MK Sunday 2/25 Rope Drop Experience

[GADisneyDad14]

People often ask about rope drop, planning vs. no planning, etc. Just wanted to share my totally unplanned rope drop experience yesterday at MK. No FPs, just standby. Providing time stamps from my photos so you can see the exact timing of everything.

Granted rope dropping certainly doesn’t suit everyone, but I’m a big fan and yesterday was a good example of how it can work well for certain touring styles.

Here was my morning:

• Note, this was a 9AM MK park opening morning
• 8:02AM - got off the monorail at the MK
• Princess Half was still going on, so watched runners, strolled around the Hub, etc (really cool to see the runners BTW, awesome vibe in the MK)
• 8:19AM - race finished, was #3 in line for Starbucks (winning!)
• 8:24AM - sat at those tables in front of the Plaza, enjoyed the sites/sounds of MK
• 8:41AM - took a stroll around the Hub to check out the crowds building at the ‘spokes’
• 8:50AM - positioned myself at the Liberty Square bridge (maybe 30-40 people there, not too bad)
• 8:55AM - Could see the side of the welcome show through the trees, but could pretty much only hear it from this vantage point
• 8:58AM - Line of CMs started walking us slowly across the Liberty Square bridge
• 9:00AM - We had a ‘face off’ with another line of CMs right around Country Bear Jamboree, who then led us (quite slowly) deeper into Frontierland
• 9:05AM - BTMR (walk on)
• 9:16AM - Splash (walk on)
• 9:34AM - Splash again (walk on)
• 9:54AM - Jungle Cruise (walk on)
• 10:08AM - Magic Carpets (walk on)
• 10:23AM - Haunted Mansion (posted at 15 minute wait, really was 5ish)
• 10:37AM - Carousel (walk on)
• 10:49AM - Little Mermaid (walk on)
• 11:06AM - People Mover (5 minute wait)
• 11:21AM - Watched a bit of the Move It/Shake It dance party in the Hub
• 11:43AM - Was on my way back to the resort

So 9 rides in around 2 hours, that is pretty good in my book and for our particular style.

Sometimes you do Rope Drop and you get around an hour and things fill in quickly. Yesterday it felt like the first 1.5 hours was a really quality window... and I stretched it out with some filler rides there towards the end. It was certainly starting to get more crowded as I left.

All-in-all, a fun - totally unplanned - morning at the MK!

One gripe - there were lots of closed drink carts/ice cream carts. Lines were pretty long at anything open around 11 (I was really wanting some water by that point!).

Anyway, thanks for reading along!

 

[pitpat]

sounds like a perfect morning.

 

[Sarahlynn34]

Nice! We were at MK 2/21 and 2/22 - Splash was down both mornings, Big Thunder, Space and 7DMT were all down at various points, and on Thursday morning all 4 were down at once! It was really disappointing. In fact over the course of those two days all the following had down time: Space, Splash, BTMRR, 7DMT, Haunted Mansion, Pirates, Peter Pan, Pooh, People Mover, Prince Charming Carousel - and maybe Buzz. I tried to keep track. It was crazy in that park those two days.
Glad they got it together by the weekend.

 

[LandonDunes]

People often ask about rope drop, planning vs. no planning, etc. Just wanted to share my totally unplanned rope drop experience yesterday at MK. No FPs, just standby. Providing time stamps from my photos so you can see the exact timing of everything.

Granted rope dropping certainly doesn’t suit everyone, but I’m a big fan and yesterday was a good example of how it can work well for certain touring styles.

Here was my morning:

• Note, this was a 9AM MK park opening morning
• 8:02AM - got off the monorail at the MK
• Princess Half was still going on, so watched runners, strolled around the Hub, etc (really cool to see the runners BTW, awesome vibe in the MK)
• 8:19AM - race finished, was #3 in line for Starbucks (winning!)
• 8:24AM - sat at those tables in front of the Plaza, enjoyed the sites/sounds of MK
• 8:41AM - took a stroll around the Hub to check out the crowds building at the ‘spokes’
• 8:50AM - positioned myself at the Liberty Square bridge (maybe 30-40 people there, not too bad)
• 8:55AM - Could see the side of the welcome show through the trees, but could pretty much only hear it from this vantage point
• 8:58AM - Line of CMs started walking us slowly across the Liberty Square bridge
• 9:00AM - We had a ‘face off’ with another line of CMs right around Country Bear Jamboree, who then led us (quite slowly) deeper into Frontierland
• 9:05AM - BTMR (walk on)
• 9:16AM - Splash (walk on)
• 9:34AM - Splash again (walk on)
• 9:54AM - Jungle Cruise (walk on)
• 10:08AM - Magic Carpets (walk on)
• 10:23AM - Haunted Mansion (posted at 15 minute wait, really was 5ish)
• 10:37AM - Carousel (walk on)
• 10:49AM - Little Mermaid (walk on)
• 11:06AM - People Mover (5 minute wait)
• 11:21AM - Watched a bit of the Move It/Shake It dance party in the Hub
• 11:43AM - Was on my way back to the resort

So 9 rides in around 2 hours, that is pretty good in my book and for our particular style.

Sometimes you do Rope Drop and you get around an hour and things fill in quickly. Yesterday it felt like the first 1.5 hours was a really quality window... and I stretched it out with some filler rides there towards the end. It was certainly starting to get more crowded as I left.

All-in-all, a fun - totally unplanned - morning at the MK!

One gripe - there were lots of closed drink carts/ice cream carts. Lines were pretty long at anything open around 11 (I was really wanting some water by that point!).

Anyway, thanks for reading along!

This is really helpful. Thank you. Trying to figure out if I want to do EMM but may not need to. May not even need to do the Club level FP either.

 

[GADisneyDad14]

I should probably add, yesterday’s rope drop didn’t seem all that busy to me. I’ve seen better and I’ve seen worse, from a crowd perspective - this seemed somewhere in the middle. Even I was sort of surprised I was still hitting walk-ons at 10AM+.

But on mornings like that, I am thankful for rides like 7DMT which attract a large percentage of the rope drop crowd, leaving the rest of the park relatively available for others!

 

[MDIME]

I am going to venture a (very uneducated) guess as to why it was not so busy yesterday. I have absolutely NO idea if any of the parks were busy or not, but here goes..
The week of 2/19-23 is February vacation week in much of the schools in the northeast. Most of those people were probably flying out on Sunday. Again, just a guess but probably just anecdotal evidence.

 

[magrudersmakes3]

I am going to venture a (very uneducated) guess as to why it was not so busy yesterday. I have absolutely NO idea if any of the parks were busy or not, but here goes..
The week of 2/19-23 is February vacation week in much of the schools in the northeast. Most of those people were probably flying out on Sunday. Again, just a guess but probably just anecdotal evidence.

Yesterday was the Princess 1/2 marathon and it draws larger crowds and was extremely crowded the year I ran it.

 

[ChristineOH]

I really love RD at MK, because there's a lot of attractions you can do with no wait. Plus, like you illustrated, you don't have to be there an hour early just standing around like you do if you RD FoP.

At the other parks, we can pretty much do what we want to without RD, using FP, additional FP, and lower waits in the evenings.

Thanks for the trip report!

 

[Eccle]

Nice! We were at MK 2/21 and 2/22 - Splash was down both mornings, Big Thunder, Space and 7DMT were all down at various points, and on Thursday morning all 4 were down at once! It was really disappointing. In fact over the course of those two days all the following had down time: Space, Splash, BTMRR, 7DMT, Haunted Mansion, Pirates, Peter Pan, Pooh, People Mover, Prince Charming Carousel - and maybe Buzz. I tried to keep track. It was crazy in that park those two days.
Glad they got it together by the weekend.

We were there those two days as well, it was mad and so many big closures left everywhere else packed, we waited 20 min for our Buzz FP. We just gave up and left early on the 21st

Sunday sounds like it was a quiet day. We were there for rope drop on the 14th and 21st, 21st was not a normal day as three big rides were closed at opening, but on the 14th by 10 most things had 30 min plus waits, even the more minor ones

 

[MDIME]

Yesterday was the Princess 1/2 marathon and it draws larger crowds and was extremely crowded the year I ran it.

Like I said, I have no idea of actual #s, just wondering if op had lower crowds in the morning due to NE vacationers leaving en mass on Sunday.

 

[Eccle]

Just had a look on Touring Plans, looks like all the parks had a relatively quiet day, MK was a 5 and Epcot only a 3

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

This reminds me of the rope drop we had on Dec 17 when we were trying to cram all of MK in 8 hours so my sister and BIL could see it.

We arrived for rope drop and booked it to Peter Pan, then did HM, then BTMR, then Splash, POTC no waits for anything as of this point and I believe we did all those in an hour. Then we started our fast passes with 7DMT, then did LM, Dumbo, TTA and fp for Space. Then lunch at 11.

 

[That Mom]

We were there Sunday also and can give another reason for low crowds at rope drop. Because of road closures due to the race, it took the Disney bus 1 hr and 20 minutes to get from POFQ to the MK! Traffic was insane. We boarded the bus at 8:20 and got through the gate at about 9:45-9:50.