Evenings vs rope drop?

[Funtimeswithteenagers]

I’m not a regular. Only been to DL twice. We did go to DW in May. We figured out the last few hours were so quiet. We walked on so many rides or had low wait time.
Is the same for DL?? I have teens who would rather enter the park at 11 or 12 and close it down. We are coming for spring break and I know it’s going to be packed.

Also, is it still true you can’t book genie plus rides until you’re in the park??? At DW while my teens were sleeping I was able to stack afternoon fast passes. Why on earth would DL be different?? It was the best!!

 

[sophy1996]

Yes, the end of the night is relatively quiet when DL park is open until midnight. Not sure about DCA, since even during busy times it's not open as late as DL park.

Also yes, you can't start booking LL until you are scanned into the park at DLR. It's probably different because DLR has a higher percentage of local guests than WDW. If local guests could book from home, that would put a lot of pressure on the Genie+ system.

 

[SOCALMouseMommy]

Coming in that late will limit how many LL you can get with Genie+ especially if it’s crowded.

 

[DLRExpert]

Both
Take midday break.
Ride as many attractions as you can without LL in the morning.
Especially the attractions that do not offer LL.
Try to fish for MEP LLs in the morning.

Then stack LLs to use when you come back to the park in the evening

 

[DLgal]

That's the best way to do it, honestly. I actually hate the early morning rush. We usually arrive between 12 and 1 and stay late. It's so much better, IMO. The only annoying thing about doing this is the ride closures that happen in both parks around the nighttime shows (World of Color and Fireworks). It requires a bit of planning to not need to do those rides at those specific times.

We do the same thing at WDW because we travel there from CA and never really adjust to the time change.

 

[ComeToSocialize]

As others said, the ideal thing is to take a mid-day break (solves the LL issue too) but I know with teens that can be tricky. Unfortunately, G+ can't work until you swipe into the park because otherwise you'd have local Magic Key holders hanging home and stacking LLs for the evening all the time, at the expense of the visitors.

There is usually decent LL availability even at Noon. If you play to do Indy, Space Mtn, maybe Toy Story late at night, and are willing to do ILL for Rise and RSR, you can still get a lot of LLs even checking in at noon if you play it right.

If you're staying at the GCH or somewhere very close, you can consider walking down, entering the park, then immediately leaving. You can then go play the LL game from your hotel while the kids go back to sleep. Everyone will have to get out of bed to make the appearance, but they can even do it in their PJs! I've done that with my family when we wanted to do breakfast at Storytellers and then some pool time - had everyone enter first quickly to enable Maxpass then bail.

I will say that after fireworks/WoC, the parks get quite a bit less crowded. If you're willing to do those 10-midnight hours in DL, you can get a ton done. I always find that nighttime period less stressful than the opening period as you can feel the parks getting more empty, not more full.

 

[Chickinvic]

We never rope drop. I'm not a morning person, so why would I torture myself on vacation? I would try to get there at about 10AM or so though, if you are doing Genie+. Later in the afternoon it can be slim pickings. Get there late in the morning and stack them for later. You can always go back to the room for a break and then go later to close out the park if you'd like.

I will say, many rides become pretty much walk on later at night, but some remain very crowded. Depends what you want to do.

I actually prefer DL's way of doing things. In my opinion it is the most fair that you have to be in the parks to make fastpass (er: Lightning Lane lol) reservations. It should be like that, first come/first served IMO.

 

[DLgal]

Now that you can modify LL times, I imagine availability is better overall.

 

[SOCALMouseMommy]

Now that you can modify LL times, I imagine availability is better overall.

You know what would be really nice? If Disney set it up so if people don’t show for their LL selection it goes back in the pool. How many people grab LLs then end up not using them but don’t cancel it (or the forget about it or don’t even know they can cancel)?

 

[DLRExpert]

You know what would be really nice? If Disney set it up so if people don’t show for their LL selection it goes back in the pool. How many people grab LLs then end up not using them but don’t cancel it (or the forget about it or don’t even know they can cancel)?

Disney does release additional LLs into the pool.
It is kind of random though, so not sure what causes the release.

 

[mich311e]

We were just there Wednesday night (arrived at 8 pm), Thursday, and Friday. We have an 18-year-old, and we never made a rope drop. My husband and I would arrive at 9 am and my son would join us later. I purchased Genie+. We went at a leisurely pace and did everything we wanted. (We didn't do Rise this trip, but we've done it before and definitely could have. The 18 yo didn't want to wait for it.) We actually left the park early Friday so we could rest before a concert at House of Blues, then went back to Disneyland after. We got in line for RSR at 9 pm Wednesday and only waited 35 minutes. I'd go for nighttime with a teen but I'd try to get into the parks at least around 10 am, but then again I always take a midday break. Even my son took a long nap one of the days!

The ability to change your plans for LLs definitely helped a lot. I changed our return times so we had 3 attractions in a 65-minute period ready to go when we got back!

Oh one tip for DCA at night is Toy Story Midway Mania is open during World of Color. We've often got on with minimum wait and then rode it again right after. But everything else on the pier is closed during WOC. So make sure it's open before you walk all the way back.

 

[SOCALMouseMommy]

Disney does release additional LLs into the pool.
It is kind of random though, so not sure what causes the release.

That's interesting, I did not know that. Never happened for us yet though we don't use Genie often.

 

[DLgal]

Disney does release additional LLs into the pool.
It is kind of random though, so not sure what causes the release.

They get released when people cancel them.

 

[wendlle]

I was there in November, and honestly the ride lines were just as long at 11pm as they were in the middle of the day.
We found rope drop to be awesome, we did more rides in that first hour that we got done in the entire rest of the day and we stayed until past 11pm for 3 nights in a row. It was the same each time - packed all night long!

People are paying so much now to go to DL that they feel they need their moneys worth so stay from rope drop until closing - we did the same.

 

[Funtimeswithteenagers]

Thank you everyone. There is no way my teens want to go at rope drop. Honestly we did it a few times and I hated it too. We will take our chances with rolling in at 10 or 11 and staying all night I guess. Hopefully they are open until midnight. When we went to DW they closed by 9pm and every time we have been to DL they closed after fireworks too. I’d love to go when they close at midnight.

 

[DLgal]

Thank you everyone. There is no way my teens want to go at rope drop. Honestly we did it a few times and I hated it too. We will take our chances with rolling in at 10 or 11 and staying all night I guess. Hopefully they are open until midnight. When we went to DW they closed by 9pm and every time we have been to DL they closed after fireworks too. I’d love to go when they close at midnight.

I just took my teens (16 and 18) yesterday and we arrived at 10:30am to DCA then hopped over to DL. We stayed until 11pm. We bought Genie+ even though I never do that. I only did it because it was our last day before our passes get blocked out for the year and my husband wasn't with us so we were able to do a marathon day (he can't handle more than about 6 hours). We got really good use out of G+ even arriving that late. I originally got several later ride times amd then was able to modify them all to much earlier times, so remember to try that whenever the times seen late. I modified a 10:30pm Space Mountain to 4:05pm, for example, at 4:00. I had just made that reservation and we were able to ride it 5 minutes later rather than waiting 6+ hours. I found this to be the case most of the day. The more popular rides ran out of G+ by about 9pm, but we had already ridden them earlier.

After 10:15pm, everything in Fantasyland was a walk on. We did 5 Fantasyland rides between 10:15 and 10:45.

 

[mco65]

Always had good time with rope drop. But, i am an early riser so that was always easy for me.
Personally, i prefer Disney in the day light not the dark.. but that's just me!

 

[longboard55]

DW is competly different than DL, at Disneyworld most people get there early and our done after the fireworks. In Disneyland, there are a lot of Annual Pass people who will not shot up until afternoon. Rope drop in Disneyland is pretty empty and a great tiem to get on rides

 

[Blue32]

Personally, i prefer Disney in the day light not the dark.. but that's just me!

You might be the only person I have heard say that!

 

[Chickinvic]

I was there in November, and honestly the ride lines were just as long at 11pm as they were in the middle of the day.
We found rope drop to be awesome, we did more rides in that first hour that we got done in the entire rest of the day and we stayed until past 11pm for 3 nights in a row. It was the same each time - packed all night long!

People are paying so much now to go to DL that they feel they need their moneys worth so stay from rope drop until closing - we did the same.

We were there in mid-November and found the opposite. The ride lines decreased dramatically later at night, with the exception of just a few (like Space Mountain). But most become very reasonable as the night goes on.