Disney's Animal Kingdom opened April 22, 1998 and is the newest of the four Walt Disney World theme parks. Featuring a large collection of live animals in recreated habitats, this Animal Kingdom also celebrates Disney's animal and nature-themed IP, including "The Lion King," Pixar's "Finding Nemo," and James Cameron's "Avatar," which Disney now owns through its acquisition of Fox. You can learn much, much more about the park's animals and animal care in the Disney+ series, Magic of Disney's Animal Kingdom.
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Our recommendations below come from our ongoing survey of Theme Park Insider readers. Locations with star ratings ★ ranked especially highly among our readers. Vote here to take part in our surveys and submit your picks for top attractions.
Elsewhere at Walt Disney World, Theme Park Insider readers recommend Citricos, a Mary Poppins-themed, fine-dining dinner restaurant at Disney's Grand Floridian Hotel and Topolino's Terrace, serving French and Italian cuisine at dinner with a character meal at breakfast, in Disney's Riviera Resort. In Disney Springs, our readers recommend Chef Art Smith's Homecomin' for a Florida-inspired "farm-to-fork" table-service meal, and The Polite Pig for casual service barbecue.
To vote for your favorite Walt Disney World Resort restaurants, please visit www.themeparkinsider.com/vote/best-wdw-restaurant.
Disney's Animal Kingdom is part of the sprawling Walt Disney World Resort, located in Lake Buena Vista, Florida – about 25 miles from Orlando International Airport (MCO).
Note that Disney no longer provides free Disney's Magical Express bus service to and from the Orlando airport for its hotel guests.
If you are renting a car while visiting Orlando, you can save on toll road fees by getting a Visitor Toll Pass at the Orlando airport rather than renting a toll transponder from your rental car company: Toll Discounts Return for Orlando Theme Park Visitors
Disney's theme park ticket prices vary by day, so you can use Disney's pricing calendar [scroll down] to see which days have the highest expected crowds. The lower the price for a ticket, the smaller the expected crowd that day.
In general, you will find the lightest crowd levels at the Walt Disney World theme parks during these periods:
Large crowds will fill the parks on runDisney weekends:
In addition, crowd levels are high during:
If you want to visit more than one Walt Disney World theme park on a single day, you will need a "Park Hopper" ticket.
Dining reservations can be made via the Disney World website, and each date's reservations open 60 days in advance, at about 5:45am Eastern Time. Disney's on-site hotel guests may make reservations for their entire stay (up to 10 days) starting 60 days before their check-in date. That gives Disney's on-site hotel guests an advantage in making reservations for the most popular restaurants.
Starting July 24, Walt Disney World Resort hotel guests may purchase and book Lightning Lane access for their entire stay (up to 14 days) starting seven days before their arrival. Other theme park guests may book Lightning Lanes up to three days in advance of their visit.
Lightning Lanes are Disney's new name for the old Fastpass return queues. Access to Lightning Lanes can be bought via a Lightning Lane Multi Pass or a Lightning Lane Single Pass, depending upon attraction. You can learn more about the system in our Guide to Disney's Lightning Lane.
Disney's hotel guests also get 30 minutes of early access to each of the resort's four theme parks every day. So hotel guests should plan on an early start each morning to take advantage of empty queues. Unfortunately for guests staying off site, this new early admission policy means that they no longer have any opportunity to be the first to enter any Walt Disney World theme park in the morning.
The longest wait in the park is Avatar Flight of Passage. Since Disney's hotel guests fill its queue at park opening, we now recommend that non-hotel guests wait until after 4pm to ride this attraction, unless you want to pay up for Lightning Lane Single Pass access.
Start first instead at park opening riding its neighbor, the Na'vi River Journey, which is the next-longest average wait in the park. From there, head to Everest if you can get there before 10am, or to Dinosaur if you cannot. If you don't get to Everest in the morning, ride it after 5pm, when its wait times decreases substantially.
Kilimanjaro Safaris also is nice as the very first thing in the morning, when many animals are active. But if you are getting the other rides out of the way early, come back to the Safaris just before dusk. If you don't think you can squeeze it in and then still do Avatar and Everest before the park closes, just go ahead and ride Safaris in mid-afternoon, after about 2pm, when the wait time is minimal, even if many animals are asleep.
