New Early Entry Procedures at Disney’s Animal Kingdom

We tested Early Entry in Animal Kingdom yesterday and documented a big change.

Early Theme Park Entry was 7:30am yesterday (Saturday, July 18, 2026), the day of our test. Regular entry was 8:00am. All guests are allowed to tap into the park during Early Entry but the taps and holding areas have changed. Scroll on for the time stamps and details.

6:30am (60 minutes before Early Entry): Animal Kingdom parking tolls opened

We saw lots of Disney buses pass by the tolls while we waited and had a decent line ahead of us for security, as you can see in the image above.

7:00am (30 minutes before Early Entry): Security opened

7:15am (15 minutes before Early Entry): Main gates opened, everyone was allowed into the park

This is where the new process started! 

The Old Way

In the past, guests with Early Entry access would tap into the park and walk to the left near Guest Services where a Cast Member would check one MagicBand or ticket per party. Once the Early Entry benefit was verified, guests would take the path on the left of the Oasis toward the bridge to Discovery Island and the Tree of Life. From there, folks would scatter to the path for their chosen Early Entry attraction. Guests headed to Flight of Passage would be held on the bridge to Pandora.

People without Early Entry were relegated to the right side of the Oasis path to Discovery Island after they tapped into the main Animal Kingdom gate. The whole right side of the path to Discovery Island would often be bunched up with non-Early Entry ticket holders waiting to get access to the full park.

The New Process

No more traffic jams on the Oasis paths! Now, all guests, Early Entry (EE) or not, are allowed over the bridge to Discovery Island. The Early Entry tap points (where they verify one MagicBand in each party) are shown on the right side of the image above. There are now two Early Entry checkpoints.

Left Checkpoint With EE Access To:  

• Flight of Passage
• Na’vi River Journey
• Kilimanjaro Safaris is not an Early Entry attraction but many folks line up during their free half hour just the same. This is similar to the folks who spend their Magic Kingdom Early Entry 30 minutes waiting for TRON to open during regular entry.

Right Checkpoint With EE Access To: 

• Expedition Everest
• Zootopia: Better Zoogether!

7:20am (10 minutes before Early Entry): Lined up on the bridge to Pandora, as shown in the picture above.

7:23am (7 minutes before Early Entry): The queue for Flight of Passage and Na’vi River Journey began to move.

7:27am: Our tester was in the Flight of Passage queue and was walking through the long path.

7:30am: Tester started the timer on the Lines app.

There was a switchback and Disney was not running the pre-show but the line stopped moving.

Reminder! Don’t start your timer until you stop walking in the queue for the first time. So, if you’re in the line for Flight of Passage, which is very long, you wouldn’t start the timer until the line came to a stop and you actually started “waiting” in line. If you’re moving, you don’t need to start the timer!

7:36am: Our tester stopped the timer and boarded a banshee!

Actual Wait = 6 minutes 

A Lightning Lane Single Pass for Flight of Passage was $15 on July 18th, the day of our test.

What do you think? Was a 6 minute wait for Flight of Passage worth the effort? Worth saving Len $15?

Let us know which park you want us to rope drop Early Entry in next!