Disney’s Animal Kingdom itinerary

Our “itinerary” for Disney’s Animal Kingdom 

Three of my favorite things in life (there is many) are family, saving money and Walt DisneyWord vacations. This post covers all three, well kind of I’ll explain...while the planning of an itinerary doesn’t technically save you money, it CAN save you time, and time is money. On our Disney vacations we try to squeeze as much magic out of our vacation as possible! Having a solid daily itinerary helps us achieve just that. Exactly how do I set our itinerary, let me explain...

1) I DO MY HOMEWORK! I have been to Disney numerous times but as many times as I’ve gone I always find there is more to see or do. In instance of Disney’s Animal Kingdom this is our first time visiting so I want to know as much as I can about this particular Disney park as I can. I have scoured the interweb, YouTube videos and blog posts to learn as much as I can so that we can DO as much as we can while we are there.

2) MAKE A LIST OF MUST DO’S! There are sooooo many things to do at each Disney park. I think it would be virtually impossible to do them all in one visit so instead I find our “must do’s”. I do this on every vacation (Disney or not). But for this post I’m talking about Disney’s Animal Kingdom so here is a list of our must do’s for this visit. First and foremost for me is Flight of Passage. It is a relatively new ride and I’m sure on everyone’s must do list. Second for my granddaughter is Expedition Everest. She has become a real thrill seeker therefore I have to add Dinosaur to the list. Those are the top three attractions chosen personally for us and this vacation. Next we add the recommended by others (either personal recommendations or recommendations from online sources. Those would include Na’vi River Journey, Kilimanjaro Safaris, Festival of the Lion King, It’s Tough to Be a Bug,  the Tree of Life and Rivers of Light. 

3) BOOK FASTPASSES! Disney offers an amazing FastPass system called FastPass +. Basically what it allows you to do is walk on without waiting in line (and some lines can get exceptionally long). Now I say walk on but to be fair not all FastPass lines are exactly walk right on (though some are) but it decreases the wait time substantially! There’s tons of information about the FastPass system, which would take a whole other post to go into (maybe a future post). This trip I scored FastPasses for our top three attractions (blessing)! Everyone has there own best use of the FastPass + system so be sure to look into what is the best use of your FastPasses, but definitely use them! It’s free so why wouldn’t you?

4) PLAN TO ROPE DROP! Rope drop is a term used by many returning Disney guests. What exactly does it mean? Be the first or at least close to the first guest in the park when it opens or when the “rope drops”. This is a huge time saver! Think of it as an extra FastPass or two. When the park first opens there are less people there, meaning the lines are shorter. Now to actually “rope drop” that doesn’t mean getting to the park right at opening but to get to the park an hour BEFORE the park opens. We rope drop every time we go to any Disney park. We pick two rides (that we don’t have a FastPass for) and as soon as the rope drops we head straight to the number one ride on our list. For this particular visit we plan to rope drop Na’vi River Journey and then head straight to Kilimanjaro Safari. 

5) USE EXTRA MAGIC HOURS! One benefit from staying on Disney property is they offer Extra Magic Hours to their guests. Extra Magic Hours are offered at different Disney parks on different days and usually an hour before the park opens to the public or sometimes a couple hours after the park has officially closed. Personally we are early risers anyways so we will be using our Extra Magic Hours in the morning. Now in saying this I want to add we still plan to “rope drop” the Extra Magic Hours. What I mean by that is, while yes the park will only be open to guests staying on Disney property, which means less people, doesn’t mean there will be only a few people. Keep in mind there are like 20,000 people staying on Disney property. I honestly do not know exactly how many people are actually on property (I just threw a number out there). But what I’m saying is there is a LOT of people vying for those Extra Magic Hours as well.

I plan to use EVERY one of the five above for this trip. So here’s my plan (as of now). Be on the Disney bus to Disney’s Animal Kingdom by 6:00 AM, arrive by 6:20 (hopefully busses are running smoothly), head towards Na’vi River Journey (many areas are roped off until opening). Once we are let in and have ridden Na’vi River Journey we will head over to Kilimanjaro Safari, then go into Discovery Island for It’s Tough to Be a Bug, by then our FastPasses should be in play, starting with Flight of Passage. Depending on how fast we get through that will gauge our next attraction. Note: even though we have a FastPass it may still take a bit to get through it just because of the popularity of Flight of Passage. If we get through it quickly we may walk through one of the trails (probably Discovery Island) if not we will move on to our next FastPass Expedition Everest. After my granddaughter gets her adrenaline rush it should be about time for lunch. To keep the cost down we’ll bring our own sandwiches in a small soft sided cooler and have a nice little picnic wherever we find ourselves. After lunch we will use our last of the booked FastPasses for Dinosaur. The second part of the day will be much more of “luck of the draw” type. As soon as we use our last FastPass (in the Dinosaur que) I will get on the app and see what FastPass is available and scoop up another. Note: After the three FastPasses have been used you can continue to get more FastPasses (one at a time) which is what I plan to do. Therefore the second half of the day is up for grabs.

So there is my carefully thought out itinerary. I must add that even though I have planned it all out and on paper it seems like a perfect strategy it is all subject to change. I always always always have to be ready to go with the flow. An itinerary is great but if I’m so stuck on my “plan” I just may miss the magic! Case in point...I had a great itinerary all planned out for one of our visits to Disney’s Magic Kingdom until we happened upon A Pirates Adventure. My granddaughter wanted to do the scavenger hunt (truth be told my husband did too). Had I required that we stick to the plan, we would have missed out on the opportunity to play. Sure we missed a few rides BUT we gained an amazing memory that we still talk about to this day. And isn’t that really the reason for visiting Disney or any vacation really...making memories that last?