Hi Noelle!
Welcome to the Disney Parks Moms Panel! Are you getting excited about your upcoming Walt Disney World Resort vacation? Have you started making a list of your must-try snacks in
Disney's Animal Kingdom? My two cannot-go-wrong recommendations are the mickey-shaped Colossal Cinnamon Roll from Kusafiri (it's light and flaky like a croissant) or an adult Dole Whip from Tamu Tamu.
Fellow
Disney Parks Moms Panelist Lindsey N. and I happened to have overlapping Disney vacations in March, and we rope dropped the early morning
Extra Magic Hour at Disney's Animal Kingdom together. That morning guests were arriving as early as 5:30 A.M. for a 7:00 A.M. early opening! The park entrance was very well organized and was actually broken up by who was there for what. Cast Members were directing the Extra Magic Hour Guests to one side of the turnstile area while guests who were arriving for the regularly scheduled park opening were asked to wait on the other side. To further help with the traffic, Cast Members started letting the Extra Magic Hour guests through the turnstile touch points about 15 minutes before the scheduled early morning opening. Those guests were then escorted to the different sections of the park so they could enter individual attraction queues right at the scheduled Magic Hour time, which greatly helped manage the traffic flow at the front. It will still be busy at 8:00 A.M, but the big Extra Magic Hour crowd will clear out pretty fast, and I think by 8:15 A.M. it will look like a normal day rope drop wait.
I hope this helped with planning your Disney Day, and We'll See You Real Soon, Noelle!
~Kristen