We were also there on the 29th. Our bus from POP was late and we arrived to the gates just as they were opening (around 7:20am); we were still able to ride 3 rides before the park opened. We were off of FOP at 8:06, then walked on to Navi and then over to the Safari, where we were off of that just before 9am. It was the best safari for us ever; maybe because it was so early and cool. The African dogs were running about, the male lion was walking across the rocks to the females who were sitting up, and we had 2 ostriches run in front of the vehicle, being chased by 3 rhinos! We saw a lot of staff putting out hay and food and I just think it got all the animals excited. Best safari ever.
We then walked over to Everest and rode single rider with no wait (wait at "opening" was only 10 minutes anyway). We skipped dinosaur because we had already done that and walked back to Africa to catch to 10am Festival of the Lion King.
We did rope drop the previous Friday with similar success and were worried about EMH but so glad we did it.