Walt Disney World has restructured the morning opening procedure at Disney's Animal Kingdom. The checkpoints holding back guests without Early Entry no longer sit just inside the entrance but on Discovery Island.

Before and after

Previously, the checkpoint sat in the Oasis corridor just past the entrance turnstiles, with a second hold on the bridge into Pandora. The Oasis is narrow and winding, and on busy mornings a large crowd routinely bottled up in a small space.

There are now two checkpoints flanking Discovery Island:

  • one in front of Island Mercantile, controlling access to Pandora and Africa
  • one in front of Zootopia: Better Zoogether, leading toward Asia and Expedition Everest

Who gains, who pays

The change distributes costs and benefits unevenly – in favour of the majority.

Guests without Early Entry, meaning everyone not staying at a Disney resort, no longer queue in the tight Oasis corridor and can instead spread across the much larger Discovery Island until regular opening at 8 a.m. That is a meaningful comfort gain. The shops there do stay closed until park opening.

Resort guests with Early Entry give something up: the new checkpoints sit farther from Pandora than the old ones, costing an estimated five minutes. In practice that should be manageable, since nearly all Early Entry guests head straight for Avatar Flight of Passage anyway and the running order barely shifts.

What Early Entry actually covers

Worth knowing for planning: Early Entry at Animal Kingdom includes just four attractions:

  • Avatar Flight of Passage
  • Na'vi River Journey
  • Expedition Everest
  • Zootopia: Better Zoogether
Everything else, Kilimanjaro Safaris included, waits for regular park opening.

Why it matters

On balance this is one of the rarer operational changes where the larger group comes out ahead. The Oasis corridor was simply too small for the crowd that gathers there, and the five minutes resort guests lose changes little about the order at Flight of Passage.

Anyone planning an early start should still learn the new layout, though: choosing which of the two checkpoints to join determines whether you head toward Pandora or toward Everest afterwards. Picking the wrong line costs more time than the relocation itself.