You're Making a Big Disney World Ride Mistake

We have to break it to you, friends — you’re making a BIG ride mistake in Disney World.

Pandora in Disney’s Animal Kingdom

Rushing to Disney World’s most popular rides early in the morning can be a great strategy to beating the longer lines…sometimes. Because you’ve likely heard the advice to rope-drop fan-favorite attractions, you might find yourself hurrying through Animal Kingdom in the morning to make your way to Avatar Flight of Passage first thing. But, folks, you might be doing it WRONG.

Let’s take a look at the wait times for Flight of Passage on May 21st, 2023. On that date, the ride started off with a wait time of 105 minutes at 8AM. Nope, that’s not a joke. 105 MINUTES at 8AM. If you rushed over to hop in line, you’d be stuck waiting nearly 2 hours here.

Avatar Flight of Passage

Compare that to other wait times for the ride during the day and you can see what a mistake this can be. The ride’s wait time increased slightly to 120 minutes at 9AM, but then dropped (significantly) to 75 minutes at 10AM. Here are the rest of the ride’s wait times for the day:

11AM — 65 minutes
12PM — 95 minutes
1PM — 80 minutes
2PM — 65 minutes
3PM — 55 minutes
4PM — 60 minutes
5PM — 55 minutes
6PM — 50 minutes
7PM — 45 minutes

Flight of Passage

Many guests may have taken advantage of Early Theme Park Entry (available for all Disney World hotel guests and select other hotel guests) which allows them to enter any theme park (with a park pass) 30 minutes early. Those folks could have all rushed to Flight of Passage and caused the line to get to its 105-minute wait by 8AM. It’s possible that technical issues also caused the ride’s line to get backed up in the morning.

But just a few hours later, wait times dropped to an hour or even LESS. By 7PM, the ride had a wait time of just 45 minutes — a BIG difference from the morning wait time.

Flight of Passage

So what’s the lesson here? Unless you’re taking advantage of Early Theme Park Entry and are genuinely one of the first few folks in the park, it might be a better strategy to WAIT and get on Flight of Passage later in the day, when the wait time can drop — particularly if you’re willing to wait until later in the evening.

The risk? There is a chance that the ride has a technical issue that shuts it down later in the evening, preventing you from getting on the ride at all.

Flight of Passage ride vehicles

If you’re hoping to ride Flight of Passage with a shorter wait, here are a few tips:

Consider stopping by this ride later in the day (or evening) when wait times have dropped (but understand the closure risk that comes with that)
See if buying an Individual Lightning Lane for the ride is worth the cost for you
Use the My Disney Experience app to see forecasted wait times for the ride to give you a better idea of when it might drop on any particular day

For a complete look at the wait times on May 21st, see the information below. It can help you know what times your favorite rides might have their shortest waits!