Pandora vs. Super Nintendo World: Which Land Costs You More?

Pandora – The World of Avatar averages 35.1 minutes per attraction. Super Nintendo World at Epic Universe averages 37.7. Those two numbers are 2.6 minutes apart, which makes the lands sound interchangeable. They are not. Riding everything once in Pandora costs 70.2 minutes of queue. Doing the same in Super Nintendo World costs 150.8 — more than twice as much, because Nintendo has twice as many rides and one of them is the longest line in Orlando.

If you are choosing between a Disney day built around Pandora and a Universal day built around Nintendo, the per-ride average is the wrong number to compare. Here is the right one.

Every attraction in both lands

Disney first:

Land	Attraction	Avg wait (min)	Busiest single hour
Pandora	Avatar Flight of Passage	41.1	83
Pandora	Na'vi River Journey	29.1	67
Super Nintendo World	Mine-Cart Madness	81.6	153
Super Nintendo World	Mario Kart: Bowser's Challenge	42.2	138
Super Nintendo World	Yoshi's Adventure	20.2	56
Super Nintendo World	Bowser Jr. Challenge	6.8	18

Pandora's per-attraction average: (41.1 + 29.1) ÷ 2 = 35.1 minutes.
Super Nintendo World's: (81.6 + 42.2 + 20.2 + 6.8) ÷ 4 = 150.8 ÷ 4 = 37.7 minutes.

Nearly identical. But the totals are what you actually stand in: 70.2 minutes to clear Pandora, 150.8 to clear Nintendo — a difference of 80.6 minutes, or 2.1 times the queue.

Mine-Cart Madness is a category of its own

Mine-Cart Madness averages 81.6 minutes. Avatar Flight of Passage, the longest wait at Animal Kingdom, averages 41.1. Mine-Cart is very nearly double it.

The extremes are wider still. Mine-Cart Madness's busiest single hour averages 153 minutes. Add Pandora's two busiest single hours together — 83 for Flight of Passage plus 67 for Na'vi River Journey — and you get 150. One Nintendo ride at its worst outruns both Pandora rides at theirs.

That single attraction is most of the gap between these lands. Take Mine-Cart Madness out of the arithmetic and Super Nintendo World's remaining three rides total 69.2 minutes (42.2 + 20.2 + 6.8) — within a minute of Pandora's 70.2.

Pandora's timing is simple. Nintendo's isn't.

Both Pandora rides bottom out at the same hour, which makes the land trivially easy to plan.

Attraction	Best hour	Best avg	Worst hour	Worst avg
Avatar Flight of Passage	8pm	20.8	8am	53.2
Na'vi River Journey	8pm	10.8	11am	45
Mine-Cart Madness	9pm	58.1	11am	109.3
Mario Kart: Bowser's Challenge	8pm	13	12pm	75.3
Yoshi's Adventure	8am	4.6	11am	41.7
Bowser Jr. Challenge	8am	4.5	6pm	9

Show up in Pandora at 8pm and both rides are at their floor: 20.8 + 10.8 = 31.6 minutes for the whole land, against 70.2 at the all-day average. One visit, one hour, 38.6 minutes saved.

Super Nintendo World splits. Its two headliners are cheapest at 8pm and 9pm; its two family rides are cheapest at 8am. Hitting every ride at its own best hour totals 58.1 + 13 + 4.6 + 4.5 = 80.2 minutes, which is 70.6 better than the average — but it requires two separate trips into the land, at opposite ends of the day.

That is the real planning difference. Pandora is one evening errand. Nintendo is a morning errand and an evening errand, and treating it as one afternoon visit is how people end up with the 235.3-minute version: 109.3 + 75.3 + 41.7 + 9, every ride at its worst hour.

Flight of Passage's worst hour is rope drop

The single most counterintuitive line in the table: Avatar Flight of Passage is at its worst at 8am (53.2 minutes) and its best at 8pm (20.8). It is the one Disney headliner where the standard rope-drop instinct actively costs you half an hour.

Na'vi River Journey behaves normally by comparison — worst at 11am, best at 8pm — so the two rides agree about the evening and disagree about the morning. If you can only be in Pandora once, make it late.

The park around each land matters too

Neither land sits in a vacuum. Animal Kingdom's park-wide average runs 12.4 minutes at 7pm, its lightest hour, so a late Pandora visit lands in a park that is quiet everywhere. Epic Universe at 9pm averages 22.1 park-wide, and at 8am 20.9 — so both of Nintendo's good windows sit in one of the park's two calmer stretches, but the walk between them crosses an afternoon that peaks at 42.8 minutes at noon.

Practically: Pandora late is a clean plan. Nintendo needs you to actually leave the land in between.

What to do

Pandora: go at 8pm, do both rides, leave. 31.6 minutes of queue for the headline land at Animal Kingdom.
Never rope-drop Flight of Passage. 53.2 minutes at 8am is its single worst hour of the day.
Super Nintendo World: Yoshi and Bowser Jr. at 8am, Mine-Cart and Mario Kart after 8pm. Splitting the land in two is worth about 70 minutes.
Budget Mine-Cart Madness honestly. At 81.6 minutes average and 58.1 at its best hour, there is no clever window that makes it cheap. Decide whether you want it, then plan the rest around that decision.

For more on these two, see the Pandora guide, Flight of Passage wait times and Mine-Cart Madness wait times. For the wider picture, see Epic Universe hour by hour and which Disney World land has the longest lines.

Check live and typical waits any time on the Animal Kingdom wait times page.

Ready to put this into practice? Park Autopilot creates your touring plan from real-time wait times. Try it free →