Disney says it fixed the loading process so well that single rider stopped being worth having. Monday is your last day to use it.
If you have been using the single rider line to get on Expedition Everest, enjoy it this weekend.
Disney is permanently closing the single rider queue at the Animal Kingdom coaster on Monday, Sept. 21. There is no replacement and no trial period. It is just going away.
Why is Disney closing the Expedition Everest single rider line?
Because the regular line got faster, according to Disney.
The company tested a new loading process in May 2026, and it worked. Average standby waits came down. Disney’s explanation is that “as the efficiency of the standby line increased, the single rider line no longer provided the experience guests have come to expect.”
Read that carefully, because it is doing something clever. Disney is not saying it is cutting a perk. It is saying the perk stopped being a perk, because standby got close enough that skipping the line no longer skipped much.
Whether that matches your experience of Animal Kingdom in February is a different question.
Which Disney World rides still have single rider lines?
Fewer than there used to be.
Test Track at EPCOT still runs one. Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith at Hollywood Studios has one. Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run in Galaxy’s Edge has one, and it is the most useful of the group because the ride loads six people at a time.
Single rider works by filling the empty seats that groups leave behind. On a coaster like Everest, where trains seat 34, those gaps add up fast, which is exactly why the queue existed.
Does this mean longer waits for Expedition Everest?
Possibly, and this is the part guests are arguing about.
Removing single rider takes away a tool Disney used to fill seats. If the new loading process genuinely does the work on its own, nothing changes. If it does not, every train that dispatches with empty seats is a train that makes the standby line longer for everybody.
Disney has not published any of the numbers behind the May test, so there is no way to check the claim from outside.
Lightning Lane remains available for the attraction as a paid option.
What about the Expedition Everest yeti?
Still a sore subject.
The yeti, the enormous animatronic at the climax of the ride, has been operating in a limited mode for most of the ride’s life. Instead of lunging at the train, it has been lit with a strobe effect that fans nicknamed the disco yeti. The figure has been in that state for years.
Disney has never given a full public explanation of the repair, and the yeti has become a kind of shorthand among Disney World regulars for maintenance that never quite happens.
Planning around the change
Expedition Everest opened at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in 2006, which makes this its 20th anniversary year. It runs to 199 feet, hits about 50 mph, and is still the best coaster at Walt Disney World that is not in Galaxy’s Edge.
If you are visiting this weekend and want to squeeze in extra rides, the single rider queue is live through Sunday.
After that, plan for standby or a Lightning Lane. Animal Kingdom’s crowds tend to concentrate in the morning around Pandora, so Everest late in the day has historically been a decent bet.
The park also has plenty running right now, including Kilimanjaro Safaris, Avatar Flight of Passage and Na’vi River Journey.
Article compiled with the help of the Pirates & Princesses newsroom.
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Hat Tips:
WDW News Today, the Sept. 21 closure date and Disney’s stated reasoning including the May 2026 loading process test
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