An 8 am ressie with a 9am park opening is ideal for an empty main st. And also it will put you in the castle for rope drop right in fantasy lasnd, when we did it last aug the fairy godmother dropped the rope and spent time chatting with us.
It is my experience that we have been let into the parks a few minutes before they officially "open" the park (at DHS anyway), so basically you just need to get there before they start letting everyone in for rope drop. I would say at least 30min. (or more )before park opening?
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong since our early breakfast ADR's were an hour or more before the park opened so we were sometimes arriving with the CM's! Our last breakfast ADR for Chef Mickey's was so early that we rode the resort monorail with almost all CM's coming to work!
Like others have said, the best option is the 8 am ADR with a 9 am opening. If you eat at opening you will lose valuable time. This way you have eaten already, you have your pictures and you are ready to go at opening.
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