Night Crowds at Animal Kingdom

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StarshipDisney

Well-Known Member
MississippiBelle said:
We are going in October and I was also wondering about the night time hours for AK. Hopefully, they just haven't been updated yet and more hours will be added as we get closer. Very excited about seeing a new side of AK!
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That has also been my concern for months now. I know that they recently opened up the AK park hours for September and it shows an 8:00 PM closure for my planned day at AK now. I believe this only changed last week. But I still cannot get an ADR to come up past the old 5:00 PM closing schedule and the Jungle Book Dinner show still has no dates available past 5 September.

My FastPass reservation date is coming up next month and guess I can only hope that have that system setup for FP times past 5:00 PM.
 
Much-Pixie-Dust

Much-Pixie-Dust

Well-Known Member
RyPat said:
Any opinions on the nighttime Kilamanjaro Safaris? Better to try for an early evening time before it gets too dark OR try for later in the night?
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Personally, I liked going at dusk better because I could see more animals and I still got to see "the sunset" made by Disney in the savanna. That was cool. At night, it was fun to ride in the jeep, but I saw very few animals. The ones I did see, I couldn't see very well because it was dark. The sunset effect was very cool on the fully dark safari.
 
HauntedMansionFLA

HauntedMansionFLA

Well-Known Member
WildernessLodge said:
I recently went on a Monday. There were a lot of people there at night. The first Jungle Book show had a huuuuuge line but we managed to get in there and had decent seats. Afterwards, I got ice cream from that truck in Asia and the line was decently long. Then we rode the night safari and there was nobody in line! Lastly we watched the tree projection show and there were a few people there but by that time the park was closing and it was a ghosttown. It was kinda cool - felt very adventure-y!
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Is the Festival of the Lion King performed at night?
 
WDW_Emily

WDW_Emily

Well-Known Member
Went at the end of June. The park was pretty empty. We started with the jungle book which didn't do it for us. The Bollywood dancing, bad projection, and jungle book theme just didn't gel well in our opinion. We would have liked either more real life animal based or a story of all Disney animals not just the jungle book.

We went to the nighttime safari after which had a 30 minute wait. The beginning of the safari we had zero animals and it got to the point where we were all looking at each other like why did we wait for this? Until we got to the elephants. The two younger elephants were running and playing in the water. Then the lions were up walking around their exhibit. Those two things alone made the ride great. I have heard the animals are most active around 8pm right at dusk. We went far later around 10:30pm.

Lastly we saw the tree of life show. No one was near there so we were actually able to sit on the ground in front of the tree of life. We personally liked this the best. The colors and animals were beautiful on the tree of life.
 
Disney730

Disney730

Member
I'm trying to plan for November as well. I'm hoping if they are going to update the times they do it soon. I'm stressing out about dinner plans and if the park will be open later or not. Not to mention, I'd just love to experience Animal Kingdom at night! So needless to say the current 6pm close time has me kinda bummed.
 
HauntedMansionFLA

HauntedMansionFLA

Well-Known Member
danyoung56 said:
They just listed some more evening dining times at DAK. I have a 7:10 rez at Tiffins on October 1st, with the park set to close at 7:30pm. I'm hoping they get RoL going and then change the park closing time to much later.
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At least they are starting to bump the closing times back now instead of the 5:00 p.m. closing times previously listed. I am hoping for later times too :)
 
DfromATX

DfromATX

Well-Known Member
We were there a few weeks ago. It was great for us! We skipped the Jungle Book show, where it seemed most of the crowd was, and rode rides without any wait! Plus, it was kind of neat to be there at night, much more quiet atmosphere.
 
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LongLiveTheKing

LongLiveTheKing

Well-Known Member
RyPat said:
Any opinions on the nighttime Kilamanjaro Safaris? Better to try for an early evening time before it gets too dark OR try for later in the night?
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I've read it's almost pointless since most of the animals are asleep. The lions are apparantly more active at night, though. If you see it as a walk on at night as people are saying it frequently is you might as well, though.
 
DfromATX

DfromATX

Well-Known Member
RyPat said:
Any opinions on the nighttime Kilamanjaro Safaris? Better to try for an early evening time before it gets too dark OR try for later in the night?
Click to expand...

We did the safari at night in July. We were so excited beforehand, but truthfully, you just don't see that much and it felt more rushed than the daytime safaris. I'd do it early in the morning or early evening before dark. We were glad that we got to experience it at night, but probably wouldn't do it again. We did get to see a lion out, which are usually lounging during the day (at least in our experience). The animals are out, but it's too dark to see them.
 

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