How bad is the wait time for Kilimanjaro Safaris around 8:00 pm?

[maryj11]

I'm trying to decide on if we should use our fastpass for it or Rivers of Light.
How bad is the wait time around 8:00 pm?

 

[Capang]

I walked in twice at that time the first week of June or so.

 

[Klayfish]

Unless it's changed from last summer, at 8pm, it's literally a walk on. The buses will be sitting there waiting for guests to arrive.

 

[maryj11]

Unless it's changed from last summer, at 8pm, it's literally a walk on. The buses will be sitting there waiting for guests to arrive.

We did go last year at the end of June and it was a walk on around 8:00 so we changed our FP to something else. So yeah I was wondering if has been the same.

 

[scrapquitler]

We walked on around 8pm two nights the weekend of the 9th.

 

[NavyDad]

You really only need a FP for Safari from around 11 AM to 5 PM.

At 8 it should be walk on. It may say 20 minutes but that is just the time it will take you to walk through the queue and board the bus.

 

[CAS239]

Not long at all. Even lower when it's dark out because you can't see anything so I think many realize it's not worth riding in the dark.

 

[emmabelle]

I booked FP's for 7:30pm just because I have never done it before at night. Maybe I need to rethink that decision.

 

[scoobygrl79]

Not long at all. Even lower when it's dark out because you can't see anything so I think many realize it's not worth riding in the dark.

This! The animals like laying out in the hot sun so as it starts going down and temperatures slightly drop, animals are more scarce. I love that ride so I tried to cheat the system myself and did this to get another ride in. Nope...I think I saw a crow.

 

[MermaidMommy]

We did safari at 8:45 last Friday. We waited about 20 minutes with a FP, because they only were running one side.

However, it was a really fun safari. We were stopped for a while due to a group of springbok chasing each other, which was adorable. We also had a bunch of wildebeests crossing right in front of us. And, three of the lions were up and moving around, in addition to hyenas, giraffes, and hippos. We weren't expecting to see much, but it ended up being a good safari after all.

 

[Blue32]

If You Can Time it to ride around sunset, I would recommend that. Otherwise a ride in the darkness is a bit lame IMO.

 

[madelyn]

This past week we rode the safari late (around 10) and the ride was walk on. We had Fast passes but they were not needed. We noticed the Fast Pass line for Rivers of Light and lots of people were lined up. We had Fast Passes for Everest and after using them we were trying to figure out where to enter for Rivers of Light and we ended up walking into the door that was labeled Fast Pass entrance. There were plenty of seats and the show hadn't started yet so we didn't miss anything. This was this past Friday.

 

[barbliny]

If You Can Time it to ride around sunset, I would recommend that. Otherwise a ride in the darkness is a bit lame IMO.

This method worked perfectly for us in January and just a couple of weeks ago. Look up sunset time for the day you will be there - and remember it takes a bit of time from sunset to darkness - and we try to time getting on at exactly that time. Both safaris we saw animals moving about that never roam around during the day. Both times the lions were up and moving - and roaring. Hippos, rhinos, etc up and out of the water and moving. It is a very different experience than even the opening time safaris where you see a good number of animals.

 

[scrapquitler]

Some animals may be more scarce, but others are more active. The lions in particular have been very active on every nighttime safari we have gone on, and the last time we even got to watch them walking around, and the male was roaring. I've never seen that during the day.

 

[hodad]

On Pandora opening day it was walk on, but when I went back in February there was a 30m wait for the fast pass line at sunset.

 

[Disneylover99]

We did safari at 8:45 last Friday. We waited about 20 minutes with a FP, because they only were running one side.

That's been our experience riding in the early evening a few times. Long waits because they were only running one side because they anticipated lower crowds.

 

[NavyDad]

Some animals may be more scarce, but others are more active. The lions in particular have been very active on every nighttime safari we have gone on, and the last time we even got to watch them walking around, and the male was roaring. I've never seen that during the day.

This same thing happened to us a couple of weeks ago. We did one safari about 7 PM and another about 9 PM along with a few of the normal day time safaris through the week. Each time period is different in which kind of animals you see and their level of activity.

We found the 7 PM (more of a twilight period) do be different than a morning/afternoon safari. A lot of the animals were on the move to different areas. My guess is they are used to being fed and/or brought in around that time?....

The 9 PM safari (pitch dark) did not have nearly as many animals as usual but it was still very interesting. Like some PPs mentioned the lions were MUCH more active. The male lion was jumping from rock to rock facing the different directions and grunting. Then he jumped on a rock closer to us and looked right at our bus and ROARED. It was awesome!

Just completely different experiences and well worth it IMO.

 

[BrownHP800]

I love the night time safari. Last trip the male lion was walking around and started to roar and then the females all started to roar. It was very cool to see.

 

[maryj11]

That's been our experience riding in the early evening a few times. Long waits because they were only running one side because they anticipated lower crowds.

Oh this is good to know. Never thought about them closing one side.

 

[vacationplanningdad]

We rode last night twice in a row. Once at 7:30 and then again at 8:20 with a fastpass. The standby line at 7:30 was posted at 20 minutes but was a bit longer due to a lot of fastpassers coming through at that point. both safaris were cool but the later one had the fake sunset that Disney uses for the animals. The Lions were awak and the two female lions were roaring and playing with each other on the second safari