Anti-Rope Drop plans - any tips?

[NYEmomma]

My family of 5 are late risers. CAN we get up to be at the parks for rope drop? Sure. After all, my oldest starts school at 7:30am. We're definitely capable of getting up and getting moving if we're absolutely forced to. We just don't want to. Especially not on our vacation. So I'm beginning to research a touring plan strategy that doesn't involve rope dropping the parks. We've got 3 days and will be doing HS, EPCOT and the MK. Ideally, we'll get up around 8:00 and get to the parks for 10:00 and close out each one.

Does anyone have any tips or suggestions for making this type of plan successful?

I am willing to take one for the team (while grumbling) and wake at 7 every morning to make our first G+ selection.

This will be our last trip to Disney likely until our kids are adults and go on their own. The Disney vibe and perks have diminished enough for us that we'd rather spend our vacation funds touring the rest of the country rather than returning to Disney. We've all been multiple times now and don't have the mindset of needing to see or do EVERYTHING anymore. We've got a list of priorities for each park and plan on just making this trip and nice bookend to the Disney part of our lives.

 

[The Foolish Mortal]

Plan for what? All you've stated is that you don't plan to arrive at the parks til 10. What are you wanting to do during your days there? Its hard to offer tips or suggestions without knowing what you hope to do

 

[NYEmomma]

Plan for what? All you've stated is that you don't plan to arrive at the parks til 10. What are you wanting to do during your days there? Its hard to offer tips or suggestions without knowing what you hope to do

Just strategy tips for touring and maximizing your day for those who aren't planning on taking advantage of rope dropping the rides. We'd still like to ride as many rides as possible while waiting in lines as little as possible (like the rest of the world, lol) but don't want to be crashing the gate as soon as it opens to beat the lines.

 

[808flyer]

I'm not affiliated with Touring Plans but I've always found the crowd calendar to be a good forecast and selected parks accordingly. My Family is also full of late risers; they'll get up early during the work/school week but turn into vampires on weekends and holidays lol. Maybe just psych them up with it's a bucket-list thing to do (rope-drop) at least one of the mornings on this last WDW trip?

 

[Boopuff]

We are an anti-rope drop crew as well. The only things we plan are dinner reservations. Oh and whatever park we want to stroll into at noon….

 

[T'Lynn]

We found that Genie + is perfect for those who don’t want to rope drop. I recommend thrill data to see roughly which rides you want to book when.

I would book something at 7 for about 11-1 and then at the next time I’d book another ride. I found that I could plan out my day by deciding what I wanted to ride in the next 2 hours or so and then determine which rides might be decent standby waits, which shows I want to see, which snacks I want to eat.

And then plan to stay till park close and take advantage of the lessened wait times!

 

[pens4821]

Having genie+ will be helpful. Maybe look to do shows in between LL or glance to find rides with lower waits. We found that in HS and MK most rides were an hour or more when we were there a couple weeks ago starting around 1030 ish.

 

[NYEmomma]

Do wait times really drop significantly in the later hours before close? We don't plan on doing any of the evening entertainment at the parks (if any of it is back - I haven't looked into it at all since it's not in our plans) so I was hoping to take advantage of shorter lines during those times as well.

I'm also still trying to figure out the ins, outs & nuances of G+ and develop a strategy for that.

 

[T'Lynn]

Do wait times really drop significantly in the later hours before close? We don't plan on doing any of the evening entertainment at the parks (if any of it is back - I haven't looked into it at all since it's not in our plans) so I was hoping to take advantage of shorter lines during those times as well.

I'm also still trying to figure out the ins, outs & nuances of G+ and develop a strategy for that.

They do drop but the posted waits on the app are lies!!

We got in line for FOP at about 10 minutes before AK closed. App said 60 minutes and we waited maybe 20.

Did the same at RnRC. We got in line about 45 minutes before HS closed. App said 60 minutes. We were off it by 9.

 

[clm10308]

Stack G+ for afternoons/evenings and use the middle of the day for less popular rides or shows

 

[lockets]

We found that Genie + is perfect for those who don’t want to rope drop. I recommend thrill data to see roughly which rides you want to book when.

I would book something at 7 for about 11-1 and then at the next time I’d book another ride. I found that I could plan out my day by deciding what I wanted to ride in the next 2 hours or so and then determine which rides might be decent standby waits, which shows I want to see, which snacks I want to eat.

And then plan to stay till park close and take advantage of the lessened wait times!

This.

It’s doable.

We don’t enter parks till 11 am or noon. Someone has to get up at 7 am to select the ILL and G+ ride (making sure it’s for a time after we enter the park) and someone has to stay on top of G+ by setting alarms to select next G+ and also stay on top of wait times for anything you’ll need to do standby.

We stay all day and don’t watch the fireworks. We get in two rides with extremely short wait times during that firework period.

With this plan we can get the ILL ride, plus 3-4 G+ rides, plus and 2-4 standby rides. This was in January and the parks were very busy.

Also we don’t do table service at parks unless we can get an ADR on/around park closing time. If we can’t get the ADR then we do table service late when we return to our hotel or a at different hotel, or just do quick service throughout the day and maybe a table service for lunch at a park that doesn’t have a ton of rides like AK or Epcot. We do table service on the non park days to not miss out.

 

[pookybean]

We like to sleep in, swim and relax and hit the parks around 4 and stay until closing. I dont have a specific touring plan, but weve always felt like we got everything done that we wanted too. I havent done this with geenie+ or without emk, so im not sure how this plan would work now.