ROPE DROP: YAY! OR NO WAY! ??

[mtiger]

This was taken Sat. 4/21/18 at 8:27am after riding Buzz 3x with the boys 5&2 in which we didn't see another guest. We were walking to fantasyland where we rode everything (sans SDMT) for another hour with no wait. We left at 11am after riding a total of 16 rides and had to really fight the crowds just to get back down main street. We maybe do one RD per trip, but it's usually MK at 8am where most are just not willing to leave their hotel at 6:30.

 

[ZoZo]

I think you can look at the concept of standing in line a couple different ways. If you arrive at the Parks 45 to 60 minutes before they open, you're waiting in line. Or, you can wait in really long lines later in the day. Either way, you'll be waiting in some lines. But for me, it's well worth it to get to the parks early, to take advantage of those first couple hours of the day with very short lines. I'm definitely not a morning person in my day-to-day life, but if it helps me maximize my time at Disney, I'm willing to get up early!

 

[jsmla]

I think you can look at the concept of standing in line a couple different ways. If you arrive at the Parks 45 to 60 minutes before they open, you're waiting in line. Or, you can wait in really long lines later in the day. Either way, you'll be waiting in some lines. But for me, it's well worth it to get to the parks early, to take advantage of those first couple hours of the day with very short lines. I'm definitely not a morning person in my day-to-day life, but if it helps me maximize my time at Disney, I'm willing to get up early!

The important thing for me with rope drop is doing my waiting while the park is closed. I'm not missing anything (other than sleep!) waiting PPO. If I arrive at the MK around 10:00 and hop in line for Mine Train the lines everywhere else are building while I wait.

 

[2Lunds]

For me, RD is part of my vacation experience! Hear me out I am NOT a morning person, at all. I've even made special arrangements for my work hours to he 9-5 instead of 8-4 like the rest of my colleagues. I'm also in central Canada where we get really cold weather, and the winters are dark. Being up and out super early, experiencing the super fresh morning air before the real Florida heat starts, that particular quality of light in the morning, saying good morning to the gardeners, being on a partly empty bus, chatting with CMs at the beginning of their hectic days - I love all of this! I can't Rd every day, because I love a late-night monorail bar crawl too , but our MK day for sure.

 

[OhDannyBoy]

After this weekend I will still RD MK forever.

Those first 2 hours in the park are wonderful!! We went to Adventureland and I swear there were maybe 100 other people in there. I love it!

 

[DanielNYC]

We’re also rope droppers. Our trips are short and generally involve going to one park per day. Our kids are super pumped when we’re at DW so we don’t get any complaints about getting up early. We also don’t do the midday break and tend to stay late to boot! We get our “rest” after we leave DW and spend time at my parents house in Miami. If we spent a week or more there we might be more inclined to arrive at the parks later.

 

[xmas16]

We are NOT doing rope drop on our trip in early February. That's non-negotiable.

We're an older couple, no kids or grandkids. Waking up before 7 a.m. on vacation? Then standing around in a crowd for another hour?
Naw. I mean, we're going to have some FP+'s, right? Why on earth would we want to deprive ourselves of sleep? Why deprive ourselves of quiet coffee time? What kind of holiday is that?

Still, we usually hear about how important and fun (yeah, right) rope drop is. So...

What about you? Let's hear some yays and nays on rope drop. When you do it, are you tired sooner than you'd like to be? Do you do rope drop every day you're there and love it, or only on certain days? Why? Have you done it once and declared "never again!?" Let's talk the reality of rope drop![/

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

There is no need to deprive yourself of sleep. You simply go to bed earlier and get up earlier. The simple fact remains, the most consistent time to go and hit a lot of rides in a less crowded condition and at the same time give yourself a consistent sleep schedule is rope drop. Late evenings sometimes works but with varying hours, you can't always have a late evening at the park you want and sometimes it flat out doesn't work. Yes we are tired as the day wears on. But we usually do a sit down dinner at night and then go hit one of the big evening shows having pretty much done everything we wanted by then anyway. Then it's early to bed. It's really not hard. The first day we usually just do a character meal and hit the sack after traveling all day. EZPZ Disney breezy. You don't really have to show up an hour before they open unless it's a very busy time. As for those that think it's not relaxing on the contrary, it's more relaxing. When the crowds really hit at 11, we don't have to worry too much. We've already completed much of our agenda and we can pretty much do what we want the rest of the day. Stroller parking lots and bottlenecks all in our rear view. Nice and relaxed while those that came in with the crowds are fighting them. You can still get in plenty of relax time at Disney even hitting rope drop every day. In fact, doing so gets us more relax time, not less.

But if you can't or won't, well you can still have a good time. But you'll have to adapt if it's busy. If everyone could do rope drop and were willing to, well rope drop wouldn't be better.

 

[Rach3975]

Our trips to the park are infrequent, every 2-3 years, and short enough that we go to EP, AK, and HS once each and MK twice. One of my kids can't handle late nights at all, so we RD every park every day. Sometimes we can get more rides done in that first 2 hours than in the entire rest of the day. If we were going to close the parks at night, or if we went more frequently and were okay with doing less, we'd probably choose to sleep in a bit longer.

There's a chance that DH and I will do our first adults only trip to Disney next fall. It will be short, just 2.5 park days. I'm not positive if we'll RD for that one. We'll be okay with doing less and relaxing more that trip, but we'll have to decide whether that means sleeping in or going early then returning to the room for a while. I suspect we'll decide on RD (maybe with a PPO breakfast!) for our MK day and sleeping in on our EP day, since we're more interested in doing WS and F&W without the kids.

 

[chelynnah]

It's personal choice. For us we choose to Rope Drop almost every day on our trip these days because we can get SO much done in a short period of time. In January we were at the MK on a relatively busy day and were able to ride all of the following by 10am:
- 7DMT
- Winnie the Pooh
- Space Mountain
- Buzz Lightyear
- Little Mermaid

That was our first day and from there we were hooked. On previous trips we would RD a couple of days but not all. This time my 8yo was waking me up saying she wanted to get to the parks because we could always sleep at home!

Your daughter is absolutely adorable

 

[disneygirlsng]

Rope Drop every day.
I'm at the parks from RD to close every single day I'm there.

 

[momof2n2]

(1) We are morning people
(2) I would never dream of sleeping in on vacation. If I wanted more sleep I would just do that at home where it was free
(3) We love rides and attractions. Our success on a visit is directly correlated to quantity. Fewer people = more rides.
(4) Any minute they park is open that I am not in it, though I’ve paid for admission, I am giving them money for something I didn’t use. We are there before it opens and we are some of the last to leave after closing.

For our party it’s all about the return on our investment.

We are classic commandos.

 

[Pookie9922]

Last week we had 9am openings in all parks, so that made RD fairly doable for us (family of 5, kids 6,8,10). We are by no means morning people and generally not punctual at all, but we got it done every day. Like someone said earlier, WDW is for doing stuff, not relaxing! This was also supposed to be a one and done trip for us (although first day, hubby starts talking about "next time", ha!) so we wanted to see and do as much as possible.
MK first day (Wed) we got off the bus at 8:20, we meandered down the street, took pictures, and got in line for BTMM about 8:35 and were about 5 groups back. I don't remember what the 7DMT crowd looked like exactly but I don't think it was bad.
Last day we did MK again (Mon) and it took longer to get through security but we were still only about 10 groups back from Tomorrowland rope. The 7DMT group was significant by then.
DHS (Tue) we got there at 8:15, they opened the park at 8:30 and immediately led us onto SDD. We had been 2nd in line for turnstiles, but my kids are slow getting through so quite a few people passed us but still had less than a 5 minute wait at SDD and finished that and AS2 by 8:50.
AK (Sun) got there at 8:20 and the park was already open and the line for FOP said 90 minutes by the time we made it over there. I don't think it really was, but we had a FP for it at 9 and we didn't know how long the lines meandered, so we ditched it for Na'vi and came back. By 9:15 the line said 120. We rode it again at park closing. Got in line at 7:30, wait said 90 minutes. We were off the ride by 8:05.
Epcot (Fri) got to the International Gateway at 8:35, they opened it at 8:55 and we were on Frozen by 9:05.
So really, the wait in the RD line wasn't worse than 20 minutes at any of the parks. Much better than waiting in a full line! I specifically didn't schedule any EMH because I knew that we be much more difficult for us to pull off. We also closed the park every night except the first one and only had one day where 2 of our people were a little cranky. lol

 

[need2travel]

DH & I (no kids) rope drop MK only once per trip. The other parks we just get fast passes around when we plan to get there. Or just hit the golf courses or the pool, those are great options too.

 

[Louie7080]

My favorite time at any park is night time. The ambiance is a little bit more important to me than all the rides but I also try to get there early so I am one of those people that go back to the hotel/rental for a nap. I often take a nap at home too since I can only sleep a few hours at a time so that works for me. Summer isn't only terrible because of the heat but because there isn't that many dark hours before they close since they shortened park hours.

 

[tentaguasu]

I accidentally figured out what works best for us - a hybrid strategy.

1. Get there close to open, but not early. In my experience, most of the value of rope dropping comes from being there at open - not necessarily being there an hour early and waiting in line. (Exceptions may apply when you're talking about a new ride opening.) Sure being there at 7:15 on an 8:00 am open day gives you the absolute best situation, but being there at 8:10 isn't bad at all. My non-scientific guess is you get 90% of the benefits of actual rope-dropping without waiting at all.

2. Being there early is what gives you freedom. I've sort of gone away from hard core touring plans simply because my touring plan has turned into this - know the hard to get things, hit them early, relax the rest of the day and go with the flow.

3. And here's the hybrid part I "lucked" into by accident. Go all out, open to close, 8:00am to midnight, no rest for the weary... and then take the entire next day off. Rinse and repeat. We had a cast member friend that gave us three day tickets, and we wanted to be there longer. We were thrilled (of course) but disappointed we couldn't stay more days. But by using this strategy it was amazing. We had totally boss Disney days, power-touring all day long. Then we could go to our room, crash, wake up late, roll out of bed for a late breakfast. Lounge around reading a book. Do some light resort hoping. Laugh and compare notes about the day before. Take a swim if that's your thing. Just chill. Do some light shopping. Get to be early, and then... Bam! Refreshed and ready ot power tour the next day. It's sort of like those recommendations to take some hours off during the afternoon, which I can never do because I can't afford a hotel on the monorail ... Just better, IMO.

I swear, by doing that we felt like we had a much better, happier, fuller, and more relaxed trip that we ever had before on 5 or 6 day tickets. Three great days with two rest days in between was better than 5 full days in the parks. That's what we plan to do in the future.

 

[captaindavidhook]

I used to do it but now have no desire for it. I will get to the parks when I do. I don't sleep past 730 most mornings anyways. The ideal of rushing around on vacation bothers me. I do it enough while im working I refuse to do it while on vacation.

 

[KimBean]

We are rooe droppers.

That said, I wouldn’t want to rope drop with people who wanted to sleep in. Also, I don’t work full time and my kids homeschool so even though we are usually pretty early risers I could choose any given day to sleep in if I want to. So for people who do not have this choice I can see getting up early as torture.

I like to rope drop so we can relax. It just makes for a very relaxing day. We Rope drop 3-4 rides with fewer crowds. Have FP planned for after that and get our qs lunch while waiting for next FP. After that we do whatever we want, shop, do shows attractions that never have long wait, go to a lounge and take a load off (nomad loung in ak is a great spot.) Then we usually leave the park and have a nice dinner at a resort and get in early. Another caveat we go for 10 park days at a time. The getting up early just works because less people are willing to get up early than stay up late. So better for me if you guys sleep in! Hehe.

 

[ChiCat]

I'm surprised how many rope droppers there are We definitely are not. If we have to be there early for a tour or something then we will be but my husband is not a morning person at all. My inlaws vacation with us and my MIL also likes to sleep in. I am a morning person but I have learned to go with the flow and we are usually in the parks for 8-9 hours per day, which seems reasonable to me. I never feel like I'm missing out and I want everyone to enjoy their vacation.

 

[ilovebassets]

Before kids and first trips with only one kid, we never rope dropped. Now with three kids, we are always up in time for rope drop anyway, so we pretty much always take advantage except for planned afternoon arrivals at Epcot. My husband (who is the late sleeper when given the chance) may be a convert though. Even he is amazed by how much we get done when we arrive at rope drop and always comments on it. As the kids get older, he may be the one pushing us out the door.