What time should I arrive at Animal Kingdom?

[Koopaloop]

My October trip is getting closer and I'm trying to finalize my AK plans. What time should I plan to be at the front gates in the morning for a 9 am opening? Since we have FoP fastpasses for the afternoon, we're only planning on riding NRJ in the morning and need to be at Tusker House for a 10:20 ADR. I know there are a ton of people who will be there first thing in the morning, but I'm hoping most of them will be headed to FoP. Basically, I'm trying to find the sweet spot between not showing up super early to be at the front of the rope drop crowd and not having to wait too long at NRJ. Would 8:30-8:45 be a good time to get there? Thanks everyone, you've all been so helpful already!

 

[Monima]

My October trip is getting closer and I'm trying to finalize my AK plans. What time should I plan to be at the front gates in the morning for a 9 am opening? Since we have FoP fastpasses for the afternoon, we're only planning on riding NRJ in the morning and need to be at Tusker House for a 10:20 ADR. I know there are a ton of people who will be there first thing in the morning, but I'm hoping most of them will be headed to FoP. Basically, I'm trying to find the sweet spot between not showing up super early to be at the front of the rope drop crowd and not having to wait too long at NRJ. Would 8:30-8:45 be a good time to get there? Thanks everyone, you've all been so helpful already!

We were at AK last Friday. Got to the gate at 8 and had about 200 ppl front of us. They started bag check at 8:40 and then guided us to Pandora. We got into the Stand by line for FoP and were back out at 9:12. Then went through the gift shop and on to our Na'vi River FP at 9:45. The standby for Na'vi River did not seem bad.
Just a tip; you gonna want to do FoP more than once. It is absolutely amazing. We went back that evening after River of Lights was cancelled to ride again. So did half of the other ppl. Wait time was posted as 90 mins. We were back inside within 45 mins. This time they moved the line through the lab which was neat.

 

[pooch]

I was wondering the same thing. We will be headed to Africa for safari, FOTLK and 10:30 TH. I'm hoping 8:30 will be early enough?

 

[ArielDreams]

My October trip is getting closer and I'm trying to finalize my AK plans. What time should I plan to be at the front gates in the morning for a 9 am opening? Since we have FoP fastpasses for the afternoon, we're only planning on riding NRJ in the morning and need to be at Tusker House for a 10:20 ADR. I know there are a ton of people who will be there first thing in the morning, but I'm hoping most of them will be headed to FoP. Basically, I'm trying to find the sweet spot between not showing up super early to be at the front of the rope drop crowd and not having to wait too long at NRJ. Would 8:30-8:45 be a good time to get there? Thanks everyone, you've all been so helpful already!

I would say 8:30 is fine for just Navi. Went to AK 3 times last week - 2 days with FoP FPs and 1 day with a Navi FP. That morning we showed up at exactly 9, went to Everest and rode it twice, then over to Pandora for Navi. We had the FPs but standby was less than 45 mins. FoP on the other hand was outrageous!!

As a side note, we had the BEST time at AK this trip. Other than Pandora, the park seemed empty and we were able to take it easy and do everything we wanted.