For the most part, theme park hours are straightforward. There’s an open time—when guests are let in the park—and a closing time—when the last guests are allowed to line up for rides. But as with all things, Disney makes things a little more complicated, with changing hours and a variety of ways to get early and late access to the parks. In this post we discuss the typical hours at Disney’s Animal Kingdom and how to access early and late hours at the park.
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Typical Hours at Animal Kingdom
Animal Kingdom typically has the shortest hours of the four Walt Disney World theme parks, with opening times generally at 8AM and closing times generally at 6PM, 7PM, or 8PM. During the holiday season, it’s not surprising to see Animal Kingdom hours change frequently and vary a lot. As of this update, the park is set to close at 6PM on New Year’s Eve.
You can view the official Disney hours for Animal Kingdom by clicking this link.
Additionally, guests of Disney hotels (and select partner hotels) have access to Early Theme Park Entry, which grants them access to select attractions 30 minutes before other guests every day. We discuss this perk more below.
Specific Ride Hours
It’s important to note that not all the rides open and close with the park. For example Kali River Rapids often opens late and closes early, particularly during cooler times of the year. Two of the most popular attractions—Kilimanjaro Safaris and Meet Disney Friends (character greeting) often close earlier than the rest of the park, making those Lightning Lanes a higher priority.
There’s no way to predict ride opening times in advance other than to look at the ride hours in the days before your visit and assume they’ll stay the same. You can either check the My Disney Experience app yourself (clicking into an attraction will tell you its hours for today), or you can visit TouringPlans—the last “posted time” dot will reveal when the ride started and ended operations on that day.
When popular rides open late, a good strategy is to plan to arrive at them about 5 to 10 minutes before they open so that you’ll have a short wait without having to use a Lightning Lane. We typically try and do this at Kali River Rapids (as seen above).
It is really important that you check the closing times of anything you’re thinking about visiting late. You can check the closing times in the My Disney Experience app, and we’ve even seen the zoological trails close earlier than the scheduled closing time. You don’t want to plan to visit a ride in the last hour of the day only to get there and find it closed two hours early.
When should you get to Animal Kingdom?
You shouldn’t just show up at opening time and expect to have a smooth day. We cover when to arrive at Animal Kingdom in our Animal Kingdom Rope Drop Strategy post. Because the arrival times are highly contingent on what rides you’re starting with, we recommend you read that post in full.
Keep in mind that not every ride opens and closes at the same time as the park, and shows, like Festival of the Lion King and Finding Nemo, have set showtimes.
Moreover, guests with breakfast reservations may be able to enter the park before opening time, depending on the park hours and their reservation time. You can read more about Walt Disney World dining reservations here.
Staying Late at Animal Kingdom
Like all of Disney’s parks, just because Animal Kingdom closes at some time doesn’t mean you have to be out of the park at that time.
The closing time is the when guests will stop being allowed to line up for rides. In most cases, you will be able to get in line for a ride right up until closing time. Because there can be exceptions to this—due to capacity issues or ride breakdowns—we don’t recommend you rely heavily on this. Rather, this is a good time for a “bonus ride” you would otherwise skip or a re-ride on something big.
While the last people are allowed into line for the rides at closing time, some stores will remain open and anyone still in the queue for a ride will get to ride and then leave. The stores at the front of the park will be open latest.
Animal Kingdom has no major nighttime show at this time, making the end of the day even better for a dinner (Tusker House is a great character dining option) or a last ride. Tree of Life Awakenings, a nighttime, recurring projection show on the Tree of Life, is sometimes shown and often continues for a bit after the park closes.
Because it has Avatar Flight of Passage, Pandora is the area of the park open latest. This is nice because it also happens to be an incredibly beautiful area of the park at night. You can often lounge around Pandora for sometime after the park closes.
Keep in mind you may not be able to leave the land and come back, as you can expect Cast Members to start prevent entry to the land pretty shortly after close. They also may begin directing people to exit the land even while the ride is still operating.
While Disney buses will run until the last guest leaves the park, they’ll do so on a significantly more limited schedule as it gets later, and the later exits almost always have to share buses.
Extra Hours Access to Animal Kingdom
There are two ways to gain access to Animal Kingdom outside the regular hours, Early Theme Park Entry and Extended Evening Hours. A third, Animal Kingdom After Hours was previously offered but hasn’t returned since 2020 (although After Hours returned to Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, Epcot, and Typhoon Lagoon have returned).
Early Theme Park Entry
Early Theme Park Entry is a perk offered to guests of Walt Disney World Resort hotels (and select partner hotels) that allows guests access to select attractions 30 minutes before the park’s scheduled open, every day.
Most rides at Animal Kingdom are included in Early Entry. The big exceptions are Kilimanjaro Safaris, which opens with the park, and Kali River Rapids, which usually opens an hour after the rest of the park. Early Theme Park Entry is covered as part of our Animal Kingdom Rope Drop and Early Entry strategy.
Extended Evening Hours
Guests of deluxe Disney resorts and select partner resorts have access to Extended Evening Hours. On select nights (currently about 1-2 nights a week), these guests have access to one of the four Disney World theme parks for extended hours at night—usually about two hours. Animal Kingdom does not offer Extended Evening Hours too frequently, but it typically pops into the rotation around the holiday season, when Magic Kingdom is occupied with parties.
Animal Kingdom After Hours (Not Currently Offered)
For the evening hours, there is Animal Kingdom After Hours. Unlike Early Entry and Extended Evening Hours, this is not a perk offered to certain guests, but is instead a ticketed event held on select evenings. Anyone can purchase a ticket (unless they sell out), and you don’t need separate park admission for the day to purchase a ticket for After Hours.
When it occurs, After Hours allows ticketed guests access to the park from 7PM to 3 hours after park close. You do not need regular park admission to access After Hours, you just won’t be allowed into the park until 7PM.
Stuck in the Flight of Passage queue during After Hours
Tickets cost around $130 per person and are available for purchase on the Disney World website. We reviewed Animal Kingdom After hours here.
The available attractions are: Avatar Flight of Passage, Na’vi River Journey, Expedition Everest, DINOSAUR, It’s Tough to be a Bug!, and TriceraTop Spin.
As we wrote in the review, Animal Kingdom After Hours is a pricey option for what you get. Because the main draw is Avatar Flight of Passage, most guests flock there. With the already lengthy ride experience, you can expect to spend about 45 minutes on that experience alone.
Notably, After Hours does not include Kilimanjaro Safaris. As Kilimanjaro Safaris is one of the best rides in all of Walt Disney World resort, Animal Kingdom After Hours is definitely not a substitute for a full day at Animal Kingdom, even if you (foolishly!) ignore shows and streetmosphere that aren’t a part of After Hours.
What If I Don’t Have Extra Hours Access?
One question some people fail to consider is what to do if they don’t have extra hours access on a given day? Let’s go through the different extra hours events and how they impact ordinary guests.
If you don’t have Early Entry, the biggest challenge is that when you arrive there will be long lines at Flight of Passage and Na’vi River Journey. You can pay to avoid these—Na’vi River Journey is a part of Multi Pass and Flight of Passage is a Single Pass Lightning Lane.
Alternatively, you can plan to wait in these lines later in the day and take advantage of what your morning does have to offer. Simplest is to start with Kilimanjaro Safaris, which opens when you’re allowed in the park, but we typically favor a quick stop Expedition Everest, which often has a short wait even after Early Entry.
All Your Other Disney World Planning Questions Answered
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Just starting out? Check out our Walt Disney World planning guide! If you're still picking dates, we've got everything you need to know about Disney World crowd calendars. For picking your hotel, check out our Walt Disney World hotels guide.
When it comes time to book we’ll help you find discount Disney World tickets. Decide whether you need a dining plan in our Complete Guide to Disney World Dining Plans! And don't forget to book those Disney World Advance Dining Reservations!
Don't forget to master your Disney World Lightning Lane Guide and Strategy a few months in advance. We'll keep you out of long lines so you can maximize the magical time in the parks! We've got park-specific guides as well: Magic Kingdom Lightning Lane Strategy, Epcot Lightning Lane Strategy, Animal Kingdom Lightning Lane Strategy, and Hollywood Studios Lightning Lane Strategy.
Know what to ride with our guides to: Magic Kingdom rides, Hollywood Studios rides, Epcot rides, and Animal Kingdom rides! Plus learn about the water parks with our guide to Blizzard Beach and our guide to Typhoon Lagoon! And for some some fun prep, check out our Ranking of Every Ride at Walt Disney World.
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