We’ve officially made it to week two! Our Animal Kingdom Wait Time Scorecard takes a look back at the last week of wait times and discusses how those impact our park strategy.
About This Post
If you’re new to the wait time scorecards, check out our post explaining our Disney World Wait Time Scorecards. That post explains the different numbers you’ll see here including why they’re imperfect. Our wait time scorecards are based on the last week of data from Thrill-Data.com.
Here are the most recent looks at wait times across the four parks:
For more on the reopening of Walt Disney World, check out our Walt Disney World Reopening Masterpost.
This post works in tandem with our Animal Kingdom Rope Drop Strategy post, which covers things like when (and how) to arrive at the park, and what to expect when you get there. If you’re new to Disney World, you might also want to check out our Guide to the Rides and Entertainment of Animal Kingdom, which includes brief descriptions of the rides.
This Week’s Animal Kingdom Wait Times
Animal Kingdom continues to be no fun to write about, mostly because it’s our favorite park and it’s a bit disappointing to see it struggling with such low waits. Waits were up a bit this week, but we’re dealing with such low figures that this isn’t too notable.
This week continued the surprise of last week, as Na’vi River Journey still averaged longer waits than Flight of Passage (16 minutes vs. 13 minutes).
Data Source: Thrill-Data.com
In case you missed last week’s post, this is likely due to the sanitation measures for the rides. While Flight of Passage can run consistently with Cast Members cleaning one set of vehicles at a time, Na’vi River Journey either has to completely stop loading or drastically slow loading while boats are cleaned. As noted last week, this cleaning cycle can reportedly take 20 minutes.
Luckily, morning crowds haven’t caught onto this. Na’vi River Journey still consistently opens with a 5-minute wait, which makes it perfect to start your day.
You could draw the opposite conclusion—that Na’vi stays at five minutes for a bit of the morning, so it makes sense to go to Flight of Passage then Na’vi. I think that’s wrong for two reasons.
First, a 15-minute wait for Flight of Passage is better than a 0-minute wait, in our opinion. The queue is great—it’s worth 15 minutes, particularly in a park that can more or less be experienced in a few hours these days. (Yes, you can always come back anytime during the day when the wait is 20 minutes to see the queue, too).
Second, it’s not worth the effort to arrive super early and then hope you’re off Flight of Passage before Na’vi River Journey waits go up or the ride has to undergo a cleaning cycle. Why not arrive “late” (at opening time), walk right onto Na’vi River Journey, and then at worst enjoy a few minutes in the Flight of Passage queue?
We’re also simplifying our second-ride advice from last week. We now feel like Na’vi River Journey — Flight of Passage — Kilimanjaro Safaris is the best way to start unless anything about the wait times shock you.
Flight of Passage’s queue is worth an above-average wait early in the morning. It’s a good queue, and you might decide after your morning ride that you’d like to ride it again. We don’t see much reason to delay visiting when you exit Na’vi River Journey.
Kilimanjaro Safari is still seeing a 10AM to 11AM bump, but again, it’s just not worth overthinking it. You want to ride before the 12PM to 4PM heat sets in, so just go ahead after you’re off Flight of Passage.
Part two of the wait time scorecard at Animal Kingdom needs little analysis:
Data Source: Thrill-Data.com
You can see that waits over 30 minutes were incredibly rare, and waits at or under 15, or even 10, minutes were the norm.
Conclusions
Animal Kingdom continues to be an easy park to experience in a short amount of time. On the plus side, the park has a few non-ride activities—particularly the animal trails—that should keep you busy for a short, but satisfactory day.