Early Theme Park Entry - AK

Official opening time for my AK day is 7:30 AM. I am assuming Early Entry @ 7:00. :anguished:
What time do you think they will actually open the gates to on-site guests?

7?

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:smile: I was just musing from reading recent TR’s that they seem to be letting guests in earlier that the early entry time. Really don’t want to be at AK @ 6:15!

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For an 8:30 AK ETPE in Jan we were at the taps at 7:50, in line for FOP at 8:15, and in the lab by 8:35.

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Thanks!

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I just am not sure that that early a head start extends back when ETPE is so dang early.

We need some boots on the ground to report back

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Agreed. I will never make it to AK ahead of the crowd…

I could

My family could not

Everyone is old enough now to be responsible for himself/herself getting from the resort to the park. And I intend to lean on that :wink:

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This is old old - pre-covid - info but in July 2018 HS was to open early. Maybe 7 am. 2 hours Early EMH.

We were at the CBR Jamaica bus stop not long after 6 am - in the dark. Had the bus stop to ourselves.

We arrived at HS right about 6:30, expecting to see a crowd at the styles. Nobody except happy CMs.

We breezed thru and as we were approaching Sunset we saw ahead a CM with a sign preparing to walk the crowd into Pixarland or whatever it’s called.

Clearly they’d been allowed in a little before 6:30. Maybe crowd size determines actual entry time. This crowd was not huge enough to hide the CM.

We were after Tower of Terror so turned right and got greeted by lots and lots of CMs who’d only seen 2 other guests before us.

I have seen Disney open early on an early day. I think they did it in Sept 2019 when 3 out of 4 parks had early EMH daily. AK opened maybe 30 minutes or less early - I have a less precise memory. That is, 8 was maybe official time, so 7 with EMH and guests were off FoP by 7 am.

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During our trip we also had one AK morning on which we screwed up the ETPE time. We arrived right at 7:30 when ETPE was to officially start, and were held up at security before walking rather slowly to FOP. The posted was 85 when we hit the end of the line but we were in the lab by 8:31. My recollection is that the line moved pretty steadily. So there is hope that even if you don’t end up being “front of the pack” you may be able to squeak out a tolerable wait for something like FOP. We ended up getting NRJ in with a minimal wait that morning too.

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We went in December and were there lined up for early entry- we entered for an 8A regular entry/730A early entry. We arrived at about 7:05A and there were about 10-20 people in each line at each tapstile. They didn’t start to let us in until 720A or so. Then there were CMs there who were checking for resort reservations, and they let us walk into the park (mostly Flight of Passage line). We walked all the way back to the holding area for that (on the bridge), and were still about 40-50 people in front of us in total. Precisely at 730A they let us walk to form our queue for the FOP, and by 745A the queue for that was way out to Africa on the bridge. We walked the whole way up through the queue and were off the ride by about 7:47 or so, so it was pretty good. But they weren’t opening the attractions ahead of 730 for us, although for Animal Kingdom, if you’re not in the front of the pack it’s really gonna be a frustrating day for you. That’s the one park where being early-early is most important.

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We were there on Friday for an ETPE of 7:30. We caught the first Pop bus at 6:15 (with three other families) and were the first guests dropped off in the park! They held us at security for about 10 minutes until 6:35 and didn’t let us through the taps until 7:15, maybe? I have pictures of us waiting on the bridge at 7:21. The CM’s started walking us back from that point around 7:25. We were in the first group through FOP and were off Navi by 8 am. Pandora was mobbed with people pouring in as we headed out.

So I’d imagine for a 7:30 open, all of those times just shift up half an hour? But a 5:45 bus does sound so much more painful than one at 6:15.

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I was there on Wednesday. We got to the parking lot at 6:25 and were turned away. Looped around and were let in at 6:29. We were one of the first cars. We lined up and were about ten people back from the front of the line. My experience from there was similar to ehsanchez.

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