Avatarland side trip: worth it?

[megankj]

I'm taking a cruise with three friends in November out of Miami. We disembark on Friday 11/17, and will probably be driving back, which means we could take an extra day (but not two, since we're church musicians who need to be back for Sunday morning). I know we couldn't make it by park opening, but would it be a terrible idea to get off the ship and head straight to Animal Kingdom since one of us really wants to see Avatarland? I figure we could get there by 10 or 11 and stay till closing, and then head back home in the morning. Totally not how I'd usually do Disney, but it might be fun. What do you think?

 

[JenniferinFL]

Yesterday we arrived at Animal Kingdom at 9:30 am and the line for Flight of Passage reached all the way to the bathrooms near Festival of the Lion King. CM's were quoting a 3 hour wait. I've drawn a red line to indicate that line for you. Most of that is in the sun. However, it's important to note that the line gets less crazy later in the day. I would wait for the line to fit in the normal queue and then line up for a wait of probably less than 2 hours with more of it in air conditioning instead of full sun. To get more of your money's worth, if you're arriving at 10 am or so, I would head back and do all the other attractions, like safari and expedition everest and dinosaur and then as you get within a few hours of Rivers of Light I'd head over and line up for FOP..

Edited to add, FOP is number 21, sorry red line is so small. Forgot that it uploads much smaller.

 

[megankj]

Thanks, that helps give some perspective! Is FP+ an option? I'd consider booking an onsite hotel for that one night if it would help our chances.

 

[JKalai]

Thanks, that helps give some perspective! Is FP+ an option? I'd consider booking an onsite hotel for that one night if it would help our chances.

FP+ is an option, but very hard to get. We were only able to secure FOP fastpasses the last 3 days of our 7 day trip, 60 days out right when available.

 

[crazylady]

You could book your on site night before your cruise to open your FP window. Then you would be trying to book your FP at day 65ish (or however long your cruise is)

 

[WDL]

booking on site is a good idea. you have a better chance to get the fp+

 

[patty57]

You could book your on site night before your cruise to open your FP window. Then you would be trying to book your FP at day 65ish (or however long your cruise is)

If they book onsite the night before the cruise, don't they have that night, and the next day of checkout to book FP with a one day ticket? How do they book it for day 65?

 

[JenniferinFL]

We had a 2 day stay and at 60 days out there was no FP+ available for FOP. The people who are getting them are people who have longer stays because if you are staying longer than 3 days then you get like 63 days out. At 60 days out they are already gone, so I don't think a 1 night stay will help you out much. A few people have reported shorter waits near park closing.

 

[WDL]

We had a 2 day stay and at 60 days out there was no FP+ available for FOP. The people who are getting them are people who have longer stays because if you are staying longer than 3 days then you get like 63 days out. At 60 days out they are already gone, so I don't think a 1 night stay will help you out much. A few people have reported shorter waits near park closing.

wow. Never knew that. Better plan early next time...

 

[greg9x]

Just got back... We did FoP Standby around 12:45pm and had an 1.5 hour wait (would have been less, but had a couple 'Technical Difficulties')...Seems there is a dip in wait around that time, but it was back to over 2 hours when we were done.

While Pandora is fun, I think the hype is more than the actual experience.. If you have time to burn, then go ahead. If you are planning another Disney trip in the not too far future then maybe wait for when can fit it more into your plans.

Rode FoP twice.. the first time was 'COOL !" and that was after the 1.5 hour wait. 2nd time had FastPass and it was still good, but I wouldn't wait the 1.5 hours again.

 

[sharonabe]

I'm taking a cruise with three friends in November out of Miami. We disembark on Friday 11/17, and will probably be driving back, which means we could take an extra day (but not two, since we're church musicians who need to be back for Sunday morning). I know we couldn't make it by park opening, but would it be a terrible idea to get off the ship and head straight to Animal Kingdom since one of us really wants to see Avatarland? I figure we could get there by 10 or 11 and stay till closing, and then head back home in the morning. Totally not how I'd usually do Disney, but it might be fun. What do you think?

Unless this is a once-in-a-lifetime type trip, my advice is to skip it this year and wait until some of the hype goes away or Disney opens one of the new lands at HS to pull some of the crowds away.

The drive from Miami will be at least 4 hours AND that's without any traffic. I think an 11:00 arrival is optimistic.

 

[Darcy03231]

We just got back from a 4 day/3 night post-cruise trip. At 60 days there were no fast-passes available for FOP. I checked daily multiple times a day and finally got them at 47 days. We rode with the fast passes (our time was 8:20 - 9:20 pm). We then went over to Navi which had a 5 min wait! We did that twice and then got in line for FOP at about 9:20. Posted wait time was 75 minutes but actual wait time was about 50 min. So it can be done in one day, but the later in the day the lower the wait times.