Getting to HS in the morning

[Princess Madeleine]

I was planning on taking the Skyliner from Pop Century the morning of my HS day, but people on the Pop thread have reported Skyliner outages several mornings lately and have advised getting a ride share.
I also read somewhere toward the beginning of the reopening that Disney is holding cars from entering theme park parking lots until very close to park opening time. Is that true? I don't want to inconvenience a driver by having them sit in a queue with strangers in their car for who knows how long, but I also want to maximize our chances at getting RoR in the morning. What would you all recommend doing?

Please excuse me if this has already been hashed out. I tried looking through older posts but didn't see anything that helped me.

 

[IluvMGM]

Yes, people are saying around 9:15 they let you enter the parking lot.

 

[Gehrig1B]

I would take the Skyliner, just get there early enough because reports have long lines at Skyliner opening in the morning.

 

[Leigh L]

On Thursday DHS opened the toll booths at 9:12 am

 

[DL1WDW2]

I know that line looks really long in the morn from POP for SkyLiner .
They are waiting for the OK from HS and I assume the security at toll booths for parking lot have to wait for the OK. Once that Skyliner opens the boarding is very fast. When the parking lot booth opens it seems every car has to have a lengthy conversation with the attendant... and then you have to get directions to park in certain spot and then WALK to
temperature screening and security in the HOT sun... Because the trams are not rolling currently.
Unless the weather looks like rain or extreme wind or thunder nearby radius, I would go with the SkyLiner....

 

[Princess Madeleine]

Thanks everyone! The responses helped a ton

 

[runjulesrun]

Just to add, I would highly recommend getting in line for the Skyliner very early. We got in line at Pop at 8:50am (park opened at 10am) and barely made it. We swiped in to HS at 9:58am and only because we got lucky with the faster temp screening line. If we were to do it again, we would be in line for the Skyliner by 8:30am. We went before Caribbean Beach opened. I would guess that there are more people now at the hub trying to get to HS now compared to when we went.

 

[puffkin]

We were there 2 weeks ago and drove. I like having as much control over my destiny as possible. Got to the booths at 9:13. Line looks really long, but it really isn't. They started letting cars into parking lot right at 9:15. We were in and parked and walking in by 9:23 (and we had the unfortunate luck of starting a new row in the parking lot and being as far away as possible). Again, it seems like a lot of people but it moves fast and people were doing a good job with social distancing. We tried to keep ourselves calm and move slowly but deliberately with the heat and the temp checks (my DS8 runs "hot" in the mornings, so we were always worried we would get flagged). Next time I checked my watch was when we stopped to use a bathroom on Sunset Blvd at 9:40. We were not moving fast at all. After our bathroom break I found a shady out of the way spot by the entrance of Beauty and the Beast to wait for the boarding group drop while the family went off to do RnR. I must admit I was a nervous wreck, my boys put a lot of pressure on me to get a Boarding Group as we missed Galaxy's Edge by one week last year. All was good though and we got our BG, but my heart was pounding the entire queue of ToT until I calmed down

 

[katyringo]

So is there a definitive answer to which is better? Driving or skyliner?

 

[IluvMGM]

So is there a definitive answer to which is better? Driving or skyliner?

I don't know. It seems to be hit or miss. It seems like if you get to the skyliner early enough and all goes well, you can get there in plenty of time. But for every post on how it worked out well, there is a post where it was a disaster. Driving seems to work out as long as you don't arrive too early before they let cars into the parking lot.