How long do you spend in AK?

[RainK]

We go to Disney annually but have not been to AK in about 4 years. I do remember we did not stay there all that long and found it be more of a "giant zoo" and kinda boring ( please don't hate me for saying that)

However, my kids were really young at the time. (age 3 and 1)

How long do you really spend in the park? We will not do the "rafiki planet watch" or "camp minnie and mickey" and will most likely only pick 1 "show" (Lion King) to see.

My kids are 8 & 5.

Do you think 10 am until 4pm is enough to do and see the majority of the park? Is that too much time too little?

Thanks so much for your feedback!

 

[Technosavant]

With the wife and I, we find we can "do" AK to our satisfaction in 4-5 hours, tops. We usually have the following on our "to do" list:

Kilimanjaro Safari
It's Tough to Be a Bug
Expedition Everest
Dinosaur

We can be done really quickly if the lines aren't long. We might do Rafiki's Planet Watch, the walking trails, and Kali River Rapids, but we don't always take the time to do those. Even if we do, we're able to move pretty quickly, so we rarely need much more than a half day.

We like AK, even if we look at it as an "overgrown zoo," but it generally isn't like Epcot for us, where we can mosey around, lounge, and generally revisit a few times if we have the time. AK tends to be a "once and done" unless we really get bored.

 

[minushka72]

My kids are little and love the zoo so we can spend 1 day there easily. The Nemo show was ok, I much prefer Festival of the Lion King. My DS loves Dinoland so we typically spend an hour there. I love Expedition Everest and Kali River Rapids. The Safari is also must do for us. We also spend about an hour at Rafiki's Planet Watch. We have lunch and see a few characters for pictures. We also love that we can just take our lime and leisurely see the animals throughout the day. Much more of a laid back day for us.

 

[Planogirl]

When we go to AK (which is about every other trip), we usually stay for 4-5 hours. We ride the safari, Dinosaur and EE, and walk the Maharajah Jungle Trek (I love this!) and we might watch the Festival of the Lion King and It's Tough to be a Bug and we're ready to go. During the last visit, EE and Dinosaur was too crowded but we decided to wait for the parade. It was nice but I was glad to leave because of the heat and crowds.

By the way, we do stop here and there to see some of the animal exhibits. We love good zoos and some of the exhibits are quite nice.

 

[chocovrdmicears]

I think we are in the minority because our family ♥LOVES♥ AK - We spend several days there over the course of our trip - We go at least 2 mornings and 1 EMH (when they had the night ones at AK).
We do EE , Dinosaur, Kali River and the safari every time we go. We love Rafiki's Planet Watch and do that 1 time per trip. We also do one of the walking trails on each day. My kids and DH love Primevil *Hurl* - My kids also enjoy spending time in the Boneyard - And we try and do one show a day - We LOVE Festival of the Lion Kind and Flights Of Wonder - We didn't have time to see the Nemo show last trip so that will be a definate in May - We also enjoy ITTBA. We also spend quite a bit of time in Camp Minnie Mickey meeting the characters. We met Pochontas, Meeko, Thumper and the girl bunny (sorry I forget her name), and Koda. Our kids also love doing the Discovery Club thing (I think thats what it's called). We also love spend a lot of time taking in the *details* - watching the animals, looking at the carvings on the Tree of Life, etc.. -
We really enjoy AK.

 

[2Tiggies]

Yeah, I'm with chocoveredmicears. We spend 2 days there. We always work in a pm EMH and go from rope drop to the end of it and then another day as well.

 

[jm106]

my kids were 3 and 1 when we went 2 yrs ago and we were there from 9-6 and ran out of time! We loves the ability to walk slow and not race onto rides and take out photo ops with characters. WAe plan a whole day again. I love AK, even with just DH and that was a long while ago we spent the day. I am so surprised when ppl say they are bored with it.

 

[twoplustwins]

We spent one full day there (from 9-5). We started with breakfast at Tusker House which was our favorite character meal. We rode all the rides (some several times), with no wait!! We watched both the Nemo and Lion King musicals. We also met several characters. I am guessing that we were able to accomplish all of this because we went during a slower crowd week. If we went during a busier time, it would probably take us two days.

 

[Reddy]

We did a day & half - another zoo loving family
next time I'm figuring the same leave atfer the parade
I love the Gorillas & Tigers -- just looking at the details
to me this is the relaxing park - mid-week to recharge to hit the fast paces again

 

[williamson_ja]

We spent 2 full days there last time (when the park closed at 5 pm) but only one full day the other two trips. I must say that if you have never seen Finding Nemo the musical, I think it is an absolute MUST do! We tried to see it twice on our last trip but the theater was full when we got there. FOTL is also good, but I would pick Nemo out of the two choices any day. It's such a fun park to explore. I think your kids will like it more now that they are older.

 

[december]

We love AK,too. On our 1st 2 trips, we spent a whole day, from opening until close. Last June, we took my sister and her son, and it was the only park they liked. So we scrapped a 2nd day at Epcot, and spent it there.

 

[reelmom]

My family loves the Animal Kingdom. We are planning on spending 3 of our 7 days there.

 

[newdeal]

my wife lovers AK, its her favourite park. This time we plan to get there early and head to rafikis planet watch first thing because they do medical procedures there in the morning. We don't really do EE because we are not huge coaster fans but usually we do Kali river rapids, ITTBAB, FOTLK, The Nemo musical, and the safari we do a couple times. We also like to see the birds of flight show, which my wife has been on stage for twice (once to hold the dollar bill and once to sit under the owl as it swoops by...she also was on stage for the Indy show in Hollywood studios and we were the volunteers for the backlot tour also...she likes to take part and they seem to like to pick her). Last trip we went on Dinosaur for the first time, we may do it again if my wife wants to but I rode the whole thing with my eyes closed because I knew at the end there was a scary dinosaur (thanks to the dis) and I really wasn't wanting to be scared. Of all the parks I like the theming of Animal Kingdom the best, I just think they did the best job on it (probobly because its the most recent and the smallest). In the end I appreciate Animal Kingdom, its really nothing like a zoo at all actually. I definately think there is a bunch of room for them to make it better, but in the end all the parks have their good and bad points.

 

[nytimez]

Love AK. I'm not a rope drop person, so I'm usually there by mid-morning. Then I stay until it closes.

 

[Winue]

I don't care for AK... my kids are 5.5 and 2.5, and we will most likely spend 4-5 hours there max. its really rather boring to us...

 

[growinupdisney]

We love AK as well we usually only do one day but we are there at RD til close. We are there at busy season (week after Easter) and we manage to get everything in with one exception we have never done flights of wonder (my kids have not wanted to do this). This year my DH and older kids don't want to do Nemo musical because we have done it the last 3 years so we may skip that. But, other than that we love AK.

 

[GoofyGirl1717]

My family also LOVES AK. We usually spend 2 days there with no problems. We take the safari at least twice each day. Every trip is different. We love to stroll through the treks also. There is something for everyone here.

 

[Sleepy425]

Unfortunately AK seems to always get the short end of the stick on our vacations. I COULD spend two days there, but always run through in half a day to fit other things in. I think I will try to change that next trip.

 

[SignMeUp]

We spent one full day there on our first visit from RD to close and ended up skipping several things due to running out of time. I had read here that we could "easily do all of AK in a day" -- wrong. We skipped AK on our last trip in order to spend more time at Epcot. For our next trip, though, I have 2 days scheduled for AK... we will do it right this time. Planning a RD till 2pm-ish day, then another day mid-morning till close (hoping they'll bring back pm EMH). If you truly want to see/do all that AK has to offer, one day is not enough.

 

[LaurenT]

We love Animal Kingdom, one fully packed day is enough, but if I ever have a truly extended trip (2 weeks or more) I'd do 2 days there!
I love starting with tusker house breakfast, then on to the safari, EE, Nemo, Flights of Wonder, Kali River (if it's warm), stroll leisurely through Maharajah Jungle Trek and Pangani Forest, Take the train to Rafiki's planet watch and see if there's anything exciting going on behind the glass in the medical room (we saw the male lion having his teeth cleaned once), Dinosaur, Flame Tree BBQ, FOTLK, Camp Minnie Mickey...
Yeah - I can easily fill a whole day there....the best is going from there to Sanaa and dining by a window with all the african wildlife grazing outside.