Alright, Mickey-shaped pretzel-lovers, hold on to your butts! Neil and I are probably two of the last people you’d expect to take time and visit Walt Disney World (WDW). Well, Neil is definitely one of those people. I, however, grew up having had the chance to visit WDW more than a dozen times before I was an adult. To say that there was a time I knew all the do’s and don’ts of the parks is not an exaggeration, but as life happened, that time has since faded. My last trip to the amazing wonder that is WDW was a solo one back in December of 2014. Somehow, Neil and I had never gotten the chance to go together in the past 8 years, or more like Neil was unable to be convinced, but those are semantics. Finally, as we were planning a trip to visit family for Thanksgiving in 2019, we worked in the logistics of having one day available for a visit to see the mouse in charge. We briefly weighed the pros and cons of park-hopper or single-park passes and since Neil isn’t (er, wasn’t) the biggest fan of this idea originally, I let him guide our choice and he confidently landed on Animal Kingdom (DAK). Here, is a brief recounting of the planning before our trip and what actually happened on one of the most crowded days of the year at WDW.
Before Departure
We booked our hotel, the on-property Pop Century Resort, back in early August. We had Hotels.com rewards and used that to offset the total cost of booking. Knowing that we were only going to be in the room for pretty much just sleeping, we didn’t need anything more than a basic room. The benefit to staying on-property gets you early access to certain parks each day, so this was a huge plus for us since we only had one day to make the most out of. Luckily for us, November 30th was going to be an early admission to DAK!
Next on the to-do list for us, ride fast passes, known as FastPass Plus (FP+). For over two decades, Disney has been using a system of tickets that allow a limited number of park guests to skip the lines for certain rides each day. You get a window of time that your pass is valid and then return to the ride during that time, and get to skip the line. Many other theme parks have since followed suit, but Disney always gets the credit for the smoothest and most well-thought out versions of this. Today, the passes are given out 90 days prior to your first date of stay for on-property guests and 60 days prior to park visits for all other guests. So this meant that at 90 days before our first night’s stay, I was up at 6am CST, logged into MyDisneyExperience.com, armed with my list of rides. There is a tier system at most of the parks, meaning you can’t pick just any rides, rather you have sets you can pick within. Each guest can select up to three FP+ within the same park, based on availability. Now, since we were going immediately after Thanksgiving, I knew there was a good chance my preferred rides would already be taken. DAK opened up Pandora’s Avatar Flight of Passage (FoP) in late May 2017. In the fall of 2019, over 2.5 years later, FoP was still one of the hardest FP+ to get on any day. So, back to my early morning online experience, the FoP passes were not available at all that day. Since we were going to get into the park early and try to knock out a few rides, I opted for a slightly later first pass for Dinosaur at 9:35am. Then I jumped on Expedition Everest for 10:50am followed by a 12:35pm Na’vi River Journey. I’ll get into the details of this logic later, but for now, know that I was happy to have at least gotten a few of the longer wait time FP+.
The other thing you can do many months ahead of visiting WDW, is make reservations for your dining. I actually did do this, since these become available 180 days out from your first date of stay. However, I ended up canceling after we made some ride plan and dietary changes. As long as you cancel more than 24 hours ahead of your reservation, you will not be charged (they take your credit card to hold the reservations).
Also, since I haven’t said it yet, download the MyDisneyExperience app! It is a lifesaver for keeping all your information in one place and at your fingertips while in the parks. You can link all your party members together, even if you’ve made separate reservations, which then allows you to book the FP+ together. It is a HUGE timesaver for cutting down food order wait times as well, but more on that later.
The last minor thing you can do ahead of your arrival is a tiny bit of fun, at least for me. MagicBands (they are currently using MagicBands 2) are the cool way that Disney lets you leave all your worries behind. This band is more or less like an activity tracker with a sensor in it that acts as your hotel room key, park pass, and credit card. I still had my original series band from my last visit, and this would have actually worked for this trip. However, when you stay on-property, you are given a new band for each hotel stay, so I opted to pick a new one. There are a few solid colors that are free of charge, while other printed designs are a few dollars more. Neil went with a classic orange band, while I chose a cute purple Figment band for $10 more.
And, since I’m a bit of a planner, I refreshed myself on all the WDW strategies and theories online. Pinterest was probably my main resource, followed by YouTube. So many wonderful bloggers and vloggers out there are able to visit the parks quite often and share many insider tips. Use these resources to stay current!
With all of that, we were ready for our day at the park!
Day at the Park
Since DAK opens at 8am officially for on-property hotel guests, we got up early to get on a shuttle. As luck would have it, we got on the very first shuttle leaving from Pop Century and were on our way at 6:40am (including a few exhausted tears on said shuttle)! This was after a late night UCF (Go Knights!) football game, which included a nice 40 minute drive after midnight back to the hotel. We were waiting in the main line for security check 7am, through the security bag check by 7:15am and then into the park gates right before 7:30am. I could not believe how well that worked out! The high level strategy was to do all of that and then book it to FoP, hoping to avoid the hours-long wait that would surely happen within an hour of the regular park opening time (9am). There is an additional scanning point to make sure that only hotel guests are being admitted into the park, but from there, we beelined it to the FoP queue. It was less than 10 minutes from us getting back there to getting on the ride. The ride was quite cool, but not worth more than an hour’s wait time for me.
Objective number two was coffee. However, as we passed the Creature Comforts Starbucks, there was a crazy long line. So we kept on moving to Kilimanjaro Safaris and enjoyed a wonderful tour of animals. This ride is Neil’s favorite and the entire reason he chose DAK. The ride is a good 40 minutes, but completely worth seeing the lions, elephants, ostriches, and flamingoes while you get to sit for all that time.
Now, back to the coffee. By now, it was just shy of 9am and for giggles, I pulled up the wait time for FoP: 210 minutes!! Coffee now procured, we wandered towards Dinoland U.S.A. for our first FP+ time of 9:35am for DINOSAUR. For the FP+ times, you have a full hour after the start time to arrive, so don’t feel panicked if you find yourself at the wrong end of a park when you realize it’s time to ride. Neil didn’t think he had ever ridden DINOSAUR, and he was in for a treat! Some dated acting and very dated animatronics entertained him for the three minute ride in a car that bounces along a track. From here, we had some time before our next FP+, so I went into the line for Primeval Whirl. In the weeks leading up to our trip, this ride had been closed for most of the time, so I was really hoping it would be functional on this day. The line moved pretty slowly for it still being before 10am, but within about 30 minutes, I was whirling to my heart’s content. Note: Neil hates roller coasters and spinning rides, so there was never a chance of him getting on this one, but I don’t mind riding with strangers, haha!
Next, we wandered back towards Expedition Everest. Neil had actually been debating this ride, even reading some reviews of it online while we waited for the FP+ window. That was, until he watched a YouTube video that showed the riders perspective, and he promptly decided he would not ride. This was a bummer for me because I love sharing things with him, but I’m not one to say no to getting to ride twice! The FP+ line here moves incredibly quickly. I think I finished both rides in just over 10 minutes. For the second ride, I switched MagicBands with Neil so I could scan his for the FP+. Expedition Everest is still probably my favorite Disney coaster so I’m really glad I got to ride it again on this visit.
At this point, we had quite a bit of time to kill as our next FP+ wasn’t until 12:35pm. On our way over there, we passed by the infamous “movie in the tree”, It’s Tough To Be a Bug, and hopped into that line. No FP+ needed, since the movie lets in many people at once, we had about a 10 minute wait for the next showing. We donned our cute bug-eye glasses and laughed along with the fun 4-D show.
Lunch was up next since we’d only had protein bars for breakfast many hours earlier. Again, having done research ahead of time, I knew which dishes were easily made plant-based (since we had started eating that way back in October), so we headed off to Satu’li Canteen. Using the app, we ordered a Crispy Tofu Bowl with the charred green onion sauce and potato hash. Since this was our first in-app food order, I didn’t realize you can do these anytime during the day! Meaning you can put all your food orders into the system at the start of the day, and then you simply use the app to notify the restaurant when you are there to pick it up. This prompts them to start cooking and within minutes, your name is being called from a special line for pick-up! We found this super easy and avoided some very long lines. We found the dish filling and a very share-able portion. Then we got some fun drinks at Pongu Pongu. I had the apple and desert pear flavored frozen Night Blossom while Neil opted for their take on a frozen margarita, the Mo’ara Margarita. Both were super flavorful and came with boba too!
We soaked in the sights and sounds of Pandora and then strolled over to the FP+ entrance for the Na’vi River Journey. Now, don’t get me wrong, I like a gentle seated ride where you take in the scenery and theming as much as the next person (I actually love the Carousel of Progress and not for a nice nap time!), but I honestly can’t see waiting more than 10 minutes for this one. I once got stuck on It’s a Small World while visiting Disneyland, and I’d almost prefer that over this boring river ride. Even with kiddos, it’s probably cool for them to see, but unless you have a FP+, this one is a huge pass for me.
From here, we headed over to the Gorilla Falls Exploration Trail to get in some more walking and see some more animals. This was a nice way to just explore some things on our own without any time restrictions. Neil got some great shots of the gorillas too!
At this point, we were in need of a bit of a rest, so we headed back to our hotel. The plan was to nap for a bit and then check out Disney Springs for dinner. However, buses from hotels to Disney Springs are hit-or-miss it turns out. And then, there are no direct buses from Springs to any parks (limiting people who try to park for free at Springs and then enter a park). At 4pm when we emerged from the hotel again, we ended up waiting till about 4:45pm for a bus to take us to Springs. There are other transportation options, like Uber, but I was trying to limit our expenses on this day. Once we got to Springs, we headed to the Holiday Tree display and really enjoyed checking out all the colorful themed trees.
We did a tiny bit of souvenir shopping and then worked our way back to DAK. In order to get there from Springs, we had to go to another hotel and then transfer busses to the park. The Animal Kingdom Lodge is the closest to the park, so we hopped on that bus. I don’t know if this was typical or not, but it took over 30 minutes from the departure of the bus to get to the hotel! I had already placed our food order since we were super hungry again, and I was now getting nervous that we wouldn’t make it time to pick up our food before they closed! Thankfully, we made it with about 20 minutes to spare and were able to enjoy a Flame Tree Barbecue Hot Link Smokehouse sandwich and fries.
Since it was well past dark, we were able to see all that DAK at night has to offer. There was a great musical performance in Pandora, along with all the glowing black light accents that come to life in the darkness. The Tree of Life had a festive holiday projection show that you could view from many places in the park. Neil and I also seized the opportunity to cover some ground and take cool shots with very few people around since the park will allow you to “wander out” once it’s past closing time.
After a bit of planning and a very long day, I would say it was completely worth the time and expense. Neil, who again is not a fan of many elements of WDW, thanked me more than once for all my attention to detail in the planning. Once we were through the fast paced morning, he realized how impactful a few hours of planning can be when you only have one day at one park. Here’s hoping we make it back again before another 8 years pass!
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