to try to do it back to back without preshow!

 

[TNickell27]

One thing I forgot to mention! If you have only 1 or 2 in your group for FoP you can ask the CM to reride without leaving and going around. We didn’t do it, but we heard another group do it and the CM had them wait to see if there were extra bikes with the next group. They definitely got on because we didn’t see them come out the exit. It probably depends on the CM, but always worth asking if you want to try to do it back to back without preshow!

oooo i'm totally going to try this on Tuesday!!!! Thanks for the tip!

 

[Dentam]

One thing I forgot to mention! If you have only 1 or 2 in your group for FoP you can ask the CM to reride without leaving and going around. We didn’t do it, but we heard another group do it and the CM had them wait to see if there were extra bikes with the next group. They definitely got on because we didn’t see them come out the exit. It probably depends on the CM, but always worth asking if you want to try to do it back to back without preshow!

We actually saw a couple do this as well. They were the only ones at the end of the line with us and we were all talking to the CM there. Forgot to mention it in my earlier reports!

 

[igrsod]

This event does not seem to be worth the price of admission. My friend wanted me to do some research, as we are there on a day when this is offered. I will be reporting a confident "not worth it". My daughter and I did the MK DAH last year and LOVED it. But with only a few rides, and snack carts far apart, this event over promises and under delivers from what I'm seeing.

 

[Dentam]

This event does not seem to be worth the price of admission. My friend wanted me to do some research, as we are there on a day when this is offered. I will be reporting a confident "not worth it". My daughter and I did the MK DAH last year and LOVED it. But with only a few rides, and snack carts far apart, this event over promises and under delivers from what I'm seeing.

It was already discussed earlier in this thread that "worth" differs for each person. We actually enjoyed our DAH night at AK much more than the MK one. If the number of different rides are what increases the worth to you, then I agree that you should skip this event.

 

[Juventus]

We actually saw a couple do this as well. They were the only ones at the end of the line with us and we were all talking to the CM there. Forgot to mention it in my earlier reports!

I did this last year. IIwould recommend taking your time getting off your bike and grabbing your things. Be the last person to leave and ask.

 

[igrsod]

It was already discussed earlier in this thread that "worth" differs for each person. We actually enjoyed our DAH night at AK much more than the MK one. If the number of different rides are what increases the worth to you, then I agree that you should skip this event.

Curious what made this one a better event for you over the MK one?

 

[Dentam]

Curious what made this one a better event for you over the MK one?

We didn't feel rushed at all and were able to soak up the atmosphere of the AK at night, which is really beautiful even without the Pandora area which is of course amazing at night. We were able to walk on all of the rides we were interested in multiple times. We also got plenty of snacks and one of the CM's actually gave us a hot chocolate at the bar outside EE even though that wasn't part of the night's offerings. They also gave my dad and sister (my mom and I didn't want anymore at that point) one each of all of the ice cream snacks at the end of the night. So like 4-5 ice creams for each of them which was so nice of them. It was cold enough at that point that we didn't have to worry about them melting and just brought them back to our room to put in the freezer section of our fridges (we had two rooms). We also really enjoyed taking photos of the park as we were leaving with no one else in them. We ended up with our own bus back to the AKL also and didn't have to wait for it - just walked right on and off we went.

At the MK DAH, which we did the following evening I think it was, we felt a lot more rushed and also 7DMT and Pooh were down for the first half of the night which affected our plan of going from ride to ride as we came to them. We ended up going over to Tomorrowland then rushing back to Fantasyland once I saw on the app that the rides had reopened. We ended up waiting about 10 minutes for 7DMT but I know people who got there after us reported waiting closer to 30 minutes. Just a more rushed and less relaxing feel to the evening. If they added another hour to it to account for the higher number or rides and possible break downs of rides we would feel that it was more worth the price.

The one thing that was better in the MK was that their popcorn was freshly made whereas the popcorn in AK was pre-boxed - could definitely tell the difference!

 

[E.Jane]

This event does not seem to be worth the price of admission. My friend wanted me to do some research, as we are there on a day when this is offered. I will be reporting a confident "not worth it". My daughter and I did the MK DAH last year and LOVED it. But with only a few rides, and snack carts far apart, this event over promises and under delivers from what I'm seeing.

I think it really depends on what interests a person in AK. We were there last week on a day that was supposed to be a "1" on the crowd calendar but it ended up being a 7. Our 3 FP's were FOP, EE and the safari. The only other attraction we did was Tough to be a Bug, because the crowd was (in our opinion) horrendous. I've always felt that AK is really only a half-day park at most if you're not into the walking trails and shows (which we're not). I'd happily trade a day-pass for an after-hour party, allowing us the opportunity to ride FOP and EE several times.