**Disney After Hours - Animal Kingdom** FAQ & Discussion Thread

[Dug720]

It’s frustrating not knowing when August AH’s are or if they will have them. I need to make dining reservations in a week and have no idea what days to make them. We plan to go to MK and AK AH’s. Looking at the historical calendar they have moved them around so much it’s hard to predict.

Agree but for July!! I'll happily rearrange ADRs/restaurants for AK After Hours!!!!

 

[maryj11]

Agree but for July!! I'll happily rearrange ADRs/restaurants for AK After Hours!!!!

Yes I would too.

 

[LandonDunes]

Agree but for July!! I'll happily rearrange ADRs/restaurants for AK After Hours!!!!

I would have to think that the June and July dates come out soon, no? April and May came out about 5 mos before.

 

[Dug720]

I would have to think that the June and July dates come out soon, no? April and May came out about 5 mos before.

I’m hoping so!!

 

[JHatsell]

Went to this event on feb 6 very low crowds it was very very windy they canceled the rivers of light show at 8:00 rode FOP 4 times Navi River 3 times MT Everest 3 times dinosaur 3 times tough to be a bug 1 meet Mickey and Minnie there was no tree of life show guess the wind had something to do with that sometimes felt like me and my son were the only ones in the park!

 

[maryj11]

I’m hoping so!!

Me too! I need make my plans. I need August though.

 

[adrock1212]

Thinking of doing AKDAH 2nd week of April. If I get to the turnstiles to enter at 7p, will I be able to ride Kilimanjaro Safari on a standby?

 

[Katie1174]

Thinking of doing AKDAH 2nd week of April. If I get to the turnstiles to enter at 7p, will I be able to ride Kilimanjaro Safari on a standby?

Yes, you should be fine to standby the safari or you can even try to pick up a 7pm or say 6:45 pm fastpass for it.

 

[kylenne]

Update from Thursday, Jan 30, I was there on (my first) solo trip.
Disclaimer, I am obsessed with FoP so my main goal was to ride it over and over.. For a great, detailed overview of the other offerings please see Crazed4DisneyinSC’s review above.

7:45: Arrived at AK, given After Hours wristband and flyer.

7:55ish: During walk to Asia stopped for a minute to watch Tree of Life, it is really beautiful at night.

8:00: Watched Rivers of Life. They sat me with the reserved dining group. I decided to watch this show although there was another one on at 9:30. I didn’t want to use FoP time for that later showing. On a side note, I really enjoyed it! I know there are some RoL haters out there. . I am a sucker for the Lion King tunes and thought it was lovely and peaceful.

8:20: Wandered out of show, only guests with the AH wristbands were being allowed to cross the bridge back towards Everest, they were steering the day guests away in the other direction. Decided to ride Everest, it was a straight walk-on and I could have easily ridden again with no wait.

8:35 Dinosaur walk-on. I had never ridden this so thought I would whilst waiting for day guests to clear the FoP queue. It was fine (my kids would like it!).

9:00: Noticed no queue from what I could see at Navi. Continued past to FoP.

9:02: FoP walk-on. Rode FoP over and over for the entire next 3 hours.
Ride 1: Seat 9
Ride 2: Seat 9
Ride 3: Seat 15
Ride 4: Seat 1 (worst seat but all relative as I love FoP so much)
Ride 5: Seat 14
It was now 11:14. Got back back in the queue, there was a little wait (only maybe 5 minutes) for first time all night. When I got up to the front CMs were talking and I gathered there had been an, ahem, incident (someone had gotten sick on the ride).
Ride 6: Seat 7
Ride 7: Seat 8 (my favorite seat, I asked CM if I could be in this one for my last go. She was super nice and since I was solo could accommodate).
12:11 Off of final ride. Headed to exit to crash out for early try at RotR at DHS the next day.

I will definitely try to arrange future trips around this event (will even let my husband and kids come ). AK is really magical at night. It was relaxing, not a word I’ve ever applied to a day at Disney! And whilst I am clearly biased and believe FoP is the best ride at WDW (yes, even better than RotR, which is an opinion perhaps akin to heresy on another 7000 post thread I frequented before my trip), even without obsessive FoP riding, I think this night is well worth the cost.

THANK YOU for this report!! Me and my gf are going in May and what you did is 100% what we plan to do since we are FoP diehards and just want to ride as much as we can, so this was really helpful! (We also love Rivers of Light. So that makes three of us lol)

 

[ShelleyLovesOrlando]

We've only ever done the MK DAH and we're very excited to attend this one at AK on February 19th.

 

[maryj11]

No options to buy tickets online right now? Adding more dates maybe?

 

[scottishgirl1]

No options to buy tickets online right now? Adding more dates maybe?

Fingers crossed! Waiting for late June

 

[maryj11]

Fingers crossed! Waiting for late June

Nevermind I think it was because my Disney website was set on Europe (English). I set it back to United States and it showed the option to buy again

 

[MiketheGrate]

Yes, you should be fine to standby the safari or you can even try to pick up a 7pm or say 6:45 pm fastpass for it.

Trying to see if I can make it work with a 6-7pm fastpass for Navi River and then a 7pm for the Safari. Hoping to get there right at 7 and still use our late window on the Navi River fastpass before moving over to Safari.

 

[MiketheGrate]

Also, does the Dino DJ party during the AH event have the same characters as the day Dino party in that same area? I think that they have Scrooge and Launchpad McQuack during the day party, but I didn't know if they were also at the AH event.

 

[DisAg]

Also went to the AK AH Thursday Feb 6. This was our 3rd hard ticket event. fall 2018 mickeys halloween party at disneyland was the first. Second was tuesday feb 2nd AH at MK. One and done for us with the AK one. We will do the MK one again if they still have it going on next time. Crowds were super low, just not enough attractions for us. At MK were were able to just keep moving from attraction to attraction all night long (my family is more interested in rides vs shows/fireworks/parades). At animal kingdom we rode dinosaur, everest 4x (son rode 5x), fop 2x and navi 5x. Could have done FOP a couple more times but we had a very long day and I left the dramamine at the hotel. There was a storm blowing in so it was nice that they let us start riding everest around 8pm instead of the 9pm planned event start time. Our group of 8 ended up leaving around 11:30. I'm just not a huge fan of riding the same thing over and over again back to back.

 

[Dug720]

Me too! I need make my plans. I need August though.

I’m on a cruise (not Disney this time) next week, but talked (emailed) with my TA and she has a picture of my Disney Gift Card to buy a ticket for AK After Hours for any night during my trip if they were to extend into July while I am away. Probably jinxed it now for them not to release but at least I am prepared. Lol.

 

[PatMcDuck]

Thanks for that report on AK DAH. We are going this week, Thursday night. We land at 4:30 pm, so I am almost glad to not stay until the end of it, we will be tired even though we do not have an early morning flight. Disclaimer, I am a CM and we get a big discount, that makes this party "worth it" for us.

I agree that the DAH at MK is awesome, I have done that several times. We did a DVC after hours at Studios, and enjoyed that, but that includes great (rare character) meet and greets. I think if they added rare character meet and greets to the DAH at AK, it would really help bring people in. For example, I once met Francis and Tuck and Roll at Epcot, (so they HAVE those costumes somewhere, lol). Stick them near the Tough to be a Bug attraction, or even inside it. So many of those would be awesome.

 

[One for the Mouse]

So I have a 5:55-6:55 fast pass for Kilimanjaro Safari... if we are there right at 7pm will we be ok? Or do you think Disney would let us in 15 minutes early. Going February 27th.

 

[Iowamomof4]

So I have a 5:55-6:55 fast pass for Kilimanjaro Safari... if we are there right at 7pm will we be ok? Or do you think Disney would let us in 15 minutes early. Going February 27th.

They won't let you in early just because of your fastpass, and AK DAH haven't been know for letting folks in very early if at all. Can you move it later? If it were closer to the front of the park, I'd say you'd be fine, but it'll take a solid 15 minutes to walk all the way back to KS from the front if not a little more.