Rope dropping Na'vi river Journey

[Thomas R]

My wife and I will be in Disney tomorrow and are bringing our DD on her 1st Disney trip! Our first parl will be animal kingdom on Thursday. We currently have an 8 am breakfast reservation at Tusker House and are planning to do Na'vi river journey for right when the park opens. We were also fortunate enough to get a 905 FOP FP+. Is it reasonable to assume we should be able to get on Na'vi river journey when the park opens? We want to be able to do as many rides as our daughter can bring that she's height restricted. Ideally, we would like to ride Na'vi river journey, hop on FOP with rider switch, and then get to Kilimanjaro by 10 am.

Thoughts?

 

[firsttimer4]

I just saw WDW prep school post about this today. She said most likely not. Her thoughts were that the park will be open by the time your breakfast is done and the line will already be long. I think she mentioned in the article that they usually open the park before the advertised 9am time.

 

[disneyinthespringtime]

Many posters have noted a park open for pandora prior to 9:00 normal opening.
When we went on a 9:00 open day I think pandora opened about 9:40.

 

[gharter]

Should work well, except that they often let people into Pandora about 15-30 minutes before the park opens so the line is already long by the time the park officially opens.
But, you have a FP for the really long line at FoP.
They both are really fun rides. Hope you enjoy them.

 

[rteetz]

My wife and I will be in Disney tomorrow and are bringing our DD on her 1st Disney trip! Our first parl will be animal kingdom on Thursday. We currently have an 8 am breakfast reservation at Tusker House and are planning to do Na'vi river journey for right when the park opens. We were also fortunate enough to get a 905 FOP FP+. Is it reasonable to assume we should be able to get on Na'vi river journey when the park opens? We want to be able to do as many rides as our daughter can bring that she's height restricted. Ideally, we would like to ride Na'vi river journey, hop on FOP with rider switch, and then get to Kilimanjaro by 10 am.

Thoughts?

My thoughts would be not to rush through your breakfast. Tusker House is a great meal and I am sure your DD will love that.

Just a heads up they do not always open the path into Pandora from Africa with the park due to routing the Flight of Passage line. This means you would have to walk back towards the front of the park to enter over the bridge for Pandora.

Certainly Navi River Journey won't be as long as a wait as Flight of Passage right away. They do start letting people into the park and into Pandora prior to the park opening usually as others have said. I am not sure you will get to the safari by 10 with doing rider switch as even with FP the ride with pre-show can take some time.

 

[WDWLODGE]

AK opens at 8AM for EMH. We did EMH a couple weeks ago and walked onto Navi. By the time your breakfast is done the line will have grown significantly.

 

[Scrappingjen]

Without the EMH your plan would have been perfect but with the park opening at 8 for EMH, as you eat Breakfast the lines will be growing and growing. Its doubtful you will be able to enjoy breakfast and get to Navi done before 9. See if you can move your reservations to 10

 

[Amanda999]

We waited an hour (solid hour) on a crowd level 3 day (something like that - not large crowds), EMH at AK (got in line about 8:55am, before non-onsite crowd arrived) last month. Time posted at 9am was 50 minutes but we waited longer than that. Maybe that's not the norm, I don't know.

So I wouldn't risk it. I wouldn't rush through Tusker meal (I know my child would get more enjoyment out of a leisurely character meal - and that's a good one - than Navi boat ride, although we do like the ride). And if its your first time to Pandora, its nice to leisurely walk through the first time (to get to your FOP FP). Its remarkably themed. Unless your child happens to be a big Avatar fan, I'd just pass on Navi (or watch the wait time app, and hop in line if under 30 minutes) - there are plenty of dark boat rides that will be more engaging for a young child (Living with the Land at Epcot is underrated for little kids - animals, plants that are food they will recognize, movie/scenes they'll recognize - its great and often low wait.)