Early Entry, Extended Evening Hours, After Hours, Rope Drop… huh?!
Welcome to the ups and downs of planning a trip to Walt Disney World, where all the terms and acronyms turn your trip planning into PhD-level research.
Most people heading to Disney World don’t truly research, however, so they aren’t aware of how to plan for and take advantage of the numerous benefits Disney grants visitors – like Early Entry, for example – to make their trip a little more magical.
But if your search has led you here, you’re way ahead of the pack.
Because here’s the big kicker with Early Entry at Animal Kingdom: It. Is. EARLY.
With the park typically officially opening around 8 am most of the year – and sometimes even 7 am! – you’re looking at a crack of dawn start time if you’re headed here for Early Entry.
You will be rewarded, though, because Animal Kingdom is huge, and with the lower crowds, it’ll feel like you have the whole beautiful park to yourself for at least a few hours before the crowds start rolling in.
Sound good to you? Let’s start with the basics so you’re Early Entry ready on your AK day.
What is Early Entry?
Early Entry is a benefit reserved for guests staying on property at Disney Resort and other select hotels, granting them access to the Disney parks 30 minutes before the official park opening.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t apply to the entire park or every attraction at Animal Kingdom.
But don’t worry; a good strategy will still give you the jump over regular crowds even well into park opening, as crowds won’t often build until well after 10 am here.
Early Entry Pro Tips
Knowing the ins and outs of benefits like Early Entry will not just set you up for a successful park day, but you’ll also begin to learn to maximize your time at the parks. And we all know that, especially at Disney, time = money.
Here are our favorite tips when it comes to mastering Early Entry:
- Early Entry = Start Early. Early Entry often starts before it says it will. For example, if the park opens at 8 am and EE is at 7:30 am, some attractions will start operating 5-15 minutes earlier. It’s never much earlier than that, but it’s definitely a nice way to get the line rolling earlier, so factor it into your overall arrival time – especially if you’re like us and consider EE to be a competitive sport!
- Be first for Rope Drop. Strategically speaking, if you don’t have EE, arriving early can also put you ahead of the (regular) crowd when the park officially opens at “rope drop.” You’re still going to see pretty short waits or even walk onto many attractions outside of the very popular Flight of Passage.
Early Entry Attractions
Since you already know only select areas of Animal Kingdom will be available during Early Entry, there is also a specific list of open attractions.
- Avatar Flight of Passage
- Zootopia: Better Zoogether!
- Expedition Everest – Legend of the Forbidden Mountain
- Na’vi River Journey
For your planning purposes, it’s important to remember that most character greetings, shows, and animal exhibits will not be available until the park officially opens.
Food Options
Although major quick service options at Animal Kingdom won’t typically open until closer to lunchtime, some food vendors will be accessible during Early Entry.
We’re fond of grabbing snacks or breakfast in Pandora if we’re heading there. Satu’li Canteen, always one of our top picks, is serving full breakfast meals again (and they’re good).
Kusafiri Coffee Shop and Bakery and Creature Comforts (a.k.a. Starbucks) near Africa are good for coffee or quick bites like pastries and breakfast sandwiches.
BUT. If you’re up and at ‘em for Early Entry, you should really be using that time to focus on conquering the beautifully short lines for rides.
Our hot take? Fuel yourself to get through at least the first 90 minutes of your time in the park to make the most of the “extra” time you have. Some easy, quick food in the room or to-go breakfast bars are our first line of defense. Then, we’ll typically get a filling snack at one of the above vendors or even settle down for an early lunch once we’ve gotten through our priority attractions for the morning and lines really start to grow.
If you’re thinking of something more sit-down, however, our favorite pick is a late-morning reservation at Tusker House. It is hands down one of the best character meals and buffet food selections in Disney World!
A Note on Early Entry v.s. Rope Drop
Before we get into the actual step-by-step attraction strategies, it’s important to know that there are two different terms used to signify opening times at the parks: Early Entry AND Rope Drop.
Historically, Rope Drop refers to the time when Cast Members would drop the (literal) rope for an attraction so guests could ride. So that means that if a ride isn’t open during Early Entry but opens at official park opening, it’s “Rope Drop” is then.
Many bloggers and publishers use the terms for park opening interchangeably, but for the purpose of OUR website and the strategies we have for the four parks, we use them separately:
- Early Entry refers to the attractions opening 30 minutes before the park officially does.
- Rope Drop, which we sometimes call Regular Rope Drop, refers to attractions opening at the official park opening time.
It will be clear below, but we needed to mention it!
Early Entry Strategies
Now, we can get to the fun part: planning your ride strategy on arrival. Your Early Entry strategy, however, will depend on multiple factors:
- How early you want to be there to line up for a ride (we’ll get more into this, but your timing matters for certain attractions).
- Whether you’re planning on purchasing and using Lightning Lane Multi Pass and/or Single Pass.
- How much of a crowd you want to deal with that early.
Note: Early Entry is a nice benefit, but it’s important to highlight that 30 minutes goes by quickly. You’ll typically only have time for 1-2 attractions MAX before moving to a regular itinerary (and starting to use your Lightning Lanes if you’ve paid for the Multi Pass).
But because Animal Kingdom opens so early, know that you won’t see the same ballooning crowd levels at regular park open that you would at the other Disney parks. You’ve got more time here to get a lot done with low waits!
Let’s go through the different Early Entry strategies based on priority attractions so you can pick which works best for you.
Avatar Flight of Passage
This immensely popular main headliner typically holds one of the highest wait times in the park from open to close, and the only ways to ride it are to either wait in the standby line or pay extra for the Lightning Lane Single Pass (no fun).
You could target FoP during Early Entry, but the problem with using EE for this ride is that a significant line will build almost immediately. For example, if EE is at 7:30 am, there will already be a decent crowd waiting by 7:00 am (and sometimes earlier).
If you go for this option anyway, know you’ll still technically be waiting. But to take the best advantage, we recommend getting to the park half an hour before EE if you want a short wait (i.e., 15 minutes). Otherwise, you could get stuck in the EE bottleneck and see a 45+ minute wait, a total backfire of the “no wait” plan!
Na’vi River Journey
Hitting this attraction during Early Entry can be done independently or in tandem with Flight of Passage above. If you decide to hit Flight of Passage first and you’re successful with being one of the first groups on, you can typically walk over to Na’vi River next door and still see a short wait. If that’s the case, definitely go for it!
You can also skip the EE rush for Flight of Passage and just hit Na’vi. This is a great option if you’re not planning on using the Lightning Lane Multi Pass on your Animal Kingdom day since Na’vi is really the one ride that sees a long line (or early sold-out Lightning Lane) and can throw a frustrating loop in strategy.
While we love the ride, most say it isn’t worth the long wait it draws. So, getting it done during EE is a great option to check it off the list and not deal with a mess later in the day.
The “Other” Attractions
Outside of Pandora, you’ve got just a few one real option, which is Expedition Everest.
Our favorite option here – especially if we’re a party of mainly adults or have older kids with us – is Everest. It’s an amazing coaster, and since most people want to ride it multiple times, EE is the perfect opportunity to do so before crowds grow.
Note: The only problem is that you’re hitting a big coaster EARLY, and this can shake some people up (we may be speaking from personal experience here, but we’re mostly projecting our sadness for our aging bodies – YMMV!).
If you’re worried about that icky post-ride feeling, what works for us is skipping the caffeine before riding and having something in our stomachs (yes, it’s true, motion sickness is mostly neurological and not GI-related, so we find it helps!).
Rope Drop Strategies
You might have noticed that Kilimanjaro Safaris, another popular attraction, was not on that Early Entry list. That’s because this ride opens with the park at the official opening.
If you’re not using Lightning Lanes, it’s worth being closer to this attraction since it can build long lines quickly (especially during busy times of the year).
Pro Tip: A great insider perk to hitting Safaris first thing is that the animals are often a lot more active at this time of the morning, especially when it’s hot weather season, and the humidity causes all of them to hide away in the shade!
So, you’ve hit all your priority attractions during Early Entry…now what?
While Animal Kingdom is pretty easy to tour compared to the other three Disney parks, a little strategy goes a long way. You’ll want to follow a dedicated itinerary, so head there next to set up a plan for the rest of your day! 🙂