Recent wait times for FoP at park opening?

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DIS Veteran
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Jul 30, 2000
We made a last minute decision to go to WDW in January. As I expected, there are no FP's available for FoP. How long has the wait been if you are at the park at opening? We will be there when they have EMH hours at 8 am as well as regular 9 am opening hours. We are going on MLK weekend so I do expect the parks to be very busy. Though I have been on FoP before, 2 of the people in our party have not. I would love for them to experience it but I have no interest in waiting in a 3 hour line! Thanks!
 
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I checked yesterday just for an example. The posted wait at 9:10 am was 240 minutes.

If you’re interested in an alternate strategy, there have been several recent reports of 20-30 minute waits close to closing time. Just keep in mind that posted waits are intentionally exaggerated at night to discourage late riders.

Last night, the posted wait was 60 minutes at 7:45 pm. The actual wait was likely much shorter.
 
Ouch! I knew it would be a long wait but didn't expect it to be that long so early! Thanks for tip on going later in the evening. We'll have to give that a try.
 
The key is to not get to the park AT opening, but be there 1 hour before opening. For example, if the park opens at 9a.m., get there at 8a.m. You will be at the front of the pack and they will start letting you into Pandora by 8:30ish. You will have almost no wait and be off of the ride shortly after 9a.m., when most others are arriving.

To give you an idea, we were there the end of November. Due to a mishap that morning, we could not get to Animal Kingdom until 8:20 (9:00 opening). However, even getting there 40 minutes early, we had only about a 45 minute wait and were off the ride by about 9:30. Hope that helps!
 


Yes, rope drop is by far the busiest time of the day for this attraction.

It’s very common to see the morning wait time up to 8 times greater than the evening.
 
We did FoP in September first as stand by and second as FP.

We did RD and arrived about 50 minutes prior to opening. We were the first or second group to ride FoP and walked right on; however, walking into FoP, the wait time was already listed as 120 minutes but we literally walked on. Once we got off, the line was huge. We dont spend all day in the parks and rarely go back in evening, so RD works best for us.
 
We made a last minute decision to go to WDW in January. As I expected, there are no FP's available for FoP. How long has the wait been if you are at the park at opening? We will be there when they have EMM hours at 8 am as well as regular 9 am opening hours. We are going on MLK weekend so I do expect the parks to be very busy. Though I have been on FoP before, 2 of the people in our party have not. I would love for them to experience it but I have no interest in waiting in a 3 hour line! Thanks!

If you get to AK one hour before opening you'll have a short wait for the ride itself. I just went last week for an 8 am EMH opening we got there at 7:11 and had a minimal wait for the ride. For a regular morning (9 am opening) if you can get there a solid hour early you'll be good to go as well. Remember, even in the morning right when they open they go ahead and post a long wait time, don't believe it, also the line seems longer than it is because you aren't wound through the whole standby line.

If, however, you show up right at opening you will indeed have a long wait.
 


We did FoP in September first as stand by and second as FP.

We did RD and arrived about 50 minutes prior to opening. We were the first or second group to ride FoP and walked right on; however, walking into FoP, the wait time was already listed as 120 minutes but we literally walked on. Once we got off, the line was huge. We dont spend all day in the parks and rarely go back in evening, so RD works best for us.
This was our experience in November. Park opening was 8AM, we arrived around 7:15-7:20. There were already a lot of people ahead of us waiting to be admitted. They started admitting people around 7:45 and FOP was essentially a walk on, we waited less than 10 minutes. It was funny seeing the 8 am arrivals running for the entrance to Pandora as we were exiting. The line was already hopelessly long.
 
As others have said, if you want to ride FoP at RD, you need to be there about an hour before. You will have a very short wait. When we went in October, we did that and it was nearly walk on. Exiting the ride, the line was back to the bridge by Lion King and coming back up the path. Wait time said 120 minutes. The line builds that fast.
We were able to go from FoP to walk on Navi. By the time we got off Navi, that line was about 70 minutes.
We also have been on it several times near closing and its usually a 20 minute wait. And you get to see Pandora at night.
 
As others have said, if you want to ride FoP at RD, you need to be there about an hour before. You will have a very short wait. When we went in October, we did that and it was nearly walk on. Exiting the ride, the line was back to the bridge by Lion King and coming back up the path. Wait time said 120 minutes. The line builds that fast.
We were able to go from FoP to walk on Navi. By the time we got off Navi, that line was about 70 minutes.
We also have been on it several times near closing and its usually a 20 minute wait. And you get to see Pandora at night.

What's surprising to me is that a vast majority of guests will take the hour+ wait in the morning over the 20 minute wait in the evening. I guess that's what helps the evening line get so short.
 
Rode it 3 times during our recent trip.
Nov 23 (Black Friday) got in line at 8:59 when park closed at 9:00. Waited 65 minutes.
Nov 26 rode with FP in mid afternoon, waited 20 minutes.
Dec 1 got in line at 7:55 when park closed at 8:00. Waited 40 minutes.

Hope this helps.

Edited to clarify - these were all PM times, no rope drops, just at park closing.
 
Maybe more people are catching on that the lines were shorter at night.
We had short lines in October in the evening.
Will be interesting to see if that changes on our next trip.
 
What's surprising to me is that a vast majority of guests will take the hour+ wait in the morning over the 20 minute wait in the evening. I guess that's what helps the evening line get so short.
Can't speak for everyone else, but in our case we have young children and can't stay in the parks until closing time. So, rope drop works much better for us. I would imagine that is why evening wait is shorter - most families have left by then. Although when we were there the last week in November, the wait was still 120 minutes (probably only about 90 actual) at park close when I checked the ap. So, longer wait than it was for us in the morning...
 
Can't speak for everyone else, but in our case we have young children and can't stay in the parks until closing time. So, rope drop works much better for us. I would imagine that is why evening wait is shorter - most families have left by then. Although when we were there the last week in November, the wait was still 120 minutes (probably only about 90 actual) at park close when I checked the ap. So, longer wait than it was for us in the morning...

If it says 120 at park closing, then the actual is 60 maximum, and probably less than that.
 
Can't speak for everyone else, but in our case we have young children and can't stay in the parks until closing time. So, rope drop works much better for us. I would imagine that is why evening wait is shorter - most families have left by then. Although when we were there the last week in November, the wait was still 120 minutes (probably only about 90 actual) at park close when I checked the ap. So, longer wait than it was for us in the morning...

I'm not sure I'll buy that. We've been in the parks at 3 am before and found plenty of strollers still out and about.

Even when they were little, it was much easier to let mine stay up late than to make them get up early. My fondest Disney memory is chasing my then 3 year old daughter back to the entrance of Space Mountain moments before midnight with her screaming "One More Time Daddy" all the way.

And don't go by the posted wait times in the evening. Those are intentionally inflated at night to discourage late riders. We first learned about this trick in the 1999 Unofficial Guide so its nothing new.
 
The times I've been at FoP at rope drop the wait has been posted between 180-240 minutes, which means it's probably 150-210 in reality. The line at night tends to be shorter if you can wait it out. Although I do like FoP, I've never waited more than an hour for a ride (always there late Oct. / early Nov.) and wouldn't want to waste so much of my day for one ride.
 
Thanks to everyone. We will be staying At AKV so popping over in the evening wouldn't be too difficult and might be our best chance to ride it without a FP.
 
I did rope drop, arriving 45 min before opening in the months just after pandora opened. My wait was about 65 minutes. So yes, id assume if you can make it there even earlier, it'd drop from there. We need to have the same plan for our jan trip, we will be at AK jan 5th and it has a 7am EMH... I dont think ill get all 5 of our group there by 6am (no kids, all adults, so prob worse to get people awake lol) but we may try for 6:30.
 
We've often found the posted wait on the headliners to be about 4x the actual wait. 120 minutes posted = 30 minutes actual.

I don't know if it's that inflated. We got in line at the end of the night when the posted wait was 90 minutes, and it was 40 to the first preshow. I mean, it might be that inflated sometimes, but I wouldn't count on it.

While there's no way to tell how many people are snaking through the FOP line, on some rides like SDD and NRJ, you can see most of the line, so that can give you a better sense of how many people are waiting. SDD was posted 60 minutes at the end of the night when we were there, and the end of the line was still out of the queue area. I'm sure it was less than 60 minutes because the FP riders stopped bumping standby back after the park closed, but it was definitely not a 15 minute wait.
 

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