Rope Drop vs Closing the Park

[TheBigErn]

We have always been rope droppers and did so each day during our visit a few weeks ago. However, under the new Genie+ system, I'm starting to wonder if getting up very early each day is worth it. A week of early rising and spending a full day in the park does wear us out.

Is it possible to cover nearly all rides without rope drop and instead sleeping in and getting to the park mid day and stating until close? I would still get up and start booking at 7am, but the rest of the group could sleep in and we could get breakfast without rushing around. I'm interested in hearing how you late arrivals are able to manage the parks under the new system. Please note, I'm not a fan of park hopping.

 

[bakenatj]

Love to see people's thoughts on this. My plan is to see which one is better on our next trip. We will do MK and HS for two days and I am going to RD one day at each park and the other day stack LL and relax in the morning and go later in the day. I am a morning person so this will be very contrary to my normal day.

 

[erinch]

None of my family wants to get up. We are 8 days into a 10 day trip. The earliest we have arrived is 11 am, and more typically after noon. It works beautifully for stacking. Then we close the park down. With genie+ we haven’t really waited in any lines. Except yesterday we waited till 7:57 to enter FoP standby, which was posted at 80 minutes. It took 14. We walked out VEEEERY slowly to see pandora after dark.

 

[bakenatj]

None of my family wants to get up. We are 8 days into a 10 day trip. The earliest we have arrived is 11 am, and more typically after noon. It works beautifully for stacking. Then we close the park down. With genie+ we haven’t really waited in any lines. Except yesterday we waited till 7:57 to enter FoP standby, which was posted at 80 minutes. It took 14. We walked out VEEEERY slowly to see pandora after dark.

Sounds awesome, glad you are having a great trip!

 

[JoyfulHeart]

None of my family wants to get up. We are 8 days into a 10 day trip. The earliest we have arrived is 11 am, and more typically after noon. It works beautifully for stacking. Then we close the park down. With genie+ we haven’t really waited in any lines. Except yesterday we waited till 7:57 to enter FoP standby, which was posted at 80 minutes. It took 14. We walked out VEEEERY slowly to see pandora after dark.

I wonder if that is typical for FOP? We are going next week and have not seen FOP under an hour.

 

[snikki]

Yes, you can get a lot done when you close down a park. For us it's been on par with RD.

We have 9 day tickets and we do a mix of RD and nights. We RD each park once since we love the park vibes in the early morning. Those first few days we are so amped up and running off adrenaline that we just want to go, go, go. On those days we do midday breaks and return to the parks at night. The rest of the trip we take it easy in the morning, sleep in, hit the pool, take our time getting ready and arrive to the park around noon or later and close down the park. We love leaving almost empty parks. Nighttime in the parks has an amazing vibe too. Especially AK. DD requested two evenings at AK next trip.

 

[M&E]

Love to see people's thoughts on this. My plan is to see which one is better on our next trip. We will do MK and HS for two days and I am going to RD one day at each park and the other day stack LL and relax in the morning and go later in the day. I am a morning person so this will be very contrary to my normal day.

I can't wait to hear your experiences! I'm trying to decide which is the better option too. I'm also considering the get there early- hotel break- go back for closing option.

 

[MissDisney21]

We are rope dropping the first 2 park days and then closing the park the next 2 park days. With a rest day in between. Enjoy both morning and evening vibes so trying to get best of both. Rope dropping MK and HS. Closing Epcot and MK.

 

[DSLRuser]

my thoughts are if you are going to use disney+, you have to rope drop. The LL spots go very fast, and if you dont get your first one early in the morning, you won't get many at all. It is best to use rope drop low crowds, plus LL rides.

 

[sheilafri]

So many people attend the evening shows. I don’t like the newest round of evening shows so we start on the more popular rides about 15 minutes before the show start time. We get a lot accomplished in the last few hours. We especially like the extra evening hours if we qualify.

 

[disneyworld19]

Both! Rope drop then a midday break at the pool, back to the park to close it down is the best of both worlds

 

[Babe the Blue Ox]

I wonder if that is typical for FOP? We are going next week and have not seen FOP under an hour.

Do keep in mind that the posted wait times are intentionally exaggerated at night to discourage late riders.

We find rope drop way too crowded and stressful and would much rather wait until later when the lines are at their shortest.

For example, just a few weeks ago we hit Rise of the Resistance at 7:40 pm. The posted wait time was 85 minutes, with an actual wait of 15 minutes for our first ride and 5 minutes for the 2nd.

We were done by 8:45 and saw the posted wait had dropped to 40.

We could have done it a 3rd time but opted instead for another ride on Tower, where the posted wait was 80 with an actual wait of 10.

All done by just after 9 pm. That’s how you close a park.

 

[Skywalker3]

we did both this last trip, with (mostly) success both in the AM and PM. We've been rope droppers since 2000, and hard to break that habit. Last few years, have tried to mix it up some. While wait times for a lot of rides are inflated in the evening, like TSMM said 25 mins, and I walked straight onto the ride, some were not. my DD and her friend got in line for ToT like just a few mins before they closed the gates, they were the second to last group. Still took just over 60 mins to ride. They'd been delayed on MMRR earlier. Line moved slow, and unloading took a while, so they had to run to ToT. MMRR was also slow moving for me. at 8:17 PM, posted 30, and took 30 to get off ride. Made it with just minutes to spare to SD. I got in line 4 mins before closing, and off SD in about 20 mins. At Epcot, DD had a very long wait at Soarin for some reason, in the last hour, and Test Track had been down, and never came back up. so they didn't ride TT. The evening I did Soarin, I walked right up to the preshow. I had good luck getting in line for Rise both in the AM/PM,For the evening, got in line 8:35, park close at 9, Off ride just before 9:30. Park closed. Also did Remy at night, and while it still had a line, it moved, and glad to have opted for the evening.
Rope drop at Mk was NOT great. Girls didn't wait long at Space Mtn, Astro, and Buzz early on, but the Peter pan line was insane. I thought everyone would head to SDMT, but a lot of folks did PP. The girls did the extended evening hours, and got a lot done, but Splash and Thunder were both down that night. Had good rope drop experiences at AK and HS though, except at HS, whatever you don't choose at rope drop, will have crazy waits. HS was good to split. Like rope drop some, leave, go back for park close. Didn't rope drop Epcot, but got 2 days of Guardians VQ at 7AM, and 1 day at 1PM, so was still up early on the Epcot days!

 

[TheBigErn]

I'd like to hear experiences from those who start booking rides at 7am but don't go to the parks until later. Can you stack rides and still get there after noon?

 

[disneyworld19]

I'd like to hear experiences from those who start booking rides at 7am but don't go to the parks until later. Can you stack rides and still get there after noon?

Sure, you can start booking in the morning and then keep booking another one every two hours. We’ve done it in the past and it worked well, I just set a timer for every two hours to add a selection.

 

[MickeysHouse224]

This is what we did on our last trip in early May! We slept in as late as our son needed to, had a leisurely breakfast, went swimming, had lunch and usually got to a park by 2/3PM. We did everything we wanted to do plus some - it was a wonderful trip and the first time I ever came back from a Disney trip feeling relaxed!

I will note that this might not work as well during very busy times.

 

[_19disnA]

We never get up early to race to a park since we are on vacation and want to relax and enjoy ourselves. I would imagine Rope Drop involves this mass of humanity pushing/shoving/running to get to some favorite ride like the world is ending.....not my idea of a good time.........LOL. Late in the day is a better plan with or without Genie since many of the early goers have already come & gone and the parks tend to be less crowded later in the day.

 

[Lewisc]

This is a Disney FAN site. The correct answer is rope drop AND close the parks. Take a brief afternoon break, if absolutely necessary.

Ordinary people should do whatever works best for their famlies sleep habits. You should be able to get in two in demand attractions at rope drop. You should be able to get one, and maybe two, attractions near park close.

 

[StoweFoSho]

I have found that the 30 minute early entry spread across all 4 parks has made all rope-drops crowded and packed. MK is also only two lands open and I would almost bet that not going in those two and just waiting for adventureland/frontierland to open since Tomorrowland and fantasyland will be packed.

G+ stacking is probably our go-to strategy now along with shutting the parks down.

 

[emily nicole]

We enjoy leisurely mornings on vacation including sitting down and eating a good breakfast at our resort. We usually arrive to the parks between 10am-12 pm and then close down the park. I definitely do not feel we are missing out on any rides and we love the parks at night. Getting in line at park close is perfect for headliner attractions. For example, we got in line for Rise at 8:50PM and waited 13 minutes. We've done similar for Flight of Passage. And the parks are lovely at night.

We used to be hardcore rope drop --> afternoon break --> close the parks, but I'll never go back to that life! It just wasn't a relaxing vacation for us.