On a crowd level 6 day and arriving at a 7:30 Early Entry rope drop at 7:00 am what is usual wait time for F of P
Essentially a walk-on if you’re front of pack.
The buses start arriving an hour before early entry. You are planning on arriving 30 minutes before early entry? I would expect you would be further back in the crowd and could wait 20-30 minutes?
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Agree with @PrincipalTinker, if you want to have a walk on I would plan to arrive 1 hour before early entry (EE). Arriving 30 min before EE means you’ll have a lot of people in front of you at security/taps, and probably already somewhat of a wait (would also guess around 30 min before boarding pre-show).
I rope dropped FoP on a CL7 day in November (see relevant parts of my TR). I boarded one of the first buses of the day (from ASMu) just before 6.30am, was around 30 people back in the security line (which opened at 6.44), and third in line at my tap (which opened at 7.10). Second row of people in front of the rope at the bridge in Pandora (where we were held until 7.20), and I was on the first flight of the day, which means no wait (but still a good 20-30 min time investment to walk through the queue, be assigned a spot for the pre-show, watch pre-show/board/ride and exit). I then walked on to NRJ at 7.50 (no wait at all at this time - boats before and after me left empty). I was by myself and am a relatively fast walker who has done this RD before, so it may be hard to replicate this experience if moving with kids/a big group or if you don’t know exactly where you are going (and especially if you need rider switch, which you can request once you reach the CM at the front of the queue - but they will let other guests walk past you while they scan/set up your RS, which may set you back a few minutes).
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I’ve seen videos of people saying that you can enter more quickly via the Rainforest Cafe at AK, but I suppose this does not apply for RD, does it?
I don’t think that would apply to a 7:30 am early entry.
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I disagree only because of the early hour. The earlier early entry is, the less far in advance you have to arrive to have the same advantage.
For an 8:30 EE I would 100% agree with 1hr arrival ahead
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How? They are not connected.
The early hour definitely helps, but I still don’t see how you can have a walk on - or any wait of less than 20-30 min - if you only arrive 30 min before EE? By that time, security will already have been open for around 15 min, so you have 15 min worth of people who have passed through security ahead of you and will get through the taps/start their walk to the Pandora bridge before you will.
Even if all FoP theaters are running at EE, I would guess the group of people that is now ahead of you is large enough to fill up a few “shows” so the standby line starts geting backed up pretty swiftly as you’ll be waiting on all of those people ahead of you to cycle through their 4 min ride (plus boarding/departing time).
I don’t doubt that some people would probably still prefer to arrive around 30 min before EE and then accept that they’ll only manage to get through FoP during their EE time. I personally would probably still arrive 1hr before hoping for a walk-on/near walk-on at FoP, followed by walk-on for NRJ, by which time you can still RD Kilimanjaro Safaris that will just be opening (and/or knock out EE/Dinosaur on the right side of the park) within the first hour of general park open when all lines outside of Pandora will remain pretty short.
An alternative that limits your time standing in line is arriving just in time for EE, knocking out all LL rides within the first 1-2 hrs of park open and buying an ILL for FoP.
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Three data points from personal experience:
- Dec 1, 2022, 7:30 EE, CL 3: At taps 6:50, front of pack. Out of FoP at 7:58.
- Apr 22, 2023, 7:30 EE, CL 6: At taps 6:49, front of pack.
- Dec 2, 2023, 7:30 EE, CL 4: Don’t know when I arrived at taps, but it was later than I’d planned because I wasn’t feeling well that morning and slept in a tiny bit. So I was a good bit further back in line than other times, but still got through fairly quickly and was out of FoP at 8:10.
I think in the first two cases, I caught a bus from Pop or ASMovies at around 6:30–6:35.
These were all solo ventures, and I race-walked from the taps to the FoP line. Once you’re in line, there’s a long, well-organized, guided shuffle that winds around Pandora for several minutes. Plus the queue and pre-show and boarding procedure are all relatively time-consuming, so even in the best of circumstances this ride takes a long time to get through.
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I’m going to do this next time. ILL seems like it may be a better bang for your buck than G+, especially when Kali River is closed. The downside is criss-crossing a park that has a lot to take in. I may just pretend Dinosaur and NRJ don’t exist, which would make for a more relaxing day.
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Here’s another one:
Feb 17, 2024, 7:30 EE, CL 7 predicted (CL 5 actual, because of rain that started around 9:15): Dropped of by Lyft at 6:50, through security and in line for taps before 7:00, fairly close to front of pack but not weaving through traffic, most of the walk through FoP queue was wonderful but held up at end, appeared to only be two theaters running, was probably about 8:10 by the time we finished, quick bathroom break, NRJ line was annoyingly long by then, off NRJ at 8:50.
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All makes sense and yes plan was FOP then NRJ then Kila Safari. Have always done ILL re FOP but wanted to see the standby queue this time as I have read it is good. And like to do FOP twice in our one day at AK. So regular line first thing and then ILL last event in park hopefully hours expanded in mid may to at least 7 pm.
This is all of my data for the past whole bunch of years regarding arrival time at AK and off FOP time. You could estimate the wait time by eliminating 20 minutes which accounts for ride time.
Where early entry is marked as “unclear” it is not noted in the TP historical data but seems to have been some early entry time given what time I was off the ride (which was usually too soon for the published open time to be consistent with the early entry time for that day)
| Date | CL | Open | Early open | Arrived | Off Ride |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2/4/17 | 8 | 0900 | 0800 | 0730 | 0756 |
| 4/13/18 | 6 | 0900 | unclear | 0758 | 0830 |
| 4/28/19 | 4 | 0900 | NA | 0910 | 0959 |
| 1/5/20 | 10 | 0900 | unclear | 0829 | 0905 |
| 4/18/21 | 2 | 0800 | unclear | 0717 | 0750 |
| 4/21/21 | 3 | 0800 | unclear | 0721 | 0803 |
| 7/1/21 | 2 | 0800 | unclear | 0717 | 0807 |
| 4/24/22 | 6 | 0730 | 0700 | 0636 | 0739 |
Interesting to me that the longest time between arrival and off ride was on the earliest day - in terms of published open, early open, and our arrival.
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I don’t know, never been there. They say they have turnstiles ¿?
There is an entrance from Rainforest into the park but I think it’s only open when the restaurant is open, which it typically isn’t at early entry.
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There’s a new Ear Scouts youtube video about Early Entry at AK… specifically comparing starting with FoP vs NRJ. They were near the front of the pack and (obviously) FoP was the winner. What to do if you don’t arrive as early as planned is a more interesting discussion. Saying “always start with FoP” seems overly simplistic.
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