We just did the rope drop at AK a few weeks ago. Got there around 7:30, they open up the ticketing gates around 8:30 and let you in to Discovery Island, so you can go as far as the bridge next to Tiffins and wait there for "official" rope drop. We were in and out of FoP before 9:15. We also had the Touring Plans app, and were able to get on a second time later in the day when the wait times dropped to a little over an hour. We just kept an eye on it through the day and jumped in line when it was in the 70-minute range.