ROPE DROP: YAY! OR NO WAY! ??

[SaintsManiac]

Right? I get that. With kids it must be kind of exciting to do it. But otherwise, cher, just go with the flow and laissez les bons temps roulez! Who dat!? BTW do you have beignets at WDW? Or do you just assume they're better in NOLA?

I'll never eat a beignet outside of NOLA.

 

[Newsies]

I like this idea! Thanks!

Have a great time! I noticed this will be your first trip since 1980- hope it's magical!

 

[jsmla]

If I were younger and married to someone who likes Disney as much as I do, I imagine I'd be with you to an extent. But I find I'd also like to possibly put in a day where we just hang out at the resorts and/or Disney Springs to unwind. Just the one day to take it slow. Then back to the rides! But I'm older now, and appreciate that down time!

DH isn't a fan of rope drop (except for Flight of s Passage-my theme park hating spouse loves that ride) so we do a lot more sleeping in/resort time/Disney Springs than I do when solo.

 

[MickleSt]

Newsies has got me thinking. I may get up and rope drop MK without the DH. He can meet me there later in the morning, in time for our FP+. We've also got down time scheduled for that day, which includes evening EMH. We'll leave the park around 4:00 for tea at GF, then back to our hotel to chill until we go back for fireworks and EMH.

 

[jsmla]

Right? I get that. With kids it must be kind of exciting to do it. But otherwise, cher, just go with the flow and laissez les bons temps roulez! Who dat!? BTW do you have beignets at WDW? Or do you just assume they're better in NOLA?

They are much, much better in NOLA but you can't really go wrong with fried dough and powdered sugar IMHO.

 

[MickleSt]

They are much, much better in NOLA but you can't really go wrong with fried dough and powdered sugar IMHO.

The DH, who is not from LA, does not get my love of fried and sweet. His loss.

 

[JennaDeeDooDah]

I swear by rope drop. But, for full disclosure, we are naturally a family of early risers. When at WDW, we rarely set an alarm and are still usually up around 6:00. Not too hard to make it for rope drop when you are up 3 hours early. I do like being at the parks when they open because of the shorter lines. For example, it is not uncommon for us to rope drop Magic Kingdom, see the welcome show, and then head to Frontierland where we ride Splash, Thunder, Splash, and Thunder again before heading to Adventureland for Pirates and Jungle Cruise. From there we go to Haunted Mansion and often also It's a Small World before lunch around 11:30 at Columbia Harbor House. With Fast Passes for Space Mountain and 7 Dwarfs Mine Train, and never any real wait for Carousel of Progress, Peoplemover, Tiki Room, Treehouse, Philharmagic, or Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor, we are able to get everything done that we are interested in with minimal waits for things like Little Mermaid, Barnstormer, and the teacups.

 

[scrappinginontario]

BTW my DH says I can plan our trip, as long as there's not a lot of waiting in line. To me, rope drop means waiting in line. Like, for an hour. So... since we'll be at EPCOT during IFOA, I imagine there's plenty to do between FP+ and the festival stuff. The other parks should be a bit lower in crowd levels, since we're not going on a weekend. Nope. No rope drop for us.

Personally I don't equate RD to arriving an hour before park opening - except for AK. Other than that, when we RD a park we arrive approx 30-45 mins before opening, go through bag check, security and enter the park. The amount of time I spend 'standing' waiting for the park to open isn't long and is probably about equal to what I would spend standing in line for just one ride should I arrive more than about 90 mins after a park opens.

 

[scrappinginontario]

Newsies has got me thinking. I may get up and rope drop MK without the DH. He can meet me there later in the morning, in time for our FP+. We've also got down time scheduled for that day, which includes evening EMH. We'll leave the park around 4:00 for tea at GF, then back to our hotel to chill until we go back for fireworks and EMH.

This is how we tour when my parents travel with us. They prefer to start their day at a slower pace so my DD and I are up and out early and they join us whenever they're ready to. Sometimes it's 10am and other times not until later in the afternoon. With the ease of getting in touch with one another electronically it makes being spontaneous and splitting up at times much easier than it was in the past.

 

[BeachPrincess]

I'm with you! Have you ever done rope drop? I'm curious. I've never done it.

No, we have never done rope drop.

 

[Lisa F]

you don't have to stand around in a crowd for an hour. You can show up right as they are opening up if you don't mind being at the end of the RD crowd.

I LOVE to RD as my child is an early riser... we RD more toward the beginning when we have high energy and excitement and shift our schedule to later nights and more sleep in days later in the trip.

But I do not RD the headliners. I use that first hour or two to knock out the less popular RD parts of the park and then use FPs for the headliners.

For example at MK you can pretty much get both frontierland and adventureland done at RD, just prioritize the mountains and jungle cruise and pirates before hitting things that don't typically have waits.

At Epcot my FAVORITE thing to do is PPO at garden grill and then right onto Soarin' - pretty much the best way to start the day.

Last year i did EMH at AK and had Dinoland to ourselves, I understand everest takes a while to build up a line so we'll finish that side of the park before fastpassing FoP and the safari.

got nothing on HS, we are doing EMM for that one to do TSL with minimal drama, I am NOT getting into that RD crowd but then of course the rest of the park is nice and empty at that point.

RD the non-headliners and then FP the headliners has worked for me.

 

[OhDannyBoy]

We never sleep past 7 on theme park getaways anyways so we always rope drop. One of my favorite things in the world is that 5 minutes before the rope drops when the coffee is kicking into gear and the anticipation of the day is something epic!!

My wife and I are big kids at heart and get super excited to get the day going.

Plus, that first hour to hour and a half in the park before the giant crowds arrive is the best. Nothing beats walking onto a ride then onto another without having to fight a crowd or wait in a line forever.

What we do not do though is RD super popular rides. I've done it a few times and have no desire to do it again. No, we RD and head the opposite direction of the crowd. I swear Adventureland at 9AM is like your own personal park!!

 

[Queen of the WDW Scene]

I RD every park.
That golden hour or even two is great.
We never used to when I was growing up because my parents were always so indecisive about what to do each day.
Once I started I couldn't stop.
Heck my parents who are now in their 70's get up and out to do RD even when they are not there with the rest of us.
They understand the value now.
BTW I'm a night owl at home usually going to bed around 1:30am and falling alseep around 2am.
I usually sleep in at home.
At Disney I know I need to be the opposite.
I'm up at 6am and at night I'm in bed by 11:30pm and sleeping by midnight.
I think I'm probably less tired/cranky than I used to be growing up because while we didn't get to the parks at RD we had still been up and we stayed until close and then would shop for an hour after that and SOMETIMES we'd still need to eat dinner after that when staying offsite and trying to save money with the family of 5.

 

[Lmans77]

Personally I don't equate RD to arriving an hour before park opening - except for AK. Other than that, when we RD a park we arrive approx 30-45 mins before opening, go through bag check, security and enter the park. The amount of time I spend 'standing' waiting for the park to open isn't long and is probably about equal to what I would spend standing in line for just one ride should I arrive more than about 90 mins after a park opens.

Exactly this. Getting there 30 minutes early and waiting for the park to open saves hundreds of minutes of standing in line IMO. And this is coming from someone who is NOT a morning person. I love sleep and sleeping in. on weekends at home, we often wake up late and lounge around until noon. BUT for Disney, I sacrifice and its excruciating, but SO worth it. If you are there before park opening, you can do so much that first hour. We've knocked out 4-5 attractions (maybe more) alone in the first hour.

The key for us is that we do not rely on Disney transportation. Whether staying onsite or off, we drive to our park. 10-15 minutes there, and another 15 minutes from car to TTC to MK, and you're at the entrance. So really it's only leaving about 75 minutes before parking opening (to allow plenty of time). So leave promptly at 7:45 for a 9am opening. If it were going to be a super busy day, I'd leave at 7:30. But the key is to be prompt and leave ON time. But if you can get ready quickly like we do, we can get up at 7:00-7:15 which isn't horrible. Brew some coffee in the room, everyone showers the night before, throw on clothes that are laid out, grab a breakfast bar and go. For even more efficiency, go bagless! I'm a a recent bagless convert.

edited to add: we do not RD every park everyday. We rope drop usually every other and save it for parks where we need to get a lot done (we have APs so don't need to do everything everytime), and where there are rides we couldn't FP that we need to ride (FOP, 7DMT and slinky dog)

 

[Jennasis]

Its just DH and I. No kids. We rope drop every park every day so we can enjoy the lighter crowds and lower wait times. Then we head out ofnthe park around 11-12 for lunch at the resort and to swim or nap. We head back around 4pm and stay till close.

Every day. Ot workz for us.

 

[Klayfish]

We used to rope drop, but since the introduction of FP+, we never do it anymore (except water parks). To us, it's a waste of time. We can get pretty much any ride we want at pretty much any time using FP+ and refresh, so to us it makes no sense to be standing outside of a gate for 30-60 minutes at the crack of dawn. It doesn't really accomplish anything...except making us tired. We sleep until 7 or 8am, take our time getting ready, have breakfast and then head out. We'll usually arrive around 9:30-10:00 give or take. We have our FP+ lined up and we're ready to rock and roll.

Along those same lines we almost never do a planned mid-day break, it just doesn't make a ton of sense. We either have a planned AM in the parks or a planned PM. If it's a planned AM, we'll get there when we're ready and stay until our hearts are content. When we leave, we have no plans to return. If we decide after being in the rental for a while that we want to go back, we do...but it's on the fly.

 

[Magpie]

Given that we typically wake up at around 7am (sometimes earlier), regardless of whether we're on vacation or not, "rope drop" isn't a big deal for us. My husband says he'd like to be able to sleep in, but he just can't seem to manage it.

We're also not fans of big, heavy breakfasts, so we usually just have a cereal bar and some tea/coffee in our room, and make our main meal brunch or lunch later in the day.

So, typically, we roll out of bed, have a leisurely shower, eat, watch a bit of TV, and even with all that we still find ourselves at the park entrance somewhere between half an hour to 20 minutes before opening. We don't rush, it just works out that way.

And the lower morning crowds really are nice!

We're also big fans of afternoon naps.

 

[Good&Plenty]

Love rope drop - the amount we did in the first hour at each park was remarkable. Similar to a few other posters, we didn't RD the headliners. Our first FP was usually booked for 10AM, and we spent the first 1.5 hours in the parks either riding the other rides or meeting characters.

-At MK, we turned left and hit up the Mountains and Haunted Mansion (which we did back to back with no waiting), and then headed to our first FP.
-At Epcot, my son/husband RDed Soarin' while my daughter and I met Mickey, etc., and did all of the rides around Soarin' (inside and outside). My husband came out of Soarin' and said that our 5 yo would love it, so he took her on it, with only a 10 minute standby wait.
-At HS, we RDed Jedi Training and picked the first morning time (9AM?).
-At AK, we RDed Navi' (rode 3-4 times w/no lines) and the following day, we RDed Everest (rode 3-4 times w/no lines).

We do drive our own car to the parks and arrived at each park entrance 1 hour before the park opened. My kids are early risers at home and on the road and that helps - as a previous poster mentioned, leaving your hotel room at 7:30AM for a 9:00AM park opening is nothing when your kids have been up since 5:30 to 6:00AM. We are there to ride rides and of that, as many as possible. That said, we never closed the parks down and left every day at between 4:30 and 5PM (pool time and their early bedtime). We'd do it again in heartbeat (or at least until their sleep schedules change).

 

[Nancyg56]

WE do a combination of RD and later arrivals. I am not going to go home exhausted from vacation, so some days we relax in, and the others we take off early.

 

[gtpoohbear]

In the past, we have almost always done rope drop every day. I am another of the attitude that I don't vacation to "relax", I can do that at home! And it's no secret (at least not on these boards, lol!) that you can get a LOT done in that first hour or two. All that said... we probably will not be rope-dropping a single day on our trip next month. After going over our plans about a million times, it just seems like it will work out better to get ourselves on a late-night, late-morning schedule from the beginning. The main purpose of our trip is to see the midnight fireworks on NYE, and as a family of NOT-night-owls, I think we stand a better chance of staying awake if we get our internal clocks adjusted a few days before. But, we will have to go into the trip knowing that our sleeping-in combined with insane crowds, means that this will not be a trip that is about "getting a lot done." And I think we are okay with that, this time. Next time, I'm sure we'll be back to 6am alarms. (Which is still an hour later than we get up at home, lol!)