Rivers of Light and/or Tree of Life Awakening in AK

[JZCubed]

Past two years my young child has been to Disney World in summer, when nighttime shows and events were pretty much too late for her to enjoy.

For better or worse, my family is traveling this Christmas (leaving before New Year). We split-stay at Bay Lake (Contemporary) & Swolphin.

My child is now kinda' old enough to stay up late enough to assist in her own enjoyment of the nighttime events and activities and I just don't have a proper impression about having to make a choice between attending either Rivers of Light show (which I would be able to attend through Dining Package) and/or the Tree of Life Awakening.

I am aware that Disney is still tweaking the times of the shows and events in Animal Kingdom (and Disney reserves the right to make time changes even after I have painstakingly made all my plans).

So here's my ask:

I'd like some of your thoughts between being able to do both Rivers of Light and Tree of Life Awakening and/or why you might chose one over the other (in my case).

For what it's worth, this will be the first time in a bunch of years where our plan includes Cinderella Castle Lighting & fireworks from Main Street in Magic Kingdom. That might be part of the calculus too.

Thank you for your assistance!!

 

[Robo]

Tree of Life Awakenings is not something you need to "attend."

You can easily see it multiple times while at DAK in the evenings.

It just "happens" at several times during the evening and can be seen from a rather wide area
around the front side of the Tree of Life.
You can see it whether you go to Rivers of Life or not.

 

[CAS239]

Are you doing Hollywood Studios? I would recommend Star Wars a Galactic Spectacular and Fantasmic over the AK shows. I'd also recommend Illuminations over them.

I personally didn't care at all for Rivers of Light so I would recommend the visual and firework shows over the RoL show. If you did want to see both at AK though you definitely can. RoL is the scheduled show and the Tree of Life Awakening happens often after it gets dark. For that you just need to go and get a spot near the tree of life and watch it. It's cool but I wouldn't go out of my way to see it like I would the nighttime shows at MK, HS, and Epcot

 

[JZCubed]

Tree of Life Awakenings is not something you need to "attend."

You can easily see it multiple times while at DAK in the evenings.

It just "happens" at several times during the evening and can be seen from a rather wide area
around the front side of the Tree of Life.
You can see it whether you go to Rivers of Life or not.

Thank you.

 

[JZCubed]

Are you doing Hollywood Studios? I would recommend Star Wars a Galactic Spectacular and Fantasmic over the AK shows. I'd also recommend Illuminations over them.

I personally didn't care at all for Rivers of Light so I would recommend the visual and firework shows over the RoL show. If you did want to see both at AK though you definitely can. RoL is the scheduled show and the Tree of Life Awakening happens often after it gets dark. For that you just need to go and get a spot near the tree of life and watch it. It's cool but I wouldn't go out of my way to see it like I would the nighttime shows at MK, HS, and Epcot

Thank you.

We plan on doing a bunch of the Party add-ons this year.

If my 8 y.o. is going to make-it through the night, wife & I will take all the assistance we can get.