How critical is early entry? Can rope drop be beneficial staying off property?

[leighmerz]

We have been to Disney years ago and I see lots of changes. We are going to Universal and decided to do a few Disney days while in Orlando. We are a family of 5 and will be in a regular hotel style room at Universal and like the idea of staying off property in a larger condo or something with more room. We are okay with getting to the parks early but with early entry, how beneficial is rope drop? We don't want to spend unnecessary money and be stuck in a smaller room at Caribbean Beach or Port Orleans but we would for sure rather go ahead and spend the extra $600 we save staying off property if it is going to make for a hard day in the parks. How early do you arrive now for rope drop? How early for early entry?

Thank you so much!

 

[ucf_knight]

We have been to Disney years ago and I see lots of changes. We are going to Universal and decided to do a few Disney days while in Orlando. We are a family of 5 and will be in a regular hotel style room at Universal and like the idea of staying off property in a larger condo or something with more room. We are okay with getting to the parks early but with early entry, how beneficial is rope drop? We don't want to spend unnecessary money and be stuck in a smaller room at Caribbean Beach or Port Orleans but we would for sure rather go ahead and spend the extra $600 we save staying off property if it is going to make for a hard day in the parks. How early do you arrive now for rope drop? How early for early entry?

Thank you so much!

When we stay on property we typically arrive 30-60 minutes prior to park open for early entry and sometimes they are already guests in and other times we wait.

When staying off property we will arrive 30-60 minutes prior to normal park open.

In my experience as a family of four comparing early entry to normal park open rope drop the difference in what you can get done is approx. 1-2 rides max. For instance, we did early entry the first week in February at HS and went straight to rise. By the time we finished the attraction the park was already open.

 

[kylenne]

We have been to Disney years ago and I see lots of changes. We are going to Universal and decided to do a few Disney days while in Orlando. We are a family of 5 and will be in a regular hotel style room at Universal and like the idea of staying off property in a larger condo or something with more room. We are okay with getting to the parks early but with early entry, how beneficial is rope drop? We don't want to spend unnecessary money and be stuck in a smaller room at Caribbean Beach or Port Orleans but we would for sure rather go ahead and spend the extra $600 we save staying off property if it is going to make for a hard day in the parks. How early do you arrive now for rope drop? How early for early entry?

Thank you so much!

I always stay on property and I always aim to arrive 60 minutes before the start of Early Entry so I can be at the front of the pack. I’m generally first one at the tapstiles/security. The benefit to doing it that way is that you’re not spending precious park time waiting in line, and the headstart you get from being at the front of the pack is much more significant than “1-2 rides” would suggest when you’re one of the first loads at an E-ticket that typically sees 60+ min waits during the day.

That said, at MK and AK, I don’t think missing EE is as big a deal. MK EE kinda sucks compared to the others because only 2 lands are open for it, Tomorrowland and Fantasyland, and there are far more guests showing up to it because of those 9am park openings. When MK does open at 8 (usually party season), it’s a lot better. Far fewer people want to get up earlier on vacation so 7:30 EE is fantastic. But either way, you’re fine without it. Just rope drop Adventureland because it’ll be empty since it’s not available for EE, and do Jungle Cruise (or, if you are going later this year, Tiana),

AK otoh, EE is fantastic but afternoon arrival strategies work nearly as well because nearly everyone rope drops that park and then dips in the afternoon, so crowds start dropping a lot after 2 or so. Just bear in mind a lot of attractions close before the park does, the animal trails are especially early closures.

HS and Epcot you will be seeing a very hard time without EE, I won’t sugarcoat it. HS especially because wait times skyrocket very quickly at that park and usually stay ugly all day. And saving Rise for the end of the night is much riskier than Flight of Passage because of its reliability issues. Without EE you will need to bite the bullet for G+ or just accept you are going to be in lines on lines all day. Epcot is similar due to there only being 3 heavy hitters (at least while Guardians is still on VQ). Remy and Frozen build fast and stay high most of the day.

 

[leighmerz]

I always stay on property and I always aim to arrive 60 minutes before the start of Early Entry so I can be at the front of the pack. I’m generally first one at the tapstiles/security. The benefit to doing it that way is that you’re not spending precious park time waiting in line, and the headstart you get from being at the front of the pack is much more significant than “1-2 rides” would suggest when you’re one of the first loads at an E-ticket that typically sees 60+ min waits during the day.

That said, at MK and AK, I don’t think missing EE is as big a deal. MK EE kinda sucks compared to the others because only 2 lands are open for it, Tomorrowland and Fantasyland, and there are far more guests showing up to it because of those 9am park openings. When MK does open at 8 (usually party season), it’s a lot better. Far fewer people want to get up earlier on vacation so 7:30 EE is fantastic. But either way, you’re fine without it. Just rope drop Adventureland because it’ll be empty since it’s not available for EE, and do Jungle Cruise (or, if you are going later this year, Tiana),

AK otoh, EE is fantastic but afternoon arrival strategies work nearly as well because nearly everyone rope drops that park and then dips in the afternoon, so crowds start dropping a lot after 2 or so. Just bear in mind a lot of attractions close before the park does, the animal trails are especially early closures.

HS and Epcot you will be seeing a very hard time without EE, I won’t sugarcoat it. HS especially because wait times skyrocket very quickly at that park and usually stay ugly all day. And saving Rise for the end of the night is much riskier than Flight of Passage because of its reliability issues. Without EE you will need to bite the bullet for G+ or just accept you are going to be in lines on lines all day. Epcot is similar due to there only being 3 heavy hitters (at least while Guardians is still on VQ). Remy and Frozen build fast and stay high most of the day.

Thank you for sharing your knowledge. We are not planning to do HS so that would leave us with Epcot being the issue. Can it be done with rope drop, Genie Plus and Individual LL for Guardians? Honestly, the money we would save at the condo we could G+ every day and Individual LL for the others. I read that lots of times you have a hard time getting Individual LL staying off property bc resort guest do it at 7am. I am concerned with the new G+ changes as well if we plan for it to be like it is now and they announce it for our dates. We are going April 15th week. Wish they would tell us a date!

 

[leighmerz]

When we stay on property we typically arrive 30-60 minutes prior to park open for early entry and sometimes they are already guests in and other times we wait.

When staying off property we will arrive 30-60 minutes prior to normal park open.

In my experience as a family of four comparing early entry to normal park open rope drop the difference in what you can get done is approx. 1-2 rides max. For instance, we did early entry the first week in February at HS and went straight to rise. By the time we finished the attraction the park was already open.

Thanks! Do you feel like it causes long waits though for the more popular rides? Or do you just use G+ and stack for afternoons?

 

[thanxfornoticin]

Thank you for sharing your knowledge. We are not planning to do HS so that would leave us with Epcot being the issue. Can it be done with rope drop, Genie Plus and Individual LL for Guardians? Honestly, the money we would save at the condo we could G+ every day and Individual LL for the others. I read that lots of times you have a hard time getting Individual LL staying off property bc resort guest do it at 7am. I am concerned with the new G+ changes as well if we plan for it to be like it is now and they announce it for our dates. We are going April 15th week. Wish they would tell us a date!

I expect with all the things you have to worry about leading up to your vacation, a drastic/dramatic change to G+ is probably not one of them! I might be wrong, but it's likely to be the same as it is now - or perhaps with minor tweaking.

 

[Smrtalec33]

I expect with all the things you have to worry about leading up to your vacation, a drastic/dramatic change to G+ is probably not one of them! I might be wrong, but it's likely to be the same as it is now - or perhaps with minor tweaking.

You of course might be 100% right, but there was an announcement that pre-selected Genie+ is coming at some point (i believe they specified 2024 but am not sure), and while there are no specifics yet, I have heard rumblings that we might hear something in March. So it is a good thing to have the possibility on your radar IMO. But of course, given the nature of pre-selecting rides, we would, of course have to be notified at least a little bit before they implemented it.

 

[leighmerz]

You of course might be 100% right, but there was an announcement that pre-selected Genie+ is coming at some point (i believe they specified 2024 but am not sure), and while there are no specifics yet, I have heard rumblings that we might hear something in March. So it is a good thing to have the possibility on your radar IMO. But of course, given the nature of pre-selecting rides, we would, of course have to be notified at least a little bit before they implemented it.

Exactly! I would be so frustrated if I opted for off property for a bigger room then miss out on that too. I would think it would be worth the little time in the room to just stay on property! I feel like I would be less back and forth if I knew a date! lol

 

[leighmerz]

I expect with all the things you have to worry about leading up to your vacation, a drastic/dramatic change to G+ is probably not one of them! I might be wrong, but it's likely to be the same as it is now - or perhaps with minor tweaking.

I have read several predictions but nothing for sure yet. Two I read are March and mid April! Just guesses though.

 

[chris1212]

Thank you for sharing your knowledge. We are not planning to do HS so that would leave us with Epcot being the issue. Can it be done with rope drop, Genie Plus and Individual LL for Guardians? Honestly, the money we would save at the condo we could G+ every day and Individual LL for the others. I read that lots of times you have a hard time getting Individual LL staying off property bc resort guest do it at 7am. I am concerned with the new G+ changes as well if we plan for it to be like it is now and they announce it for our dates. We are going April 15th week. Wish they would tell us a date!

We have always stayed off site, can't give up the price of a 2 bedroom condo vs a small hotel room which is more expensive. We were just there a couple weeks ago, we were there for park opening and tried to rope drop Frozen, but the line was insanely long already (due to EE). Luckily we had got a 9:30am LL for Remy, so went over there and then booked Frozen as our next LL. We rode Test Track single rider lane since LL's where gone by the time we had the chance to book again.

We had no problems getting the VQ for Guardians, we actually got BG 18 and were calling immediately after park opening. We also purchased the ILL for Guardians and had a selection of times still available at park opening.

Taking care of those rides, then it was easy to pick up LL's for Soarin, Living with the Land, Figment, Mission Space, Spaceship Earth. Rode Nemo standby with barely any wait.

 

[ucf_knight]

Thanks! Do you feel like it causes long waits though for the more popular rides? Or do you just use G+ and stack for afternoons?

We've only used G+ once as we have AP's and go pretty frequently. Given that we never really use G+ we typically always rope drop and leave the parks around lunch time before it gets too crazy. Mornings are much quiter in a general sense so we like rope dropping.

 

[leighmerz]

We've only used G+ once as we have AP's and go pretty frequently. Given that we never really use G+ we typically always rope drop and leave the parks around lunch time before it gets too crazy. Mornings are much quiter in a general sense so we like rope dropping.

Do you feel like you still get to do the majority of rides with rope drop and not early entry? Although I am sure you have a much better idea of what to do than I do! We have not been since it was Extra Magic Hours and we would rope drop the parks that did not have it usually. It was awesome!

 

[leighmerz]

We have always stayed off site, can't give up the price of a 2 bedroom condo vs a small hotel room which is more expensive. We were just there a couple weeks ago, we were there for park opening and tried to rope drop Frozen, but the line was insanely long already (due to EE). Luckily we had got a 9:30am LL for Remy, so went over there and then booked Frozen as our next LL. We rode Test Track single rider lane since LL's where gone by the time we had the chance to book again.

We had no problems getting the VQ for Guardians, we actually got BG 18 and were calling immediately after park opening. We also purchased the ILL for Guardians and had a selection of times still available at park opening.

Taking care of those rides, then it was easy to pick up LL's for Soarin, Living with the Land, Figment, Mission Space, Spaceship Earth. Rode Nemo standby with barely any wait.

This sounds like a good plan to me! I love the thought of the convenience of a condo as well. Thank you for sharing! How was the other parks?

 

[chris1212]

This sounds like a good plan to me! I love the thought of the convenience of a condo as well. Thank you for sharing! How was the other parks?

Magic kingdom was fine since there are so many rides. We usually head to Frontierland which I believe is not open for EE.

Hollywood Studios we went right to ToT and were on the ride within minutes.

Animal Kingdom we weren’t sure how long the wait for FoP would be so walked on to Navi, Dinosaur and EE.

 

[ucf_knight]

Do you feel like you still get to do the majority of rides with rope drop and not early entry? Although I am sure you have a much better idea of what to do than I do! We have not been since it was Extra Magic Hours and we would rope drop the parks that did not have it usually. It was awesome!

Yes I feel we still get to do what we want when doing regular rope drop and not early entry. For instance the last time we stayed off property we went to EPCOT on 12/23 and did test track, soarin, remy's, frozen, three caballeros, moana and guardians (not in that order) all by 1:30 pm or so (and without G+). You'll get plenty done if you rope drop