Am I the only one who would rather wait in line??

[katmatry]

Everyone is looking for a strategy to get on FOP at park opening. If the park opens at 8am and everyone is saying get there at least an hour before park opens aren't you essentially standing in line? I personally would much rather take my time getting to the park and then wait in the beautiful queue. Does not appeal to me at all to be fighting a crowd of people at park opening. To each his own, if you're that park open person have a great time. It's just not for me.

 

[mamamelody2]

I agree with you. I don't want to wait 3 hours, though. I mean, I check wait times periodically just for fun and the highest I have seen for FOP is 295. Ouch, I won't wait in that. I do think it's weird when people say they didn't wait in line for FOP when they got to the park 90 minutes early. I mean, I guess it's technically true, but they certainly still waited in line, just not so much in the actual queue.

 

[ucfknight]

If the park opens at 8am and everyone is saying get there at least an hour before park opens aren't you essentially standing in line?

Yes, you are essentially waiting in line, but you aren't missing out on ride time because of the rest of the park is closed. If you get there an hour before park opens and get on the ride 15 minutes after the park opens, you've essentially waited in a 75 minute line. But only 15 minutes of that wait would be time you could be riding other rides. You can get off FOP and go hit any other rides in the park with a short wait. Go walk on the Safari, or Expedition Everest, or anything else you'd like.

If you choose to sleep in and wait to get there until right around when the park opens and head to Flight of Passage, you might end up waiting 90 minutes for the ride. So what, you say? That's only 15 minutes more than if you had gotten there an hour earlier, you say? Well, that is 90 minutes of wait time when you could be riding other rides. That's 90 minutes of extra time that lines will be building elsewhere. All of those people who got there before you did will be off to clog up the other queues around the park. When you get off FOP you'll be faced with 60+ minute waits everywhere throughout the park. Now instead of being in front of the wave of people getting to the other rides you are smack dab in the middle of it.

 

[Farro]

I would rather wait one hour in line before the park opens than waste two hours in line using up park time.

 

[mom2rtk]

Everyone is looking for a strategy to get on FOP at park opening. If the park opens at 8am and everyone is saying get there at least an hour before park opens aren't you essentially standing in line? I personally would much rather take my time getting to the park and then wait in the beautiful queue. Does not appeal to me at all to be fighting a crowd of people at park opening. To each his own, if you're that park open person have a great time. It's just not for me.

The advantage is that you aren't using park time waiting in line. You're using time you couldn't otherwise be using to enjoy the park. This might not be as big a deal if you're using an AP and to the parks often. It's a really big deal if you're buying a 1 or 2 day ticket

 

[adisneyaunt]

All I know is.. 2 trips 7 days and not able to get FP for fop , but that sounds more typical than not.
What a disappointment ...
But is what it is...
we ll just keep trying.,,

 

[mousehockey37]

This is very much a "to each their own" thread.

There are some things I want FP's for, such as Test Track. There are some things I'll only do as standby. There are other rides that I could get a FP, or even have one, and not use the FP right away if the standby is short enough.

This kinda goes into those threads of: How long is too long to wait in the standby line?

A good average is about 30-60 minutes. At Disney, a 10 minute wait is normally considered a walk-on, and that's just because the queue is so long, lol.

 

[Disneylover99]

I don't want to wait in standby at any time of the day for this ride. Rope dropping FOP seems stressful too. It's fp or nothing for me.

 

[DisneyFansInNYC]

We periodically check park times for FOP and it has gotten over 3 hours at times. That is missing a lot of park time. When you wait before the park opens then you are not missing the park time.

 

[mamamelody2]

I have seen pics of the rope drop crowd these days and it is intimidating. When we go in November, it's just DH and I and I still don't want to deal with that. With kids it would for sure be a big "no way!"
I am hoping to get a FP for FOP and rope drop Navi River Journey.

 

[Cuchman]

I would rather wait one hour in line before the park opens than waste two hours in line using up park time.

I think this is key. I agree that the actual waiting is the same - maybe longer - by waiting for rope drop. But that isn't time that could be spent elsewhere in the park because, well, it isn't open.
I am hoping to kinda split the difference - going in Sept. and hoping I can come 1/2hr to 45 min early to wait 15 - 30 min in line.

 

[danielocha30]

another advantage, you can wait sitting down and maybe snacking, on the queue you can't sit it moves every few minutes, that hour "in line" before park opening at least me I'm not standing
Edited to add and for those driving they will also park very close to the entrance and that is great at the end of the day no long walking to the car

 

[MainMom]

I have seen pics of the rope drop crowd these days and it is intimidating. When we go in November, it's just DH and I and I still don't want to deal with that. With kids it would for sure be a big "no way!"
I am hoping to get a FP for FOP and rope drop Navi River Journey.

It looks bad, but it's really not. I've been doing RD with my kids since my oldest was 3 (16 now.) It's well worth a couple of minutes walking in a crowd for short lines.

 

[fractalpotato]

I mean, the fact that the queue gets up to multi-hours would seem to imply there are several thousand other people each day who would rather wait in line

I don't know when waiting in line became a dirty word (phrase?), sure FastPass is great and I use it where I can, but sometimes, you just gotta wait. If you really can't stand waiting, then ask yourself if it's important that you see it on this trip? I mean, it's obviously not going anywhere for a while.

Matt

 

[Kingdome8]

Just got back. Got to parks early and crushed fastpasses. Almost felt bad my kids rode flight of passage twice in an hour. Lol

On our first day we got to magic kingdom at one pm and I had 7 Fastpasses throughout day.
It was great. I will never wait in a line if I don't have too.

 

[AngiTN]

I've had this same argument with my DH about Pandora during opening week. He didn't get it at the time.
He learned the hard way.

I would rather wait one hour in line before the park opens than waste two hours in line using up park time.

Exactly.
It's not that you are waiting in line. It's what else you could be doing while you are in line.
If the park is closed you couldn't be doing anything else
We got there too late and instead of spending an hour outside the park gates waiting we spent twice as long in line waiting after the park opened.
Still it was worth it, we didn't mind in the end because we had nothing else on our agenda so we didn't sacrifice something to do it. Most people can't say that. I wish he'd listened to me and gotten up and out earlier so we'd gotten done with the ride earlier so we'd gotten done earlier in general. He learned

Bottom line, no I can't fathom why anyone would rather wait in line

 

[tobikaye]

Definitely, a "to each their own". I will wait in line if I find something that I think is worth it, but so far, there is very little at WDW that I would be willing to wait an hour, let alone more. There are usually quite a few attractions I skip, but that leaves me more time for other attractions that I still love with less waits.

When I was at WDW in early June, I did get a FP for NRJ and would have been very upset if I had even wasted 20 minutes in line as I was bored. It was visible stunning, but there is no attachment to any story. As I walked through Pandora, it was beautiful and something to see, but looking at the line for FOP, I have no interest in waiting for that. The line was so long it was down the path leading into Pandora. I figure I may try FOP some day, but only if I have a FP or catch the line down to less than an hour.

 

[Clifton Tesh]

Haven't been since Pandora opened, I plan on getting a fast pass for FOP. Other than that though, I don't care about how long anything else takes. There's a handful of rides I enjoy riding but the majority of the rides I find dull and boring. That's not a crack at Disney, I love it there, I'm just more of an attractions, shows, and people watcher kind of person.

I enjoy the random performers through out all the parks, watching the look of amazement on a child's face when there's a random Mickey dance party, seeing the looks on people's faces as they plummet down splash mountain, the beautiful art and architecture that goes into everything at the park... Those are the kind of things I love about Disney World.

I do thoroughly enjoy the rides that can be different everytime you go on them though... Like jungle cruise. If you get a great CM, the ride is wonderful. Lord, I've enjoyed the tram rides from the parking lot more than some of the actual rides... The CM's have the ability to make anything magical if they love their job enough.

I've personally never understood everyone getting so up tight about the ride lines... But everyone is different and that's what makes life wonderful.

 

[fractalpotato]

It's not that you are waiting in line. It's what else you could be doing while you are in line.
If the park is closed you couldn't be doing anything else

I'd like to introduce you to my good friend, the bed, I don't get to hang out with him enough, I'd like to do that while the park is closed

Joking aside, your points are very valid, but with the way wait times and FastPasses are now, I'm not certain the trade off of getting up earlier vs saving park time is as clear as it once was. I recently made the decision to wait in a 70 minute RnRC line (which ended up being only 35, but I was prepared for 70) because the other option was not riding it because we slept in that day. Worth it!

Matt

 

[agavegirl1]

Not planning a trip until October 2018. I purposely plan trips for a year or more after the opening of a new, major attraction. I hate lines and waiting outside the park an hour before opening. Now with FP+ and them being all taken by 60 days out for these new, popular attractions, there is even more reason for waiting. The next trip will be 2022 based on new offerings expected.

The most I will wait for a park to open is 25 minutes. The longest line I will tolerate is 25 minutes. I cannot just "stand". Pain ensues. I have to walk, the quicker the better due to sciatic pain and ankle pain.

There is no ride or experience worth it to me. Even doing trips about every four years, I have skipped attractions due to the wait times and lack of FP. I will RD Magic Kingdom and head straight to Frontierland but not Fantasyland. I would love to see the queue at Peter Pan but maybe someday there will be a randomly occurring low wait time that is not at rope drop.