Talk to me about rope dropping AK and NOT doing Pandora first

[MegMouseketeer]

We will be in WDW during early January. We will be doing our Animal Kingdom day on January 10th (Wed). It is just my husband and I. We were lucky enough to snag FP for FOP right after lunch so we do not want to rope drop it and wait in line. We are also thinking we will wait and ride the Navi River ride in 2019 when we come back with our kids. We are HUGE fans of Expedition Everest. We also want to ride Dinosaur since we haven't ridden it before due to closures and refurbs, but love the Indy ride at DL (and we heard it is very simliar). What can I expect as far as trying to get into the park, but going the opposite direction of most of the crowd? What time should we get there? I want to get to Asia/Dinoland as soon as possible so I can ride both as many times as we can!

 

[Flamingeaux]

I would bet that if you get there at RD you could ride EE & Dinosaur many times very quickly before they get crowded. Josh has posted a few of his AK touring experiences that support this.

 

[GeorgiaHoo]

We did (sort of) RD this morning at AK. We took Lyft from our resort and were at AK around 845. There was a line of cars waiting to get in and we weren’t walking in until around 9. We went to Safari first but it was already 25 minutes and building so we went to Everest instead. It was 10 minutes so we did single rider line and walked right on twice. We then got breakfast at Yak & Yeti (beat QS meal I’ve had this trip), got coffee at Starbucks and walked the trail in Africa. Then used our FP for Pandora and on the way back to the resort now. Most of the rides had low wait times for the first 30 minutes or so, except of course the ones in Avatar land

 

[heidijanesmith]

We did this strategy when we toured in June, two weeks after Pandora opened. We knew that Pandora would be super crowded in the AM, so we went the opposite way. We arrived just past park opening, which is a no-no for us usually. There was a very small line for security and we were right in the Park.

We hit Dinosour x3, Everest x4 and could have gone more, but the backwards part gets to me.

We then went over to Pandora and check everything out, eat at the Canteen and then used our FP+, it worked out very well for us.