Animal Kingdom at 7am EMH rope drop

[GaryDis]

Is EMH rope drop at AK when you can get in at 7AM as insane (for FOP) as the normal days? Or does being there for early EMH mean the combination of resort guests only and the very early time mean that people walking at a normal pace have a chance at FOP without a 20 minute wait? Is showing up at 6:30 or earlier recommended?

We can live without it, as we have an early afternoon FP for FOP, but it would be nice. We’ll want to do NRJ without a FP regardless.

 

[Robo]

In general, the earlier the hour, the fewer the guests.
However, with FoP, the number of guests who arrive very, very early is astonishing!

OTOH, with a 7AM EMH, any of the other attractions that are open for EMH will be
at or near "walk-on" for much of the EMH.

 

[sharonabe]

Is EMH rope drop at AK when you can get in at 7AM as insane (for FOP) as the normal days? Or does being there for early EMH mean the combination of resort guests only and the very early time mean that people walking at a normal pace have a chance at FOP without a 20 minute wait? Is showing up at 6:30 or earlier recommended?

We can live without it, as we have an early afternoon FP for FOP, but it would be nice. We’ll want to do NRJ without a FP regardless.

If you're talking about the every day 7 a.m. EMH happening in Sept and Aug, there's no way to know how that will shake out. Resort guests have 3 choices EVERY day for early EMH and that will make a big difference in what happens at FoP.

 

[GaryDis]

If you're talking about the every day 7 a.m. EMH happening in Sept and Aug, there's no way to know how that will shake out. Resort guests have 3 choices EVERY day for early EMH and that will make a big difference in what happens at FoP.

No, I’m talking about the regular summer EMH that started in the last week or two, when they changed the regular opening hours of AK from 9 to 8, pushing EMH to 7. I’ll try to get up early tomorrow and monitor the wait times.

 

[Cinderella94]

This is over a year ago now, but at one point when AK had a 7 AM EMH, we got there around 6:20. We were some of the first people there (security CMs were still arriving to work), but by 7:00, the crowd behind us was huge. I would not get there any later than 6:30.

 

[GaryDis]

Here are my (remote) results for today, all taken from the WDW MDE and Touring Plans apps.

At 6:55, MDE was showing posted as 60 minutes. TP I think still had it marked closed, but also showing 60 minutes posted. The only other ride showing a posting time at this point was It’s Tough to be a Bug (if memory serves).

At around 7:05, it was still 60 minutes, but TPE started showing roughly 45 as the actual (predicted) wait.

At around 7:15, posting was up to 75 minutes.

At around 7:30, posting was up to 105 minutes. One of the reports on TP Lines that showed posted of 60 at 6:54 showed 39 minutes actual. This seems like a reliable number, but there’s no way to tell where this person was in the rope drop mob (though reasonably early but not front of the mob if s/he could report the 60 minutes at 6:54).

By 8:00, it was up to 120 minutes. There’s also a 79 minute actual on TP Lines from someone who joined the line at 8:02 (so got on board around 9:19).

(There’s an 11:26 actual reported of 10 minutes, but I’m going to assume that’s user error unless there are reports of the ride going down - which doesn’t seem likely.)

My conclusion: For 7AM EMH at AK, for FOP, you really do need to get there no later than 6:30, probably 6:15 for a reasonable wait.

I’m going to abandon home of getting an extra FOP, relying on our FPs instead. It looks like arrive at 7:00AM, after the bulk of the mob has been let through, is plenty safe for NRJ, since I’m seeing ~7:30 actual wait times of 5-10 minutes.

 

[Smrtalec33]

OTOH, with a 7AM EMH, any of the other attractions that are open for EMH will be
at or near "walk-on" for much of the EMH.

Just to corroborate that, we did expedition Everest three straight times as walk ons this morning. Could have done more, but three was my limit. Then dinosaur twice, both of which were walk ons except waiting for the little preshow movie.

 

[GaryDis]

Just to corroborate that, we did expedition Everest three straight times as walk ons this morning. Could have done more, but three was my limit. Then dinosaur twice, both of which were walk ons except waiting for the little preshow movie.

That's consistent with the reports I saw.

TP Lines is showing some relatively short actuals for EE from 4 different users around 1 PM. My guess for that is that it went down for a while, and had short lines when it came back up.

 

[ErinAlb]

If this helps you at all, I watched the MDE times this morning (5/27: 7 a.m. EMH at Animal Kingdom) and made notes as they changed. I watched from about 6:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m., and saw the app update as rides were added and as posted wait times changed. Below I attached a screengrab of my notes. This should be accurate to within a minute of when each posted wait time changed on MDE (I can't speak to the accuracy of the posted wait times themselves). "TC" means "temporarily closed."

You can get more "Observed Wait Times" from previous 7 a.m.-EMH days on Touring Plans — but the data they post begins a few minutes after 7 a.m. each day, which doesn't show Pandora rides right at EMH rope drop (around 6:40 a.m. today). I have looked through previous 7 a.m.-EMH days on Touring Plans just to get a general idea of the range of possibilities on those mornings. The 7:00-7:30 Avatar FOP wait times on MDE this morning appear relatively high, but within the range I've seen in Touring Plans' historical data. Based on that, I'd guess the pre-7 a.m. MDE times today are not too abnormal? From 7:30-8:30, the MDE times today are pretty average, if not kind of low, compared to those previously-observed times on TP.

(I can't say with certainty whether MDE times compare to whatever TP is using for "Observed Wait Times" on its charts. FWIW, when I've previously noted MDE posted times, they have ended up being pretty consistent with TP's "Observed Wait Times." TP also occasionally includes "Disney posted wait times" in their charts, and they are usually in line with their own Observed Wait Time points. On Tuesday morning, Touring Plans will post their records for today's lines, and then I'll be able to check how similar they are to what I recorded this morning from MDE.)

Obviously none of this is perfect and may end up being not at all predictive of the conditions we find on the mornings we visit. These 7 a.m. EMHs at AK don't have a ton of precedent from which to collect information, and I've found very little anecdata from visitors who previously did 7 a.m. EMHs at AK. Like I said, I'm just looking at whatever data is out there, so I can have SOME idea of a range of possibilities to anticipate and make semi-informed decisions.

I can't share TP data directly because it's password-protected for subscribers. But from other free, public sources I can tell you these are the 7 a.m. EMH days I'm aware of from the past year:

5/27/19
5/25/19
4/27/19
2/16/19
1/5/19
1/2/19
12/29/18
12/24/18
11/24/18
11/19/18
8/18/18
8/11/18

In general, the times appear to stay shorter for a bit longer on 7 a.m. EMH days than on 8 a.m. EMH days. But even on 7 a.m. EMH days, Na'Vi and FOP (and frequently Kilimanjaro Safari) have quickly gotten longer than I'd want to wait.