FoP at 7 a.m. on Christmas Day. Wait time?

KEW

Mouseketeer
Joined
Sep 11, 2017
Originally, AK was to open at 9 with early entry at 8. We will be arriving the night before (plane touching down around 6 p.m.). We had planned to arrive around 6:45 for an 8 a.m. early entry to be near the front of rope drop for FoP and then NRJ and Safari before hopping over to MK for the rest of the day (trying to stay through HEA at 9).

With the recent change in AK's hours, early entry will be at 7. I just can't imagine making my family get there 60-75+ minutes before that hour with traveling the day before.

Because I had planned to hop to MK, I was planning on saving my FP+ selections (staying onsite) for MK in the afternoon (well...probably be very, very, very hard to get early morning FoP FPs for 60+1 anyways).

So...before I redo my plans/schedules for our entire stay, how long do you think the wait will be if we get to AK at 6:45 for a 7 a.m. opening on Christmas Day?

I mean...if it's a 90-minute wait for us at 7 a.m., we will still get off the ride around 8:30, head to NRJ (30 minutes??), and then safari and then lunch and then MK or even hop to MK and then lunch there.

Also planning on AK on Wednesday (this time trying to get FP+ for FoP) because we might want to ride this more than 1 Time OR (!!!) as a backup in case the ride is down on Monday, Christmas Day.
 
A couple of things I have witnessed in July and going back for Halloween

FoP people were lining up at 7 and it was a 2hour wait because the park didn't open until 9. I had a FP and by 9:15 the wait was 180 minutes and that was a weekday in late July. In turn the NRJ was 70 minutes. An again this wasn't Christmas Day.

I think if you get there for 7 I would expect at least a 2hour wait if not longer, and I do not think NRJ will only be 30 minutes probably closer to 1 hour +. It would be a safe bet that you would be done with Pandora by lunch I don't think you will squeeze in a safari as well.

Just my thoughts
 
The big draw on Christmas Day has traditionally been the MK. I would not expect AK to be at the same "insane" level. Add to that, Christmas is a day when fewer people are going to want to line up at a park at 0600! (There will still be a good number, don't think I'm saying it won't be very busy.) I'm going to guess that with such really early hours, if you arrive 40 minutes before park opening, you'll be off the ride by 40 minutes after. Then you'll still be in the EMH period, but you'll have to deal with all the FoP riders who then went straight to the River Journey before you, along with the ones who were scared off and didn't do FoP at all.

Then again, we have never had a Christmas week with Pandora open. My guess is only slightly better than someone else's.
 
Thanks. Okay...it's good to mentally prepare that we might not be able to do the safari that morning if we can't get there much earlier than the 7 a.m. opening that day...especially since there's a trend that they actually start letting people in earlier than the posted opening time.
 



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