FOP Standby in the AM - Best plan?

DisneyWishes14

DIS Veteran
Joined
Nov 21, 2011
I read on another thread that if you arrive at FOP at RD, you may be re-routed into the FP line and not see the entire standby que experience. We will be going to AK on a day that it opens at 9 am. Any timing strategies you could suggest to get there early, but not so early that we are re-routed to the FP line? Should we try to line up around between 9:15 - 9:30 am or will the line be super duper long by then? (I'm guessing the answer is yes!) We will be going on a weekday during the last week of August. If the line will be super long, we'll just skip standby for now and do it on another trip. To this day, we still haven't seen the standby que for 7DMT!
 
We rope dropped FOP this past week twice for 9:00 openings. Both times we got off the ride around 9:05 (they started letting us into the queue around 8:40) and the wait time by then was posted around 120-150 minutes. Personally I wouldn't skip the ride because you don't see the queue. The ride is fabulous!
 
all I can say is what happened when I RD FOP last week ( or was it the week before) any ways I the CM walked us thought the whole line I was behind and mom and dad and there daughter ( I am guess that is there relationship ) and we went thought the whole line when we got to the front where FP and stand by merge there was just 2 people there and they did scane there bands at the touch point and ( you either go up a ramp or down,) there were very few people at the down part of the ramp ( I know there was one person in an ECV and someone with them, the up ramp had no one I went in the middle lane ( were they send single riders) and they had the two out side ones filled pretty fast, I was in the room with in 2 or 3 minutes )

I went the next day and was a little behind in the RD and I use the Disability pass since the stand by was at 45 minutes I got a DAS return time as I was trying to get a return time the CM were telling people stand by was longer ( up to 30 minutes ) since they had to reroute the standby line ( I latter heard someone got sick in line and they had to clean it up)


I all I can say is what happened when I went to the ride at RD and one of the days I was very close to the front but not at the front, Disney will test things out and they will do things differently ( you can look on the Disability part of this bard there is a haunted mansion thread that one guest had 3 different thing happen when she was trying to go in line with here ECV)

with this said if they change they way you go just let people in front of you or go at RD but try not to be the first 100 people on the cool part of the line is at the end and if you are near the CM they walk the line kind of fast and you will not see anything any ways but if you are close let people go infant of you ( I would say 100, 200 range) then the line should be backed up to the cool part and you should not have to wait longer then 30 -45 minutes, but the line goes from 0 minute wait to 45 minutes in about 3 seconds.
 
Why don't you just get there early enough to get re-routed to FP and then ride it again. By the second time they'll push you to the queue. Trust me it's such a cool ride you'll want to ride again asap.
 


We rope dropped FOP this past week twice for 9:00 openings. Both times we got off the ride around 9:05 (they started letting us into the queue around 8:40) and the wait time by then was posted around 120-150 minutes. Personally I wouldn't skip the ride because you don't see the queue. The ride is fabulous!

all I can say is what happened when I RD FOP last week ( or was it the week before) any ways I the CM walked us thought the whole line I was behind and mom and dad and there daughter ( I am guess that is there relationship ) and we went thought the whole line when we got to the front where FP and stand by merge there was just 2 people there and they did scane there bands at the touch point and ( you either go up a ramp or down,) there were very few people at the down part of the ramp ( I know there was one person in an ECV and someone with them, the up ramp had no one I went in the middle lane ( were they send single riders) and they had the two out side ones filled pretty fast, I was in the room with in 2 or 3 minutes )

I went the next day and was a little behind in the RD and I use the Disability pass since the stand by was at 45 minutes I got a DAS return time as I was trying to get a return time the CM were telling people stand by was longer ( up to 30 minutes ) since they had to reroute the standby line ( I latter heard someone got sick in line and they had to clean it up)


I all I can say is what happened when I went to the ride at RD and one of the days I was very close to the front but not at the front, Disney will test things out and they will do things differently ( you can look on the Disability part of this bard there is a haunted mansion thread that one guest had 3 different thing happen when she was trying to go in line with here ECV)

with this said if they change they way you go just let people in front of you or go at RD but try not to be the first 100 people on the cool part of the line is at the end and if you are near the CM they walk the line kind of fast and you will not see anything any ways but if you are close let people go infant of you ( I would say 100, 200 range) then the line should be backed up to the cool part and you should not have to wait longer then 30 -45 minutes, but the line goes from 0 minute wait to 45 minutes in about 3 seconds.

Thank you both so much! We will definitely ride even if we don't go through the standby que!

sbrost13, that's great info regarding timing for a 9:00 am opening - thank you! I guess we'll try to get to AK around 8:00/8:15 am and go from there.

And gap2368, I totally see your point on WDW testing the que right now so it sounds like I can't really go in with a definitive idea of when, in the AM, they'll start putting people in the standby que as opposed to the FP+ que.
 
And gap2368, I totally see your point on WDW testing the que right now so it sounds like I can't really go in with a definitive idea of when, in the AM, they'll start putting people in the standby que as opposed to the FP+ que.

The day I went they were not pulling anyone at all in the FP line, but I did walk the line fast and I would have seen nothing even if I wanted too ( I did the preview so I did stand by 5 to 7 times that day)

I would plane on getting there at early as you can about an hour before RD be at the front of RD and if you feel like walking ever so slightly slower to let some people in front of you ( the last room is really the coolest room ) before the FP and standby ( ok there was one more room but is for the most part is a straight line of about 300 feet, and there is the zig zag) but any way I would let about 200 people entrant of me if wanted to see the cool room.

or I would just get first on and hope back in line. as there are things too look at just not the really cool things.
 
Another vote for getting on that ride no matter what line you have to stand in to do it. It's a totally different ride experience!

We arrived at about 8:40 am and as soon as we got to the backup of people, they started letting people into the park. We had a minimal wait even though it looked like we would be in line forever. It went really fast.
 


Another vote for getting on that ride no matter what line you have to stand in to do it. It's a totally different ride experience!

We arrived at about 8:40 am and as soon as we got to the backup of people, they started letting people into the park. We had a minimal wait even though it looked like we would be in line forever. It went really fast.
Did you go through the full queue or FP queue? TIA!
 
I don't recall the FP line missing any of the que. the ride is well worth any wait time that you will experience at this point. I think the extremely long wait times are over. The line moves quickly. I was told by a CM that the ride loads 192 people per ride so that moves people through rather quickly.
 
I don't recall the FP line missing any of the que. the ride is well worth any wait time that you will experience at this point. I think the extremely long wait times are over. The line moves quickly. I was told by a CM that the ride loads 192 people per ride so that moves people through rather quickly.

From everything I have read on these boards, you do miss most of the queue with FP. And by my standards between 2 and 3 hours is a pretty long standby line.....I would say the extremely long waits are not over and won't be for a long time.
 
From everything I have read on these boards, you do miss most of the queue with FP. And by my standards between 2 and 3 hours is a pretty long standby line.....I would say the extremely long waits are not over and won't be for a long time.
It is possible, I was just thinking that I remember them coming in at the entrance into the mountain. I never fast passed the ride so I can't say for sure. I was there 2 weeks in June And 1 week in July and the line was never more than 2 hours and even then the wait was not that long. We got there one day about 20 minutes before the park opened. We were in line and it was back to the Lion King. It looked crazy but we were not actually in line but 1 hour and 40 minutes and we were moving the entire time.
 
In this situation, I was talking about standby.
Some Dis'ers reported going into FP queue instead of full queue when riding SB at rope drop. I am trying to time myself so I won't be directed to FP queue if riding SB. I believe it means you did the full queue, right?
 
It is possible, I was just thinking that I remember them coming in at the entrance into the mountain. I never fast passed the ride so I can't say for sure. I was there 2 weeks in June And 1 week in July and the line was never more than 2 hours and even then the wait was not that long. We got there one day about 20 minutes before the park opened. We were in line and it was back to the Lion King. It looked crazy but we were not actually in line but 1 hour and 40 minutes and we were moving the entire time.
This sounds like the Harry Potter's Forbidden Journey queue when it first opened. We were in line for maybe two hours but were moving all the time to take pictures and check things out, so we didn't feel the wait was too dreadful.
 
Some Dis'ers reported going into FP queue instead of full queue when riding SB at rope drop. I am trying to time myself so I won't be directed to FP queue if riding SB. I believe it means you did the full queue, right?

Sorry...yes, I went thru the entire queue (standby). It appeared that they were directing everyone who didn't have a fast pass thru the standby queue.

I arrived at the park at around 8:40 am (9 am opening) and was afraid it would put us at the back of the line, but there were plenty of people behind us. I was really surprised at how easily it was to get on that ride first thing in the morning without a fast pass.
 
Sorry...yes, I went thru the entire queue (standby). It appeared that they were directing everyone who didn't have a fast pass thru the standby queue.

I arrived at the park at around 8:40 am (9 am opening) and was afraid it would put us at the back of the line, but there were plenty of people behind us. I was really surprised at how easily it was to get on that ride first thing in the morning without a fast pass.
:thanks:

I will aim to arrive around 8:30. No need to Uber then.
 

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