Hello, All. I'm headed to AK with my wife for my 40th birthday, and we have tickets for Saturday. We are not staying at the resorts, so we do not have EMH access. 30 days out, we got FPs in the evening for Na'vi River Journey (6:25-7:25), the Safari (7:25-8:25), and Rivers of Light (for 9 PM). Our game plan for Saturday the 20th was to be at the AK gates by 6:30/6:45 AM and do the rope drop, heading straight to FOP. We are counting on leaving the park around lunch time and relaxing at our hotel pool, getting dinner near the hotel, and then returning to the park between 5 and 6 PM for the remainder of the evening. We are rope drop vets, but the hours for AK are 9 AM to 10 PM for non-resort guests. A few questions:
1) If we are at the AK gates by 6:45 AM for rope drop, is there a separate line for those guests who will be taking advantage of the EMH hours in the morning (8-9 AM)? I'd like to make sure we get into the right line.
2) What time should we expect to be allowed into the park/land as non-EMH guests assuming we are at the gates at 6:45?
3) We planned on FOP being the first thing we do after rope drop. We had read elsewhere that after July 4th, the EMH hours would not be in effect, and planned this trip accordingly. Now, it seems with the EMH hours having been extended, this will have a big impact on the FOP standby line when we finally get there after rope drop. Any idea of what the FOP standby wait time would look for people like us who got to the park at 6:30 AM but who did not have EMH access?
Because there will be EMH that morning, I basically need to decide whether I want to be waiting in line from 6:30 AM to _______ just to experience Flights of Passage, when it might actually make tons more sense to go everywhere else at rope drop and do Everest twice, the Safari, Kali, and Dinosaur, and then stay in the Avatar land when we return in the evening. The issue is that I have already experienced EE, KS, Kali, and Dinosaur a number of times, and by going this route, I'm almost certainly ensuring that FOP is out of the question that day unless I want to get in a standby line for several hours that evening. Thoughts/suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!