Day 3, Part 2: Everest, Everest, and More Everest
After painfully waving goodbye to the same-day FOP FP, we took some tree of life pics on the way out of the park.
And a little bit of magic:
Soon enough we were back at Pop and ready to rest our chilly chilly bodies.
After lounging around for a while, we got dressed for the night and hit Everything Pop for a quick dinner. It was the first of several dinners we had there- and all were pretty good. I think I got a burger this time, and it was good. The food court wasn’t busy either, which was nice. Sure, it gives me school cafeteria vibes, but that’s kind of fun in small doses.
After dinner, we got a bus back over to Animal Kingdom. The plan was to start the evening with Rivers of Light- I grabbed us Fastpasses to make sure we didn't have to fight for a spot. We marked the beginning of our first of three After Hours events with some fun photopass pics at the entrance:
As you can see, we learned from the mistakes of the morning and bundled up.
Then, we went to get our wristbands. And our flyers!
This was the only After Hours event that actually had flyers. I was bummed! I wanted them all as souvenirs.
Speaking of After Hours, I think I should explain how we ended up doing all three. This wasn't by design. I laid out our park days long before I even knew After Hours existed. Then, sometime around October, when they announced the next round of dates for the MK After Hours, I went back and forth about booking it. On the one hand, we had 7 park days, and therefore ample time to see/do everything. On the other, tales of the Mardi Gras crowds were already starting to worry me, and I wanted to make sure we didn't have to spend a ton of time in line during the day in order to actually ride anything. Plus, all of my WDW trips end up being "go big or go home", since i never know when I'll be back. Who knows where After Hours will be in a few years? So, I decided to book MK After Hours for March 7.
Fast Forward to late December, when I'm back in the Disney planning frenzy in anticipation of our FP day on January 1. That's when I found out about After Hours at AK and HS. At first, neither appealed to me. But, the more I thought about it, the better it sounded. After booking our FPs I went back and looked at the dates, and saw that the AK After Hours coincided with that i had just locked in as our AK day. Hence why we ended up doubling up. But, all things considered, I think the scheduling worked out well since we got a full day to night experience at my favorite park.
With two After Hours events booked, I told myself I was done. But.... I also have very little self control. I convinced myself to buy the HS tickets a few day later, because why not? So, that's how our After Hours trifecta came to be.
Alright, now back to the report
We had some time before Rivers of Light started, but not enough time to ride anything, since the lines were rather long. So, we just took some time to enjoy the atmosphere.
This guy was swinging around and doing cool stuff... But of course he didn't do it for a picture.
Then, we watched Everest trains go by:
Then, it was time to take our seats. Well, more like, it was the earliest possible moment that our Fastpass started. Despite not wanting to sit around and wait for the show, we ended up doing just that. Oh well.
Rivers of Light is… a show. That exists. It’s not bad, but it’s not great. I understand they can’t do a big fireworks number at AK, but I think they could’ve still done more with what they had. Plus, removing the live performer in the boat really took away from the already meh experience. But, we can say that we did it. Side note: I wrote this before they announced the new version of Rivers of Light. I'm really interested in seeing what they do with it, and I 100% agree with their decision to retool it.
After the show, we made a mad dash for another ride on Everest- no FP needed, since most everyone was leaving the park.
After, we decided to start with Dinosaur and then circle back around. On the way, we passed the Dinoland dance party, which was cute. One dinosaur chipmunk was there and so was Pluto. We continued on, only to find that we couldn’t get on Dinosaur until the event officially began. So, I get why they have to do that, but it’s a bit annoying to have a limbo period where you can’t get on some rides but you’re already there for the event. But whatever. We decided to go meet Mickey and Minnie instead…. And we couldn’t get in that line either. So we stood there until they let us in around 8. I was a little bit annoyed at this point. At least we didn’t have to wait until 8:30.
These two are always a good time. They noticed that our ears have animal patterns and mined out different animals for us to guess.
Since it still wasn't 8:30 yet, we killed some time with more tree of life pics.
Then we headed over to Dinosaur, where they were letting people get in line. We ended up waiting around 15-20 minutes, which is far longer than I felt we should’ve at an event where time is literally money. Someone in the AK After Hours thread said there was a ride problem that slowed everything down. Whatever the case, we got on eventually. Thankfully, it was one of just two substantial waits we had all night.
Between the awkward 8-8:30 limbo period and the unexpected long wait at Dinosaur, I was more than a little annoyed at this point. But, I tried to put that aside and enjoy the rest of the night.
We headed back into Dinoland and decided we wanted snacks. But the line was long, so we rode triceratops spin twice while we waited for it to dissipate.
We then stopped for our first snacks of the night. We eventually stopped at all 3 snack counters and made sure that we tried everything. Soda, popcorn, and all the ice cream. After all, we paid for it!
We sat for a moment to enjoy our snacks before heading for Everest. We marked the occasion with a sleepy ride pose:
ZZZZ......
We paused for another snack break before heading back onto the ride.
There was NOBODY in line. They let us pick our row and everything. It felt surreal! This experience alone felt worth the money.
For some reason, I don't have the ride photo from this time around. But that doesn't really matter, since we turned right around and rode again:
We didn't plan this with the people behind us- they just happened to do a similar pose! I love it!
Annnddd we rode again:
We tried to make a heart, but we were laughing so hard that it didn't really work out.
We rode one more time for good measure:
We ran out of photo ideas
If you lost count, that’s 5 rides on Everest total. We could’ve done more, but my stomach was starting to rebel after so much popcorn, ice cream, and g forces. We never waited more than 5 minutes max. For this fact alone, the event was 100% worth it. This whole section of the evening really turned my mood around after a not so smooth start with Dinosaur.
Because we’re gluttons, we went to get more snacks. The cast member asked if we’d been over to Pandora yet, and we said no. She told us she heard the wait for FOP was only 20 minutes. I crossed my fingers that she was right, and we made our way over there, stopping to watch a tree of life awakening on the way.
As always, Pandora was gorgeous at night. I didn’t take any pics though, so use your imagination. We walked on to River Journey, and then got in line for FOP. Much to my surprise, the cast member was right- I timed it, and we got in line right at 10:28 and walked out of the link chamber at 10:54. Much better than I expected! For those attending After Hours in the future, definitely save Pandora for your last destination. It’s tempting to go earlier, but we got there at exactly the right time! Let the masses filter out and then enjoy the nearly-empty land for yourself.
Also, this was a sold-out event, but the park still felt empty. So don’t let that worry you! I notice a lot of hyperbole in the way people describe these events, and the parks in general, when it comes to crowds. This park felt EMPTY but I still saw reviews that said it felt super crowded. I don't consider occasionally seeing a group of people to be crowded. All 3 of the After Hours events we attended were sold out, and none felt anywhere NEAR what I would consider crowded in any sense of the word.
Also, fun fact, Josh from EasyWDW was in attendance the same night- I doubt we crossed paths, and if we did I wouldn't have known, but I still felt starstruck knowing he was there, because I read his site all the time!
I don’t remember if we rode River Journey again or just roamed around to enjoy the atmosphere- either way, at some point we got more snacks and said goodbye to After Hours.
All in all, this event was so, SO worth it. I’m so glad we did it. The park felt emptier than empty, we barely saw other people. Getting to ride Everest 4 times in a row with basically no wait was amazing and getting to ride FOP with a less than 20 minute wait was even more amazing! Plus, Animal Kingdom is so amazing at night. It feels so relaxed in a way that the other parks don’t. Our snafu with the Dinosaur wait had me nervous about what the rest of the night would hold, but it was everything I wanted and more.
Touring Plans says that AK was a 7 this day, and that seems about right. The park was busy but not super crowded. Actually, looking back, I don't remember thinking it felt crowded at all. The weather might've had something to do with that. From the chilly start to the late night finish, it was a great day.
I don’t remember if it took us long to get a bus back to Pop- probably did. Once we got back, we both passed out pretty much immediately. Thankfully, our next day was a “rest” day- in quotations because we still went to MK, but we went in the late morning and didn’t stay all day. I'’ll pick up with that next time. Thanks for reading!
Hopefully you can make up for it during your after hours event!
I hope you have an amazing time on your trip in October!!
It reminds me of the crowd my sister and I encountered back in 2015 when we arrived at MK right after the fireworks (we were on a boat from FW). The monorail was down so the hoardes of people were EVERYWHERE and confused on where to go without the monorail. It was also a lot of shuffling and slow-moving... and in the dark! I agree - it is not fun at all.
