WALT DISNEY WORLD ITINERARIES
Animal Kingdom
Touring Plan for Families with Small Children - Not Using Lightning Lanes
This touring plan is for families with kids under 44″ tall and does not include any attractions with height requirements. Lightning Lanes aren’t needed at this park if you won’t be doing thrill rides, but it is helpful to get to the park as early as possible to beat the crowds. I recommend booking a character lunch at Tusker House so you can meet Mickey and friends without waiting in line and get a great meal in the process!
You can have great meals at Animal Kingdom without doing a table-service restaurant. But it can also be really nice to have a mid-day break with a nice sit-down meal.
How to get an Advanced Dining Reservation:
Dining reservations open at 6am EST, 60 days in advance of the day you want to dine OR 60 days before you check in to your Walt Disney World Resort. This is a huge benefit for resort guests because you can book all your dining reservations before they open to everyone else. This is the easiest way to get hard-to-get reservations.
On the morning your window opens, use a desktop/laptop instead of the mobile app. Have a browser tab open for each of the restaurants you’re trying to book on the Walt Disney World website. Order your tabs in order of hardest to get to easiest to get and go through each tab to try to book the restaurant for the day you want. You’ll need to already know which day you want for each restaurant and approximate times so you can move quickly and not waste time. You can always adjust a reservation later if you change your mind and you can cancel up to 2 hours before your reservation time.
If you missed the 60 day window or the restaurant you want isn’t available, start checking for reservations closer to the date you want, especially the night before or the morning of the date you want. People cancel reservations all the time and you might get lucky!
Fore more detailed information on making Advanced Dining Reservations, including screenshots, please see my post about How to Get the Best Advanced Dining Reservations in Disney World.
Top restaurant recommendation for families in Animal Kingdom: Tusker House
The Tusker House is located in the Africa section and features a buffet of African-inspired dishes and classic kid favorites. It’s a character meal featuring Donald, Daisy, Mickey, and Goofy (yes it’s missing Minnie) and they are all dressed in safari outfits. Like most character meals, the characters come to your table to interact with you and get hugs and autographs. You are guaranteed to see all the characters during your meal and sometimes more than once!
The Tusker House is a great chance to meet characters without having to stand in line to meet them, and the food selection in the buffet is quite good. The downside to a buffet is you have to leave your table to get food and often with small kids this means multiple trips to the buffet as you help each kid individually and you have to keep an eye on the characters to make sure you aren’t up at the buffet when they stop by your table. The other downside is the cost. Like most character buffets, this one costs $59 per adult and $38 per kid.
Time to Aim for:
I don’t recommend breakfast because the earliest breakfast time offered is usually 1 hour before the park opens. You don’t want to rush your expensive character meal so that means you’re probably exiting the restaurant a full hour after resort guests have been in the park thanks to early entry. So you missed the best hour of the day for riding rides without long lines. There used to be a good strategy around doing an early dining reservation and then being one of the first in line once the park opened, but that doesn’t exist anymore.
- Most attractions will require you to park your stroller before you get in the queue or enter the theater. The only exception is Kilimanjaro Safari which has a long queue path and will let you keep your stroller with you and then has a spot to park your stroller.
- Be aware that cast members sometimes have to rearrange strollers to make room for more so your stroller may not be in the exact spot you left it. THIS IS NORMAL – DON’T FREAK OUT.
- I recommend putting something on your stroller that will make it stand out from the crowd to help you locate it.
- If there’s rain in the forecast, pack a rain stroller cover and keep an eye on the radar so you know if you need to cover the stroller before you leave it for an attraction. We’ve learned this the hard way.
- On hot days, bring a battery-operated mini fan that can clip to the stroller.
In my experience, when my kids were still in the age of naps, they were usually too excited to nap at their normal time but then would fall asleep hard in a stroller later in the day. If we tried to leave the park to do nap time in our hotel, they would either fall asleep on the bus ride and then wake up when we arrived at our hotel full of energy, or not sleep at all in the room and fall asleep on the bus ride back to the park.
My advice –
Because Animal Kingdom is further from most hotels and will require a car or bus ride, it’s not worth it to leave the park for nap time. Stay in the park and try a stroller nap as you push them around the animal trails or let them fall asleep in your lap during the Finding Nemo show. Even if they never nap in strollers at home, once they’re Disney-tired – they might! Or skip the nap and get them in bed early.
If you do choose to leave the park for nap time, you can still use the itinerary below but cut it in half so you’ll do the second part of the day later in the afternoon and stay later in the evening.
Recommended Itinerary
Times are approximate and just here to help you plan. No day will every go perfectly!
I know…it’s early. But it will be worth it! This park is best done on day 1 of your trip, or after a resort day or other day where you aren’t up late the night before.
If you need more than 30 minutes to get ready, wake up earlier, with the goal to leave at 6:30am.
Leaving at 6:30 gives you time to walk from your room, wait for the bus, and ride to the park. If you’re staying at a Disney resort, taking a bus is probably the best bet, BUT if you have a car with you can drive yourself. You’ll avoid waiting on the bus and possibly avoid multiple stops, but you you’ll have to park and walk to the entrance. Parking is free for resort guests.
If you’re pushing a stroller, put all bags in the stroller and have one person wait in the bag line with the stroller. Everyone else can skip the bag line and get in the ticket/magic band scanning line. The line to the far left is often the shortest. The person with the stroller will hopefully join you in line before you go through or meet you on the other side. The ticket line will often start letting people through before 7:30am, that’s why you’re arriving early.
Make sure everyone has a magic band or have the tickets pulled up in the My Disney Experience App. Cast members will be there to help you if you have trouble.
Walk straight and then left once you enter the park to reach Pandora. Stay to the left in Pandora to reach Na’vi River Journey, a slow-moving boat ride that is great for everyone in the family!
There is a stroller parking area near the ride entrance.
Take a moment to enjoy the beauty of Pandora! There’s a spot with drums that kids can bang on that they find very fun! If you purchased Memory Maker (which I recommend), find a PhotoPass photographer and take a family photo.
There are two paths out of Pandora – one is the way you came in, the other leads you on the left bank of the river to Africa. Take that one! The app will tell you going through Discovery Island is faster but it’s not and walking along the river is less crowded and you may see characters going by on boats! The walk from Pandora to Kilimanjaro Safaris is about 6-10 minutes depending on walking speed.
You can keep your stroller with you for the first part of the Safari queue, then you will arrive at the stroller parking area and a cast member will park it for you.
Tip: Seat kids on the edges when you enter a row in the safari vehicle so they can see better. The left side will be closer to more animals, but the right will have plenty also and have better views of the Savannah. They will require preschool-aged children to sit on their own. Only babies and toddlers will be allowed in laps.
Right outside of the Safari exit is the entrance to the trail. On this trail you will see hippos, a bird aviary, and of course, gorillas! The gorilla habitat is huge and has two sections – one for a gorilla family that includes moms and babies and their alpha male Gino, the other is home to several bachelor males. There’s a glass viewing area where the gorilla family often hangs out giving you amazing up-close views and interactions.
Most people will spend about 20 minutes on this trail. We are animal lovers and often spend a bit longer!
The train has seats that all face the windows and give you some behind-the-scenes views of the savannah. The 7-minute ride is narrated to help you learn more about the park and its animals.
Once you arrive you will take a walk through lovely vegetation to Rafiki’s Planet Watch where there is a petting zoo with goats, sheep, pigs, and more.
Once you get off the train you will take a walk through lovely vegetation to Rafiki’s Planet Watch where there is a petting zoo (Affection Section) with goats, sheep, pigs, and more.
Also check out the Conservation Station building with exhibits inside that include invertebrates and a behind-the-scenes look at one of the vet/surgery rooms.
Catch the train back to Africa. Once you exit, head toward the Festival of the Lion King. Consult your app for a map.
This is the best show in all of Disney World! The show will start at 11am but seating will fill up, so we recommend getting there 15-30 minutes early depending on crowd levels.
This awesome show features music from the Lion King, real-life singers, dancers, and acrobats, costumed characters, and large animatronic characters. It’s fantastic! Don’t miss it!
As you’re leaving the theater, open your app and check in at the Tusker House. Once you arrive, check-in in person at the check-in desk to make sure they know you’ve arrived. There is a covered waiting area to wait in until the app let’s you know your table is ready.
Tusker House is a buffet so you’ll have a waiter ask for your drink orders and then you can go up to the buffet to get your food.
Keep an eye on the character rotation so you don’t leave to get food while a character comes by. The characters are on about a 1-hour rotation so if you miss one, they should come back around before you leave.
Take your time and enjoy the experience! This is not a park you have to rush through 🙂
After lunch, walk toward the Asia section. You will first come to the theater for Feathered Friends in Flight and can catch the 1:30pm bird show. You will get to see some cool birds fly over your head and learn more about them!
Walk through this lovely trail located toward the back of the Asia section, past Kali River Rapids. You’ll see komodo dragons, bats, bird, but most of all – tigers!
Walk through Asia, past Everest, and on to the Finding Nemo theater to get seats for the 2:30pm showing of Finding Nemo: The Big Blue…and Beyond! (times subject to change so check your app).
This is an adorable musical show done with puppets and very talented cast members. It’s also indoors in air conditioning and dark inside! Your kids may fall asleep and that’s ok! They will let you hang in the theater longer with a sleeping kid (the next show starts in an hour).
Dinoland USA is a section of the park that will soon be closing and reimagined to be an Encanto-themed area, and the Dinosaur ride will become an Indiana Jones ride.
The Boneyard is so fun for kids! We have spent HOURS in this area. It is completely closed off so your kids can’t escape, but you may lose sight of them among all the slides and places to climb. Also know that there is a second section over a bridge where you can dig in sand for dinosaur bones. If you can’t find your kid in the section with the slides, check over there.
It’s also a great time to grab a snack! Dinobite Snacks is near the Boneyard and has ice cream and fresh baked cookies, and best of all handmade ice cream cookie sandwiches. They are big enough to share and delicious!
There are often characters that come out in Dinoland (like Chip and Dale dressed in dinosaur costumes – adorable!). You can also leave Dinoland and head to Discovery Island (just walk toward the big tree) to wear you can meet Mickey and Minnie in their safari outfits. There are many places to meet Mickey and Minnie through Disney World, so check the wait time on your app and decide if it’s worth it, especially if you already saw Mickey at Tusker House.
At this point in the day, you’ve done all the “must-dos” in my book. If you’re tired and want to leave, go for it! If you want to stay, go ahead and mobile order your dinner. I recommend eating at either Flame Tree BBQ or Satuli Canteen.
Check out a few of the pathways around the Tree of Life to see more animals and get a closer look at all the amazing carvings in the tree. It’s a really beautiful area!
While you’re around the Tree of Life is also a good time to get a family photo in front of the tree! Look for a Disney Photopass photographer if you have Memory Maker.
Head to wherever you chose for dinner (as mentioned above, I recommend either Flame Tree BBQ or Statuli Canteen). As you walk toward the restaurant you chose, press, “I’m here, prepare my order” on your mobile food order. Then walk to the restaurant, pick up your food at the location it tells you in the app, find a seat, and enjoy!
If it’s winter and already dark:
- Explore Pandora at night when it’s all lit up and gorgeous!
- Check your app to see if Tree of Life Awakening is happening. During months where it gets dark before close this show happens a few times a night where they have projections and music on the Tree of Life. It’s a perfect way to end the day!
You could head up to Africa for one more Safari ride. The animals act a little differently in the evenings and even if the sun is setting they have lights on the Savannah.
Usually Animal Kingdom closes at 7, but always check your app to be sure. Closing time does not mean you have to be out of the park by 7. You can hop in line for a ride at 6:59. The stores stay open later also so you can take some time to shop on your way out. Staying inside the park longer usually means less time waiting at the bus line (unless you drove yourself of course).
When you get back to your hotel – go to bed! Because this is one of the earlier closing parks, it’s a good idea to take advantage of getting to bed earlier. Other nights will go later when you’re staying for nighttime shows.