Unfortunately, sometimes ROTR goes down. There's no guarantee you'll be able to ride even if you secured a LL for it.
If you don't want to do LL your options are to head there when the rope drops or get in line before closing. I haven't done either of those, so I can't comment on them. I've done the virtual queue and LL.
If it opens with the park and doesn't go down when you're not in line. If you want to hedge your bets you can hop in line at park close, assuming it hasn't gone down and failed to reopen.
There is never a guarantee that you will ride any attraction as attractions can go down and very rarely, go down for an entire day. Going first thing in the morning during Early Theme Park Entry (ETME) gives you the best chance of riding if the ride opens but a lot of people have this same idea so the line could be lengthy.
We've had both success and disappointment waiting to ride it at park close. The one day the ride closed early due to system problems so that night we could not ride. A second night it was posted as a 70 min wait 10 mins before park closing. We hopped in line and were off 40 mins later.
Don’t forget about the end of the day either. We went about 30 min before parK close one day, walked on and then walked right back on to ride it again. Just 1 experience and YMMV, but I think at this point everyone goes early and that makes the late in the day lines shorter.
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