Frozen Ever After

[donnajz]

We're planning our first trip to Disney since the opening of Frozen Ever After. I'm not sure whether I want to use a Fast Pass so we're thinking of going as soon as they open, since they aren't open until 11am (I believe). My question is... is the Worlds roped off until 11am or can you get inside but everything is closed? If it is roped off, how early would you suggest we get in line in order to be toward the front of hte pack?

 

[Missyrose]

We're planning our first trip to Disney since the opening of Frozen Ever After. I'm not sure whether I want to use a Fast Pass so we're thinking of going as soon as they open, since they aren't open until 11am (I believe). My question is... is the Worlds roped off until 11am or can you get inside but everything is closed? If it is roped off, how early would you suggest we get in line in order to be toward the front of hte pack?

Frozen Ever After opens when the rest of the park does at 9, and they let guests in starting around 8:45. So if you want to be at the front of the pack, you'll want to get to the park gates by about 7:45 or 8 a.m.

 

[CAS239]

Yea Norway opens at 9 and like the previous poster said, I'd recommend getting to the park by 8am to be ahead of the crowds. Earlier you're there the better.

If they didn't open the ride until 11 then people would just start lining up at 9 like they did when the Ana and Elsa meet and greet was first there before it went to MK

 

[Klayfish]

I don't think you really need to be at the front of the pack. Think of it this way...

You arrive at 8am so that you can be at the "front of the pack". Wonderful. You wait 60 minutes standing around waiting for the park to open, then make a mad dash to FEA. So does a hoard of other people. Say you still get there quickly and your wait is less than 5 minutes. To sum it up, you got there extra early in the morning, had to make a mad dash to the ride, and when all is said and done you still "waited" a total of 65 minutes. Another alternative...

Show up at park opening, 9am. Therefore, you're not just standing there waiting for the park to open and doing nothing. Make haste to get to TT or Soarin'. Ride them standby. Your wait should be less than 20 minutes for either of them, and now you've completed a Tier 1 ride. Or, if you don't want to wait in any kind of lines at all, skip those tow and get on SE or something like that. No standby whatsoever, just walk right on. Then get to FEA by 9:45am. From personal experience and other people confirming the same, you will wait 30 minutes, maybe less. So in that scenario, you get to sleep in an extra hour (or have a more relaxed breakfast, whatever else...), maybe get on a ride or two, make a more casual stroll to FEA and have a wait time of only 30 minutes, vs 65 minutes trying to be at the front of the pack.

This is the primary reason we've given up doing RD, for the most part. Not that we would never do it again, but for most rides, it wouldn't be worth it. 7MDT may be the only exception I can think of. It's a madhouse within minutes of park opening, so that's either RD, very end of night or FP+.

 

[donnajz]

I like this idea!

 

[miTnosnhoJ]

I think that is a good plan. I have a trip in December, and FAE was not offered as a Fast Pass, although Soarin' was.

 

[Robo]

To sum it up, you got there extra early in the morning, had to make a mad dash to the ride, and when all is said and done you still "waited" a total of 65 minutes.

65 minutes when the park is not operating yet.
I much prefer to wait at the gates in the morning than to wait during the time the park is open and other attractions are operating, and I'm missing them.

That said, I'd not generally not get there 65 minutes early.
Maybe 35 minutes early.

The other overriding unknown is EXACTLY how to time your arrival at any given gate.
If you have a car, there is the possible backed-up traffic and the actual parking situation.
Then getting to the gates (walk or tram.)
If you take the Disney bus, there's the not knowing exactly when it will arrive, and if it might
go to another resort before the park. And, at Epcot, there's that long walk from the buses to the gates.
If you take the monorail to Epcot from MK resorts, there's the timing issues there, as well.

Lots to consider when planning an "exact" arrival time.

 

[Mome Rath]

We're planning our first trip to Disney since the opening of Frozen Ever After. I'm not sure whether I want to use a Fast Pass so we're thinking of going as soon as they open, since they aren't open until 11am (I believe). My question is... is the Worlds roped off until 11am or can you get inside but everything is closed? If it is roped off, how early would you suggest we get in line in order to be toward the front of hte pack?

As others have kind of alluded to, if you do rope drop for Frozen, it kind of puts you behind for another ride, whereas if you are near the front for TT, hit Soarin', and have a FP for Frozen... I don't think you can go wrong really. The only thing that could potentially happen is that everyone that day heads to Soarin... I can say from very recent experience, we rope dropped Soarin, rode it, and when we exited there was still no line if that helps.

 

[alliecat523]

My experience last month was FEA was down a few times during the day. When it opened around 7pm there was a mad dash and a super longer FP line (longer than Standby). The time said 2 hours. We decided to wait just for the heck of it. It took 45 minutes and I think that was due to allowing more FP people in per group of standby. Obviously your mileage may vary but I don't think it's as bad as they make it out to be.

 

[Eoywin]

We got to FEA a few minutes after 9 am (park opening) last week. We waited about 20 minutes and once we were done, the wait time was now 65 minutes. It got longer as the day went on.

Personally, I wouldn't wait more than 20 minutes to ride. Definitely rope drop if you can't get a fastpass

 

[Klayfish]

65 minutes when the park is not operating yet.
I much prefer to wait at the gates in the morning than to wait during the time the park is open and other attractions are operating, and I'm missing them.

That said, I'd not generally not get there 65 minutes early.
Maybe 35 minutes early.

The other overriding unknown is EXACTLY how to time your arrival at any given gate.
If you have a car, there is the possible backed-up traffic and the actual parking situation.
Then getting to the gates (walk or tram.)
If you take the Disney bus, there's the not knowing exactly when it will arrive, and if it might
go to another resort before the park. And, at Epcot, there's that long walk from the buses to the gates.
If you take the monorail to Epcot from MK resorts, there's the timing issues there, as well.

Lots to consider when planning an "exact" arrival time.

I agree completely. It's just a personal preference. We discovered we don't like just waiting at the gates. Our preferred plan of attack is like I mentioned...get there relatively close to opening. Wait in line for an e-ticket ride if we don't have a FP+ for it (7DMT being the exception), and go from there.

You're right about all the unknowns. We always stay off property, so we have a car. We have a generally good idea of how long it will take us, but there are always small variables we can't account for...such as in Epcot are we parked at the FAR end of a row, which is a long, long walk back to the main walkway. Is the tram waiting for us or is it better to just walk? Those are things we can't control, so we don't stress about it. We "ballpark" how long it will take and outside of a freak thing, we're usually within 5 to 10 minutes of being right.

 

[dmc6469]

Just got back last week and so glad that i had a FP+ for this ride; because I would never stand in line for hours for it. I was SO disappointed in the ride. I never plan on doing it again. So sad.

 

[eyeblaura]

We were there in September and fast passed it, we spent 1.5 days in Epcot and never rode it because it was down quite a bit. It was down when we had our first FP and we left the park for HDDR planning on returning after to try to ride and we ended up going back and swimming.

We went back another morning specifically to try to ride it at rope drop and waited about 30 min and it went down, we left the park for AK.

 

[BABYJOSIE98]

How about on EMM days? We are going to Epcot for Food and Wine Festival on Thursday Nov 10th and Epcot opens at 8 am for resort guests?
We plan to arrive around 7:30am and then at RD head straight to the Frozen ride in Norway first. I have a FP+ for Soarin at 9:30. So surely we will be done with Frozen and back to the Land by then....
No Frozen FP's left at 60 days out so I came up with this plan! I think it will work. We can be done with FW by 11am and then start our way around WS for Food and Wine! Can't wait!

 

[donnajz]

Just got back last week and so glad that i had a FP+ for this ride; because I would never stand in line for hours for it. I was SO disappointed in the ride. I never plan on doing it again. So sad.

I didn't even consider that it would be a disappointment. Any other thoughts on whether or not the wait or use of a FastPass is worth it?

 

[Klayfish]

That's a personal taste thing and I suppose a matter of expectations. You'll find people on both sides of the fence.

Personally, I loved it and was very sad I only got to ride it once. Can't wait to go back. Then again, at WDW I'm entertained by pretty much everything, so I'm easy to please. I just enjoy being there, so I have a good time on basically every single attraction.

 

[Jennasis]

I didn't even consider that it would be a disappointment. Any other thoughts on whether or not the wait or use of a FastPass is worth it?

Like the person you quoted, we too were disappointed. I have no plans of wasting my time or FP by riding it again (much like Stitch's Great Escape).