***Official*** Pandora: The World of Avatar Information Thread

[ucfknight]

I've been watching this thread as closely as life will allow me to, but I'm hoping you all can help me figure out our Pandora plan. We want to go to AK, primarily for FOP but also to just experience the whole area, on the mornings of Sunday, July 9 and Tuesday, July 11. Both days are 9:00 a.m. opening, with no morning EMH. How early do you think we would need to arrive in order to get on FOP while the standby wait is still less than say 45 minutes? I keep seeing advice for EMH mornings but don't have a handle on how to approach non-EMH mornings.

Thanks so much!

Getting there at 8:00 AM or earlier would probably be desired.

 

[Darcy03231]

I've been watching this thread as closely as life will allow me to, but I'm hoping you all can help me figure out our Pandora plan. We want to go to AK, primarily for FOP but also to just experience the whole area, on the mornings of Sunday, July 9 and Tuesday, July 11. Both days are 9:00 a.m. opening, with no morning EMH. How early do you think we would need to arrive in order to get on FOP while the standby wait is still less than say 45 minutes? I keep seeing advice for EMH mornings but don't have a handle on how to approach non-EMH mornings.

Thanks so much!

From what I've seen from following the various threads, you should be at the gate by 8:00 - 8:15 am. That means, essentially, that you'll be waiting in line for approximately 90 to 105 minutes between waiting at the gate and waiting in line. Current wait time is 120 minutes (and has been consistently 120 min every time I've checked). The plus is that while you're waiting at the gate you're not wasting park time.

We're going solely so DH can see Pandora. Since I couldn't get fast-passes our plan is to just go a little bit before park opening and wait in line as long as it's 120 minutes or less. If more, we'll try later in the day.

 

[AngiTN]

I've been watching this thread as closely as life will allow me to, but I'm hoping you all can help me figure out our Pandora plan. We want to go to AK, primarily for FOP but also to just experience the whole area, on the mornings of Sunday, July 9 and Tuesday, July 11. Both days are 9:00 a.m. opening, with no morning EMH. How early do you think we would need to arrive in order to get on FOP while the standby wait is still less than say 45 minutes? I keep seeing advice for EMH mornings but don't have a handle on how to approach non-EMH mornings.

Thanks so much!

Your goal is to get to the gates and be in the front of the group waiting to enter, not the back. So you are at the front of the line to go to Pandora, not the back. This means less than 30 min wait to ride.
So you want to be at the AK turnstiles no later than 8:00, which means parked and through security. I'd plan to hit the parking lot about 7:30 myself. So I wasn't rushing. If you don't have bags to check you can cut down 15 min or so on that. If you plan to take Uber/Lyft, take off a bit more time since you are dropped right at the entrance.
Now, this means you are waiting more than an hour get in to Pandora and for them to open the ride. You'll have little to no wait after that, which means you safe lots of park time.
If you plan to do nothing but Pandora this may not really be the best use of time since you could arrive later and probably have about the same wait, you just spend more of it when the park is open vs when the park is closed.
It all depends on what else you plan to do.

 

[CaptainKat]

Your goal is to get to the gates and be in the front of the group waiting to enter, not the back. So you are at the front of the line to go to Pandora, not the back. This means less than 30 min wait to ride.
So you want to be at the AK turnstiles no later than 8:00, which means parked and through security. I'd plan to hit the parking lot about 7:30 myself. So I wasn't rushing. If you don't have bags to check you can cut down 15 min or so on that. If you plan to take Uber/Lyft, take off a bit more time since you are dropped right at the entrance.
Now, this means you are waiting more than an hour get in to Pandora and for them to open the ride. You'll have little to no wait after that, which means you safe lots of park time.
If you plan to do nothing but Pandora this may not really be the best use of time since you could arrive later and probably have about the same wait, you just spend more of it when the park is open vs when the park is closed.
It all depends on what else you plan to do.

That's a lot of useful info! Do you know if there's a separate line-up at rope drop for those heading to Pandora or FOP? We're trying to rope drop it on Monday, and I don't want to end up missing a specific place we need to be to get in there quickly!

 

[AngiTN]

That's a lot of useful info! Do you know if there's a separate line-up at rope drop for those heading to Pandora or FOP? We're trying to rope drop it on Monday, and I don't want to end up missing a specific place we need to be to get in there quickly!

There wasn't when we were there. Hopefully someone will let you know if that has changed since opening week.
You want to head left. Left up the Oasis, left at the Tree of Life. If the let you go left up the Oasis. Sometimes the only open it on the right *but this may be only during EMH mornings

 

[CaptainKat]

There wasn't when we were there. Hopefully someone will let you know if that has changed since opening week.
You want to head left. Left up the Oasis, left at the Tree of Life. If the let you go left up the Oasis. Sometimes the only open it on the right *but this may be only during EMH mornings

Thanks so much! I'll get a chance to get the lay of the land the day before, luckily. We're doing the whole day AK Sunday with FP+ for River Journey, but there were none for FOP and we're doing breakfast for my birthday that morning so we won't be making park open. So we figured since we have my car we'd just get to park open Monday and hit the one ride before heading to Studios.

 

[Dan Murphy]

Your goal is to get to the gates and be in the front of the group waiting to enter, not the back. So you are at the front of the line to go to Pandora, not the back. This means less than 30 min wait to ride.
So you want to be at the AK turnstiles no later than 8:00, which means parked and through security. I'd plan to hit the parking lot about 7:30 myself. So I wasn't rushing. If you don't have bags to check you can cut down 15 min or so on that. If you plan to take Uber/Lyft, take off a bit more time since you are dropped right at the entrance.
Now, this means you are waiting more than an hour get in to Pandora and for them to open the ride. You'll have little to no wait after that, which means you safe lots of park time.
If you plan to do nothing but Pandora this may not really be the best use of time since you could arrive later and probably have about the same wait, you just spend more of it when the park is open vs when the park is closed.
It all depends on what else you plan to do.

Would you say that is necessary for the Navi River ride also? We do have fastpasses for FoP for late afternoon, so not really concerned about FoP.

 

[vinotinto]

I don't know about Orange County schools, but Polk county schools start early this year, August 10th. So weekdays should start thinning out then.

Wow! That's early. We don't go back til after Labor Day (actually, the Thurs after Labor Day.) We've noticed for us, the last week of Aug is a great week to travel. We've done things locally the last couple years too, like Omaha and Chicago where local kids have all gone back to school, and during the week things are just dead!

We'll have already been at school a week by the 10th. Granted, we've been out since a week before Memorial Day too. So it all comes out in the wash.

We're in Atlanta and the Atlanta area goes back to school either August 1st (City of Atlanta and City of Decatur) or August 7th (DeKalb Co). We also end before Memorial Day and get a Fall Break (5 days for DeKalb, a full week for the cities) off in September or October. August is simply not a time for our area to head to WDW.

 

[AngiTN]

Would you say that is necessary for the Navi River ride also? We do have fastpasses for FoP for late afternoon, so not really concerned about FoP.

No, it builds much slower. If you are heading to Navi you can be at the back of the pack since something like 90% of the group will be going to FoP. Not many are going to Navi first thing. You'll have it to yourself for a bit

 

[AngiTN]

We're in Atlanta and the Atlanta area goes back to school either August 1st (City of Atlanta and City of Decatur) or August 7th (DeKalb Co). We also end before Memorial Day and get a Fall Break (5 days for DeKalb, a full week for the cities) off in September or October. August is simply not a time for our area to head to WDW.

I think this is becoming the normal school schedule in the south. Most all the TN area follows something similar, within a few days at least. We've done both, as soon as school is out and right before school goes back and decided our favorite is right when it gets out, we go straight from school to the airport. Then I go back for my birthday in August. This is our first year to try to go for Fall Break too. For the first time since DGD started school her Fall Break and UT's off week line up.

 

[Nhebron]

The number of people who will go to Disney to attend a Halloween party in August is quite small. I mean, the ones there may go, don't get me wrong (I bought tickets myself but we are going for my birthday) but I just don't see lots of folks looking at the schedule and saying "hey honey, Disney is doing a Halloween party in August, let's plan a trip". I mean, how many are thinking Halloween then?

Agree. However we are doing a long weekend just to do Halloween party and pandora.

 

[firsttimemom]

Based on everything I've read on here and other places re: recent touring plans and RD, I really think I can pull off getting off of FoP by 8:30 (if not earlier) and perhaps only have to wait 30 minutes for NRJ. I would like to see both, even though like you said, NRJ isn't anything to write home about. I really don't think we'll have the opportunity to ride it later since we're hopping and getting back to AK after the MK fireworks. Which by the way, leads me to an Express transportation question. I'll ask it on that thread -- would love to get your thoughts.

We might see you in line! We booked FP for NRJ and not FOP so plan right now is to rd FOP on the 4th. We will be using express transportation to head over there on the 2nd after MK fireworks so if we get super lucky then, I can let my minions sleep in a bit. Wishing for pixie dust that this works out for both of us!

 

[Tomh]

Our FP window opened this morning and there were no fast-passes for FOP, so we're going with our back-up plan of getting there for rope drop and heading directly to the ride. We plan to be there about half an hour before park opening and won't have any bags. Hoping for less than a 30 min wait time.

Keep trying to change your FP to a FoP one. There was no availability for us at 60 days, so we took the river journey, then at 47 days out, I found 3 FP for FoP in the evening of our AK day. Keep checking, you never know!

 

[Dan Murphy]

No, it builds much slower. If you are heading to Navi you can be at the back of the pack since something like 90% of the group will be going to FoP. Not many are going to Navi first thing. You'll have it to yourself for a bit

Thanks much, Angi.

 

[Missypyxi]

We're heading there today and have FoP FPs for this afternoon. I couldn't convince my group to get there super early (we are 6 days into our trip and exhausted), so we're planning a QS breakfast at 8:30 and then heading over to the bus from GF probably 9ish. I've read the last few pages of the thread and the current concern seems to be getting into the FoP standby line early. Have they been doing phased closures still? Is there a resource online where I can look at a history of phased closures? Thanks!

 

[Liljo22]

We're heading there today and have FoP FPs for this afternoon. I couldn't convince my group to get there super early (we are 6 days into our trip and exhausted), so we're planning a QS breakfast at 8:30 and then heading over to the bus from GF probably 9ish. I've read the last few pages of the thread and the current concern seems to be getting into the FoP standby line early. Have they been doing phased closures still? Is there a resource online where I can look at a history of phased closures? Thanks!

Only the first weekend did Pandora reach capacity. You will be ok.

 

[Darcy03231]

Keep trying to change your FP to a FoP one. There was no availability for us at 60 days, so we took the river journey, then at 47 days out, I found 3 FP for FoP in the evening of our AK day. Keep checking, you never know!

Thanks. I keep checking. Not that I'd wish anyone ill luck, but I'm hoping that something might come available around the 45 day mark when people might be canceling their reservations. I'm also hoping that more might be released around the 30 day mark for people who are off-site. There's always the chance that the park hours might change and more become available too.

 

[AngiTN]

Thanks. I keep checking. Not that I'd wish anyone ill luck, but I'm hoping that something might come available around the 45 day mark when people might be canceling their reservations. I'm also hoping that more might be released around the 30 day mark for people who are off-site. There's always the chance that the park hours might change and more become available too.

The bold does not happen.
But the change in park hours will allow additional FP. Unless it's just additional EMH

 

[VACamm]

Thank you all for the really good advice on this whole thread. My FP day is July 4th... so I'll be hoping for at least 1 FP for FOP!

 

[Missypyxi]

Only the first weekend did Pandora reach capacity. You will be ok.

Thanks so much!!!