Not doing a rope drop -is this possible?

[PDXmouse]

So for those that sleep in but buy Genie + or ILL, how does that work? Do you get up at 7, make your reservations, and then go back to sleep?

I too am trying to figure out a new plan because I am also dealing with several family members protesting against RD. I am an early riser and don't really mind RD at all... I feel like that early morning energy is one of my favorite times at WDW!!! The parks are less crowded, it's less hot, and there is just this whole excitement about the upcoming day that I love.

But what I hate is getting up at 6:45 for the whole Genie/ILL thing. I am the one in my family who always has to do it, and its not the same feeling to me as waking up to go to the parks. It feels stressful. That might just be me... if I could roll back over and go to bed maybe it would be different but so far it hasn't worked that way. Once I am up, I am up. So then I am just hanging in the room trying not to wake up the others and wishing we were just rope dropping.

Fingers crossed they begin to offer some "early booking" option. I thought there was a rumor of that based on something Bog Iger said? I would pay more for that because I really miss the old FP system.

Disney has teased about pre-booking LL's but the system to do so doesn't exist yet. So I guess it depends on your trip dates.

I can never go back to sleep after waking up. Add in the adrenaline of trying to book a VQ and there's no WAY I can fall asleep again.

Maybe wake up your entire family and make them all help you try and snag VQs/LL/$ILL's and they might change their mind about not doing RD, lol.

I get it, I'm the family planner, too. But at some point I'm exhausting myself to make their trip better. They should have some skin in the game, too.

 

[Angeliki19]

Disney has teased about pre-booking LL's but the system to do so doesn't exist yet. So I guess it depends on your trip dates.

I can never go back to sleep after waking up. Add in the adrenaline of trying to book a VQ and there's no WAY I can fall asleep again.

Maybe wake up your entire family and make them all help you try and snag VQs/LL/$ILL's and they might change their mind about not doing RD, lol.

I get it, I'm the family planner, too. But at some point I'm exhausting myself to make their trip better. They should have some skin in the game, too.

Yes to the adrenaline!!!! Not a magical way to start off the day. Sure it's great when you get it, but still, why does it have to be this way?

 

[Robbie Cottam]

I have never done a rope drop,
My will Demands my son have me committed if I ever do,
I have never bought genie..... I'm just to cheap to,

I have always done everything I have wanted to in the parks.....
Is that always every there is to do, NO but ill be back, sounds like you will too...

I would listen to the kids or the next time they aren't going to go..... which means you aren't going either

 

[bwilcox]

For the first time this trip (with teenagers), we opted to sleep late instead of rope drop. We only go once every 4-5 years, so we do feel like we need to do everything when we go. We did buy Genie + each day, which turned out to be a valuable investment for us. I also used Standby Skipper (look up videos on YouTube), and it booked our first LL of the day at 7am on the dot while we slept-also worth the investment. Then I stacked LLs every 2 hours when we were able to book them again, choosing the ones that would "sell out" first. I would then modify the times to make them fit our schedule. For example, if I booked TOT for an 11 am return time and we weren't planning on arriving at the park until 2, I would modify before 11 to a later time. This worked out well for us, and by the time we got to the parks in the afternoons, we had at least 4 LLs already stacked. I would say Genie+ is the best money we spent on the trip (during June).

 

[bluezy]

So for those that sleep in but buy Genie + or ILL, how does that work? Do you get up at 7, make your reservations, and then go back to sleep?

I too am trying to figure out a new plan because I am also dealing with several family members protesting against RD. I am an early riser and don't really mind RD at all... I feel like that early morning energy is one of my favorite times at WDW!!! The parks are less crowded, it's less hot, and there is just this whole excitement about the upcoming day that I love.

But what I hate is getting up at 6:45 for the whole Genie/ILL thing. I am the one in my family who always has to do it, and its not the same feeling to me as waking up to go to the parks. It feels stressful. That might just be me... if I could roll back over and go to bed maybe it would be different but so far it hasn't worked that way. Once I am up, I am up. So then I am just hanging in the room trying not to wake up the others and wishing we were just rope dropping.

Fingers crossed they begin to offer some "early booking" option. I thought there was a rumor of that based on something Bog Iger said? I would pay more for that because I really miss the old FP system.

I was the LL/ILL scheduler for our extended family trip last June (we were still able to buy Genie+ for LOS prior to arrival at that time so at least I didn't have to deal with that every day.) I'm used to getting up a 5:00 a.m. every day, so sleeping until 6:45 felt like sleeping in to me. ;D We were there 8 days. Three of the days we were doing rope drop so we were all up way before 6:45 anyway...I was making reservations while standing in line for a bus or Skyliner those days. On our 5 sleep-in days, I just took care of the reservations and then laid in bed and checked e-mail or read some online news articles until I felt like getting up. We stay in a suite at AoA, so DH & I have our own bedroom and the <adult> kids sleep in the other room. By the time we're both up and showered and ready to head to the restaurant to refill our mugs, the kids are starting to stir anyway There was only 1 day out of our 5 sleep-in days that I needed my alarm to wake me up. The other days I was awake by 6:30 anyway...which is why I said I'd be the person to make those 7:00 a.m. reservations for the group.

I hope they bring back the option to pre-purchase Genie+ and add the option of booking at least 1 LL in advance. Even if they only give us the ability to pre-purchase LL and we still have to purchase G+ on a daily basis, I'd stay up until mid-night to buy it (I'm usually up until 11:30 anyway) and then not set an alarm for the morning on our non-rope drop days. *Maybe* I could convince my body to sleep past 7:00....but I doubt it.

 

[BriarRose924]

How did your trip turn out?

We don’t travel until July thanks for asking though!!

 

[mouschievous]

A couple of weeks ago the posted wait was around an hour right before close and I walked right into the lab portion of the queue and was sorted into one of the lines past merge within 10 minutes.

Nice! Yeah I have noticed that they intentionally over inflate the wait times towards the end of the night, probably to discourage guests from jumping in line like that, but FOP especially seems to do it a lot. Mine Train is another one notorious for it, I like to ride that at park close. They will post 60 min wait time after fireworks when it’s more like 10-15.

We noticed this too. We went in Jan 2022, and the nighttime waits were completely off. The one I remember clearly was Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway - H and I had rope dropped that morning and MMRR was our 2nd or 3rd ride that day. It was about a 25 minute wait when we got in line. That evening it said 40 minutes, but the line was easily half of what it had been for us in the morning. We jumped in and were in the movie room in 5ish minutes.

 

[Davey Jones II]

For the first time this trip (with teenagers), we opted to sleep late instead of rope drop. We only go once every 4-5 years, so we do feel like we need to do everything when we go. We did buy Genie + each day, which turned out to be a valuable investment for us. I also used Standby Skipper (look up videos on YouTube), and it booked our first LL of the day at 7am on the dot while we slept-also worth the investment. Then I stacked LLs every 2 hours when we were able to book them again, choosing the ones that would "sell out" first. I would then modify the times to make them fit our schedule. For example, if I booked TOT for an 11 am return time and we weren't planning on arriving at the park until 2, I would modify before 11 to a later time. This worked out well for us, and by the time we got to the parks in the afternoons, we had at least 4 LLs already stacked. I would say Genie+ is the best money we spent on the trip (during June).

Did you buy any ILL?

 

[bridget]

For the first time this trip (with teenagers), we opted to sleep late instead of rope drop. We only go once every 4-5 years, so we do feel like we need to do everything when we go. We did buy Genie + each day, which turned out to be a valuable investment for us. I also used Standby Skipper (look up videos on YouTube), and it booked our first LL of the day at 7am on the dot while we slept-also worth the investment. Then I stacked LLs every 2 hours when we were able to book them again, choosing the ones that would "sell out" first. I would then modify the times to make them fit our schedule. For example, if I booked TOT for an 11 am return time and we weren't planning on arriving at the park until 2, I would modify before 11 to a later time. This worked out well for us, and by the time we got to the parks in the afternoons, we had at least 4 LLs already stacked. I would say Genie+ is the best money we spent on the trip (during June).

Stacking the lightening lanes were huge for us!!! We did rope drop, but returned to the resort around noon. From 11:30-7:30, we would book LL every 2 hours!