FOP - ROPE DROP - EMH DAY OR NON EMH DAY???

[Portsmom3]

I am planning a last minute trip with my kids while my husband is there for work. We do not have FP for FOP so am hoping to be there for Rope Drop. Question for those who have done it. AM I better off at Rope Drop on an EMH day or Non EMH Day. We have 4 days, two of which are EMH. Any input would be appreciated. I know the park is more crowded on an EMH day but I am only worried about Pandora. We can park hop elsewhere later in the AM.

 

[sbrost13]

We did both in July and got there an hour before park opening each time and it was a minimal wait (5-10 minutes) for the ride. The security and bag check was a disorganized disaster on the AM EMH day for some reason. We did bagless on the non-EMH day and it was awesome.

 

[CAS239]

Since you have park hoppers then absolutely do FoP during EMH if you can get up and make it to the park early enough to be there before emh start.

Emh will cut out more than 50% of guests that will be there later that are offsite. Arrive 30 min or so prior to emh opening and you should be on with minimal wait. Then I'd park hop just a little after that

 

[iujen94]

I agree with going on the EMH morning, but I'd suggest being there around 7, and definitely by 7:15. We arrived a few minutes after 7 and the line behind us grew exponentially over the next 15ish minutes.

 

[Babe the Blue Ox]

Rope drop can be the busiest time of the day for this attraction. I checked one day last week and the wait times were up to 210 within 10 minutes of park opening. The waits were down to 30 within 10 minutes of park closing on the same day.

 

[LisaRay]

Thinking about doing AK on EMH day also. Do those of you that have done it think that after we do FoP we will still have low waits at all the other attractions till at least 10am? My plan is rope drop FoP then hit the other rides and then Tusker house at 10:30 and saving my FP for an evening park. Has anyone tried something similar?

 

[Cinderella94]

I agree with going on the EMH morning, but I'd suggest being there around 7, and definitely by 7:15. We arrived a few minutes after 7 and the line behind us grew exponentially over the next 15ish minutes.

Yes, this. EMH would be a huge help but if you can't commit to getting there this early, then don't bother.

 

[Cinderella94]

Thinking about doing AK on EMH day also. Do those of you that have done it think that after we do FoP we will still have low waits at all the other attractions till at least 10am? My plan is rope drop FoP then hit the other rides and then Tusker house at 10:30 and saving my FP for an evening park. Has anyone tried something similar?

Absolutely. But, again, get there at 7:00 AM. We did this twice in July. One day we went to FOP, the other day we didn't. On both days, we had the park basically to ourselves until 9:30 - 10:00.

We did Dinosaur twice, Primeval Whirl twice, and Everest at least twice (could have been three times) and didn't run in to any lines anywhere.

 

[iujen94]

Thinking about doing AK on EMH day also. Do those of you that have done it think that after we do FoP we will still have low waits at all the other attractions till at least 10am? My plan is rope drop FoP then hit the other rides and then Tusker house at 10:30 and saving my FP for an evening park. Has anyone tried something similar?

I think it depends what rides you are interested in and how quickly you can get through Pandora. If you get to the park around 7, you will be among the first to ride FOP and probably off the ride well before 8:00. Then you can hit NRJ with a minimal wait. Head straight to the Safari from there (assuming that's on your list). I noticed that when we were there on an EMH morning, a BIG crowd was heading to Safari at the 9:00 regular rope drop time. My bet/guess is that the regular rope droppers assume Pandora will be too crowded and so head to Safari at 9:00. If you can get to Safari before 9:00 and then head around the park in a clockwise fashion, I think you'll be ahead of the 9:00 rope drop crowd (as well as the zillions of people who were behind you for 8:00 rope drop) and thus have minimal wait. YMMV, of course, and the time of year that you are going will make a huge difference. I think you'd probably also have to be ok riding Everest single rider (although my tolerance for waiting in line for anything is very small, so we'd almost always ride single rider anyway!)

 

[srwarden1928]

Other than the two Pandora rides, the waits at AK for us were very short in the morning. We had afternoon FP for FOP and rope dropped NRJ. Once we left Pandora, it seemed like we left the people behind. Dinoland, Asia, and Africa were all sparse for at least a couple of hours.

 

[Pdollar88]

I’m still wondering if I can swing rope dropping AK EMH and then making it to Epcot for rope drop at 9. Only doing FOP and maybe NRJ.

Probably not, but it’s in the back of my mind.

 

[iujen94]

I’m still wondering if I can swing rope dropping AK EMH and then making it to Epcot for rope drop at 9. Only doing FOP and maybe NRJ.

Probably not, but it’s in the back of my mind.

If you are at AK by 7, you can be done with FOP and NRJ by 8:15ish. The biggest hurdle will be transportation time between AK and Epcot. Also I believe Epcot typically opens up a little earlier than the posted 9:00?

 

[Pdollar88]

If you are at AK by 7, you can be done with FOP and NRJ by 8:15ish. The biggest hurdle will be transportation time between AK and Epcot. Also I believe Epcot typically opens up a little earlier than the posted 9:00?

I’ve noticed that Epcot does normally open a bit earlier.

I’ll have my car, but I’d rather not use it. So probably Uber. Still don’t know if I’d get there in time.

 

[Pdollar88]

I'll no longer have my car. But I'll have an additional half day - so I'm splitting my Epcot day a little. So I'm not in as much of a rush to get to Epcot after EMH - I just have to decide if I think it's wise. I'll have gone really hard the night before (EMH DP through MVMCP).