SDD at Rope Drop

[singingpixie]

I caved and subscribed to TouringPlans, so now I'm playing around with custom plans. I'll be at DHS on the morning of 3/1- an overall 5 day, 6 at DHS (but no EMH/EMM/etc). I'm a solo woman in my mid-30s, so I move pretty quickly.

I'm an early riser and don't expect any problems being one of the first to the gate. I thought it would make sense to do SDD first, but even first thing, TP has the wait being 41 mins. Does it seem likely that I won't be done with the ride until 9:45? Or is that assuming I would be in the middle or back of the pack? I only plan to spend a couple hours in DHS before hopping to Epcot, so my FP approach will change depending on what I think I can accomplish before lines build.

 

[Krisshay13]

I did rope drop SDD 12/17 by myself/9:00 opening....I am 58 yr old female, not so fast but, can speed walk halfway decent..lol. The crowd was heavy & it was tricky not tripping over each other. So, several times, I allowed people just go get ahead of me to stay safe.
They did allow us in a little early...…I checked the time when I got off the ride and was finished by 9:10.

 

[gharter]

You should have no problem if you are there about 45-60 minutes before park opening. They usually let you in the gate by 8:30 and walk you to TSL by 8:40 on a 9 am opening. We were off SDD by 8:50.

 

[LaurenT]

TP is telling you what the SB sign will say at 9am. You’ll walk right on if you’re sitting at the tapstile when the park opens. They’re not going to post wait times for the first 50 people who get to the ride ... all those people know what they’re doing.

 

[Queen of the WDW Scene]

I've RD'd SDD twice now.
In early September I waited only as long as it took to walk through the line. That trip the park opened at 8am but we were walked back at 7:25am.
A couple weeks ago it was a bit longer but maybe like 8 minutes not 40ish. That time the park opened at 9am but we were walked back at about 8:50am.

 

[DisFam4]

We rope dropped SDD on Sat 12/22 along with what appeared to be 2000 of our closest friends, lol. I would recommend getting there 60+ mins before opening as they didn't let us start to tap in until 8:20 and then held us all at the Sunset Blvd. intersection until around 8:30 and then the slow walk to TSL. If you arrived there at 8:30 then you were at the back of the entire crowd, and while we were the 3rd set of cars to go on SDD the line was already wrapped around to the entrance to TSM and the wait was at least 30-45 mins for those at the end of the rope drop crowd.

We finished SDD and TSM and walked out of TSL by 9:05 and then did RR and got into the ToT queue (posted at 10 mins) at 9:25. It would have been 10 mins but 1/2 the elevators went down at that point and we waited ~25 mins. So if ToT didn't have any issues we would have ridden all 4 of those rides by 9:35 by being at the front of the RD line. Being at the back would have meant only SDD and then a 15 mins TSM queue. Saturday was also a very busy park/resort day....

 

[singingpixie]

Thanks, that's helpful. I'll plan to be parking by 7:45, which should put me in the front of the RD crowds, hopefully!