Just wrote a whole thread about our experience, but saw this, so I'll paste here too:
At the world right now. Went to Epcot this morning. Got to the international gateway ex trance at 8:20, they didn't start bag check until about 8:55. I'm not sure what time we actually made it into the park, probably about 9:00. We got over to Norway as fast as we could. If I weren't pregnant, maybe we could have made it a couple minutes faster. We were in line at 9:07 at which point we were told the wait would be two and a half hours. We had lunch reservations at 11:30, but decided to stay because there was no way the wait was really that long. Five minutes later, they were telling people the line was five hours. The line didn't move at all until about 9:30.
We actually had a really good time waiting. The weather was beautiful, we made friends with the other folks on the line, joked around. My sister-in-law actually gave birth back home while we were waiting and the folks in line celebrated with us. We also sat most of the time in the shade, which made it much easier. Only the last hour was a little tough. By the time we got to the front, we felt like we just finished some long race or something. The whole experience was really my favorite part of the day, lol.
The three hours really did fly by. And yeah, we were pretty late for lunch, but it turned out OK.
Just thought I'd post our story for anyone thinking about going there at rope drop. Get there fast, fast as your legs will take you.