Everything Early Theme Park Entry (ETPE) - Please Read Post 1

[scrappinginontario]

If you like to take rideshares, something else that has changed at DHS (I believe it happened after your last visit) is that rideshares now enter via the bus entrance so no longer need to wait for the parking lot to open. This might be another option for you to consider also.

That's definitely different than last time I was there...I remember being held last June at the AK toll plaza with my Lyft driver. That definitely changes the equation if rideshare is getting let in with buses now. We tend to prefer rideshares to buses for rope drop.

Please note this change has only been made at DHS, not any of the other parks.

 

[wisblue]

One minor suggested addition to Post 1.

At DHS, ETPE guests also have the option to go down Sunset Boulevard where they are held in two separate single/double file lines for entry to TOT and RNRC.

That area is completely first come, first served because there is no opportunity for anyone to elbow ahead or skirt the edges of the group and cut in as can be done at some other locations in the other parks, such as 7DMT, Space Mountain, and Pandora.

In our experience on two different trips, this option is selected by a fairly small percentage of the EE guests, making it relatively casual and uncrowded. From near the front of one of those lines it is easy to do TOT and RNRC in short order before offsite guests are allowed in.

One question I have is whether some of the other attractions at DHS allow guests on to the rides before they open TOT and RNRC. This would be hard for anyone to know for sure unless you are in one line and in contact with someone in one of the other lines.

We have started on Sunset Boulevard 3 times in two trips and twice they let us into TOT precisely at 8:30 and the other time it was about 8:20. From some of the reports here it sounds like some attractions have opened earlier than that, but maybe not on the days we were there.

 

[scrappinginontario]

One minor suggested addition to Post 1.

At DHS, ETPE guests also have the option to go down Sunset Boulevard where they are held in two separate single/double file lines for entry to TOT and RNRC.

That area is completely first come, first served because there is no opportunity for anyone to elbow ahead or skirt the edges of the group and cut in as can be done at some other locations in the other parks, such as 7DMT, Space Mountain, and Pandora.

In our experience on two different trips, this option is selected by a fairly small percentage of the EE guests, making it relatively casual and uncrowded. From near the front of one of those lines it is easy to do TOT and RNRC in short order before offsite guests are allowed in.

One question I have is whether some of the other attractions at DHS allow guests on to the rides before they open TOT and RNRC. This would be hard for anyone to know for sure unless you are in one line and in contact with someone in one of the other lines.

We have started on Sunset Boulevard 3 times in two trips and twice they let us into TOT precisely at 8:30 and the other time it was about 8:20. From some of the reports here it sounds like some attractions have opened earlier than that, but maybe not on the days we were there.

Updated to add Sunset Boulevard. Thanks for your help and suggestion!

 

[Davey Jones II]

Someone on another message board site was talking about his recent WDW trip, and wrote the following:

"As Disney hotel guests we went to the parks early only to find out that rides aren't actually open early, you just get to stand in line first until they open the park for everyone."

Is there any truth to that?

 

[bambialways4ever]

Someone on another message board site was talking about his recent WDW trip, and wrote the following:

"As Disney hotel guests we went to the parks early only to find out that rides aren't actually open early, you just get to stand in line first until they open the park for everyone."

Is there any truth to that?

No, and the 30 pages of comments on this post confirm this. Are you sure this person wasn't speaking about Disneyland in CA?

 

[Davey Jones II]

No, and the 30 pages of comments on this post confirm this. Are you sure this person wasn't speaking about Disneyland in CA?

No, he said Disney World.
Thanks for the response.

 

[mouschievous]

No, he said Disney World.
Thanks for the response.

I wonder if they didn't know that at magic kingdom only tomorrow land and fantasy land are open for early entry. That happened to us at Disneyland a few years ago, we went for early entry but didn't realize that Frontierland wasn't open so we thought early entry just meant being able to stand at the entrance to the land and wait for them to open the land.

 

[soniam]

One minor suggested addition to Post 1.

At DHS, ETPE guests also have the option to go down Sunset Boulevard where they are held in two separate single/double file lines for entry to TOT and RNRC.

That area is completely first come, first served because there is no opportunity for anyone to elbow ahead or skirt the edges of the group and cut in as can be done at some other locations in the other parks, such as 7DMT, Space Mountain, and Pandora.

In our experience on two different trips, this option is selected by a fairly small percentage of the EE guests, making it relatively casual and uncrowded. From near the front of one of those lines it is easy to do TOT and RNRC in short order before offsite guests are allowed in.

One question I have is whether some of the other attractions at DHS allow guests on to the rides before they open TOT and RNRC. This would be hard for anyone to know for sure unless you are in one line and in contact with someone in one of the other lines.

We have started on Sunset Boulevard 3 times in two trips and twice they let us into TOT precisely at 8:30 and the other time it was about 8:20. From some of the reports here it sounds like some attractions have opened earlier than that, but maybe not on the days we were there.

When we went at Thanksgiving, Rise was opening about 8am for an 8:30 early entry. I have read others seeing the same experience more recently. I can’t confirm it happens everyday.

 

[bambialways4ever]

No, he said Disney World.
Thanks for the response.

I'm just confirming because (as a regular Disneyland goer) I hear a lot of people calling Disney CA "magic kingdom" and "disney world" AND Disney is not helping themselves because the Disney CA website lends people to believe magic mornings are still happening, PLUS the park does open to allow people in an hour beforehand. It has caused some definite confusion

 

[scrappinginontario]

Someone on another message board site was talking about his recent WDW trip, and wrote the following:

"As Disney hotel guests we went to the parks early only to find out that rides aren't actually open early, you just get to stand in line first until they open the park for everyone."

Is there any truth to that?

No, there is no truth to this. I would recommend reading Post 1. It shows all of the rides that should be open for ETPE. None of these are guaranteed as things can happen but Disney attempts to have the attractions listed open for ETPE.

 

[OScheermom]

I think I know the answer but I figured I would ask anyway. We will be going to watch my daughter compete in HS cheer nationals in 2 weeks. She is going with her team and they purchased the tickets for all the girls. Her coach will be making park reservations for them. They will be allowed to come spend the day with us on Monday after the comp. Her coach sent us all of the kids tickets numbers. I would love to be able to make some ILL or Genie+ reservations for all of us so she could come ride but I think I need to have her ticket linked in my account correct? If I do that I feel like it will mess with the team park reservations. If anyone has any info on this I would greatly appreciate it!

 

[lanejudy]

A ticket can only be linked to 1 profile on 1 MDE account. If the coach already linked the tickets and made park reservations, you will not be able to link the tickets to your account; if you link them first, the coach will be unable to make the park reservations. You need to connect with the coach's account (and all the girls) as Friends and Family to Share Plans.

 

[brockash]

Can't seem to find the answer to this...if you're staying at a monorail resort; how early does the monorail start to Epcot and to MK? Realistically, are buses getting to the parks first? This was our experience in August, but that was before Early Entry started, so trying to get experiences since it started.

TIA!

 

[amystevekai&bump]

Hi, I’m trying to get my head around the best way to make use of early morning rope drops at DHS.

We are planning to pay for ILL at ROTR and MMRR. One of our party will at the same time try to book Genie + for SDD.
Assuming we manage all of these things, I was contemplating ETPE rope drop for MFSR. I then wanted to head to Toy story land from there, but I think I read on the boards that you can’t get to ROTR from Toy story land during ETPE. If that’s true, does that mean you can’t go the other way also?

I get that they want to channel the rush to ROTR down one route, I was just wondering if that meant they also block off the traffic going the other way?

My ideal plan is to get smugglers run and toy story mania done in ETPE and then head to TOT and RNRR for park opening. Is that possible? (We haven’t been to DHS since toy story land or the star wars stuff arrived so can’t picture the layout right now!)

 

[soniam]

Hi, I’m trying to get my head around the best way to make use of early morning rope drops at DHS.

We are planning to pay for ILL at ROTR and MMRR. One of our party will at the same time try to book Genie + for SDD.
Assuming we manage all of these things, I was contemplating ETPE rope drop for MFSR. I then wanted to head to Toy story land from there, but I think I read on the boards that you can’t get to ROTR from Toy story land during ETPE. If that’s true, does that mean you can’t go the other way also?

I get that they want to channel the rush to ROTR down one route, I was just wondering if that meant they also block off the traffic going the other way?

My ideal plan is to get smugglers run and toy story mania done in ETPE and then head to TOT and RNRR for park opening. Is that possible? (We haven’t been to DHS since toy story land or the star wars stuff arrived so can’t picture the layout right now!)

We did smugglers during EE during Thanksgiving. We waited in line with the Rise crowd heading to Galaxy's Edge. Once they let people line up for Rise, we headed over to Smugglers instead. The CMs did seem confused why we would not be doing Rise and wanted to go to Smugglers, but they didn't stop us when we told them. I don't know if there was a different route we should take, because there were no other signs for any other attractions in GE, except for Rise. Rise opened more than an hour before regular park opening; whereas, Smugglers didn't open until about an hour before. We possibly could have done both, since we were pretty close to the front of the line waiting to enter Galaxy's Edge. You can head to TSL after Smugglers during EE with no problem. That may be what we did one day. I think once things have opened for EE, they don't really block any traffic to anywhere. It's the lining up for stuff before attractions open for EE where they may direct people in certain ways.

 

[amystevekai&bump]

We did smugglers during EE during Thanksgiving. We waited in line with the Rise crowd heading to Galaxy's Edge. Once they let people line up for Rise, we headed over to Smugglers instead. The CMs did seem confused why we would not be doing Rise and wanted to go to Smugglers, but they didn't stop us when we told them. I don't know if there was a different route we should take, because there were no other signs for any other attractions in GE, except for Rise. Rise opened more than an hour before regular park opening; whereas, Smugglers didn't open until about an hour before. We possibly could have done both, since we were pretty close to the front of the line waiting to enter Galaxy's Edge. You can head to TSL after Smugglers during EE with no problem. That may be what we did one day. I think once things have opened for EE, they don't really block any traffic to anywhere. It's the lining up for stuff before attractions open for EE where they may direct people in certain ways.

Thank you ever so much, that’s really helpful

 

[wisblue]

We did smugglers during EE during Thanksgiving. We waited in line with the Rise crowd heading to Galaxy's Edge. Once they let people line up for Rise, we headed over to Smugglers instead. The CMs did seem confused why we would not be doing Rise and wanted to go to Smugglers, but they didn't stop us when we told them. I don't know if there was a different route we should take, because there were no other signs for any other attractions in GE, except for Rise. Rise opened more than an hour before regular park opening; whereas, Smugglers didn't open until about an hour before. We possibly could have done both, since we were pretty close to the front of the line waiting to enter Galaxy's Edge. You can head to TSL after Smugglers during EE with no problem. That may be what we did one day. I think once things have opened for EE, they don't really block any traffic to anywhere. It's the lining up for stuff before attractions open for EE where they may direct people in certain ways.

The question for me would be, if you want to start at MFSR, you could clearly just follow the directions to Toy Story Land instead. If you do that, where are you held? Is it backed up from the entrance to SDD, or do they hold people way back by the entrance to TSL.

Then the next step is whether the walkway from TSL to GE is blocked completely, or if they just hold you there and let you merge with others heading to MFSR from the GE entrance when that opens up?

 

[mouschievous]

The question for me would be, if you want to start at MFSR, you could clearly just follow the directions to Toy Story Land instead. If you do that, where are you held? Is it backed up from the entrance to SDD, or do they hold people way back by the entrance to TSL.

Then the next step is whether the walkway from TSL to GE is blocked completely, or if they just hold you there and let you merge with others heading to MFSR from the GE entrance when that opens up?

Ok, so this is partially conjecture because we stopped at ROTR, but when we were there on Jan 14, they did not hold us anywhere. We scanned into the park around 7:30 (9 am opening, 8:30 Early Entry) and went straight to ROTR. We stopped there because that's where we wanted to be, but there was nothing stopping us and we could have continued toward MFSR and Toy Story Land if we'd wanted to. Whether or not they'd have stopped us somewhere on that path I don't know.

When we got there, ROTR was down and they were encouraging people to go rope drop something else. We watched people walk away toward MFSR and Toy Story Land, and we also saw people come from that direction. I do not know how far anyone got, nor do I know if the people who came from that direction came from Toy Story Land or if they were ROTR people who wandered that way and then came back to ROTR.

 

[Rivergirl2005]

Two questions

1. If we want to to ride Peter Pan, splash and big thunder, can we ride Peter Pan first, swing by small world or haunted and then get to splash before the park opens for everyone?

2. We are staying at Coronado springs, for our Epcot day can we Uber to yacht club and get in line for remy rather than taking a bus to the front of the park.

 

[CarolynFH]

I can’t answer #1, but for #2 I’d recommend Uber to Swan/Dolphin. Sometimes the parking guards at the Disney Epcot resorts are difficult about letting vehicles, even rideshare, enter when they aren’t guests at the hotel and don’t have dining reservations there. Walking from Swan/Dolphin to the IG isn’t that far.