Should I allot two days for Animal Kingdom in September?

[Disneysooccermom]

Frequent Disney traveler here. We have gone every year for the past 3 years. We are going again in September. To be honest, I'm a little burnt out on certain parks- Animal Kingdom being one of them. Still, I'm going because I want to see some of the animals, take in some of the African and Indian street performances, fastpass Expedition Everest and Kali River rapids. I currently only have one day allotted for Animal Kingdom for our September trip. However, I'm rethinking this now. Will I need a day and a half or even two full days given the opening of Avatar land? Will there be that much more to see? Thanks!

 

[Phillip Williams]

I can only speak for myself but I usually only spend about a half day there myself and see everything I want to. It's usually the final day of my trip and the day where I try to hit every park to ride my favorite attractions one more time before I leave. Most people I have talked to find AK only one day at most to be good.

 

[Spork24]

I'm thinking that as long as you plan it right you will still be able to do AK in 1 day. I'm not expecting pandora to add more than a couple hours to your day. (Unless you have to wait in long lines) You can easily trade out some of the stuff you are burnt out on for pandora.

 

[Trap]

this is what i would do go ak spend the day at the beginning of your stay have one open day planed so then if you need one more day at ak you have it if you do not need it have a back up park to go to or disney springs or a pool day

 

[Disneysooccermom]

Thanks guys! Going to keep it AK at one day and leave a flex day toward the end. I'm excited for avatar land, but I think you are all right- It's not going to be that big of an expansion.

 

[OatsZoo]

I would think you can do it in one day. AK is my fave so I spend an entire day there just walking around but I hope the lines are not nuts in Pandora, that could eat up your day and you can only get on FP for the 2 new Pandora rides so the other you will have to do standby.

 

[Imagineer5]

So for my upcoming June trip, I added in a couple hours on a non-park day for AK. This gave me the opportunity to book FP for this day and our allotted AK day for both Pandora rides.

Our arrival day (flight gets in at 9AM!) was originally going to be just checking into condo, pool time and Disney Springs, but now we're doing AK for a few hours then check in then Disney Springs. Our next AK day, we'll do rope drop through lunch, leave for lunch at Sanaa, take an afternoon break, then back for a RoL dining package at Tiffins - so still not a full AK day!

 

[brockash]

Frequent Disney traveler here. We have gone every year for the past 3 years. We are going again in September. To be honest, I'm a little burnt out on certain parks- Animal Kingdom being one of them. Still, I'm going because I want to see some of the animals, take in some of the African and Indian street performances, fastpass Expedition Everest and Kali River rapids. I currently only have one day allotted for Animal Kingdom for our September trip. However, I'm rethinking this now. Will I need a day and a half or even two full days given the opening of Avatar land? Will there be that much more to see? Thanks!

I'll first say that AK is by far our least favorite park. We used to only spend half a day there. Last year because of the longer hours and night time show, we decided to start the day with a late breakfast at Tusker House (10:40) and then spent the rest of the day at the park, watching the 1st show and leaving after that. In a way it was kinda nice because it was much more relaxed than our other park days, but it was because we were just basically walking around after the first few hours because we just had nothing to do. We did things that we don't really like (Nemo show) and things that didn't appeal to us before (Tough to be a Bug -that was kinda cute) and we still just had way more time and it just felt like we were waiting around until the show (can't remember what it was called.) It was fun to ride Expedition Everest at night, and I'm sure we'll kinda do the same thing next time we're at AK to see the new show, but otherwise a full day for us is just not needed. I can't imagine doing 2. I think it really depends on what your family likes the most though...I know some really like AK, it's just not for us.

 

[HydroGuy]

Before RoL typically we would do AK and be done in time for dinner at RFC.

Last month we had a RoL FP when it showed at 7:15 at the park closed at 8PM. We did all day there and had an hour for shopping before an RFC dinner at 5:15 PM. The we went to see RoL, did a quick night ride on EE and left.

Now Pandora. I am going with DS26 and we will do one full day at AK with Pandora FP. Then on the next day which is a rest day, I schedule Pandora FP and ROL and we will go to the parks around 6PM for the evening only and rest all day.

So that allows seeing Pandora day and night, with guaranteed rides on Pandora with FP.

So as a PP said, maybe a day you would otherwise rest, maybe just do Pandora in the evening.