HS Rope Drop Question about Strategy

[shanes17]

Hi everyone! Our family of four will be visiting next week and we, unfortunately, did not get many FPs for the rides we hoped for such as Slinky Dog Dash and Millennium Falcon. Probably not a huge surprise with the demand. We do however get one for Toy Story Mania from 9-10, so now my question is about strategy as its been a few years since we've been to HS.

Can you enter the park and begin lining up for rides BEFORE the advertised 9am opening say for SDD or MF? And if we did this, would it be recommended we line up for SDD rather than MF because of the distance between rides? How difficult would it be to get from the MF to Toy Story Mania before our FP would expire at 10am? If its risky, maybe we are better off jumping in line for SDD and then assuming we should be good within that hour heading to TSM to use our FP.

I was also hoping that the opening of Rise of the Resistance would shorten the MF line earlier in the morning, as people would have two options making it more possible to ride MF within the first hour of the park opening and then making it over to TSM? but maybe I am being too optimistic.

Thoughts on either strategy? Also, how late can you jump in a line before the park closes and expect to be able to ride whatever line you are in? For example with HS closing at 9pm, if we are in line for say MF or ROTS before 9pm will they let us stay until we go through the line? Do they have cast members at the ends of the lines essentially shutting the line down at a specific time?

Thank you in advance for your input!

 

[Craig Larson]

You can't queue up at the ride, but they start letting guests into the park about and hour before opening. Everyone waits together, then Cast Members walk you to were you want to go just prior to opening. You will essentially get to the front of the ride entrance just about official park opening (unless they start the walk earlier).

For end of night, the line is open right until park close. If you get in line 1 minute before the park closes, you will ride.

Also, FYI there is no FP for Millennium Falcon, so you are in the same position as everyone else heading to Galaxies Edge. Obviously we won't know traffic pattern until ROTR officially opens tomorrow, but I would think it will draw most line droppers in the AM leaving MF with lower waits at line drop than we were seeing the last several months.

 

[sponica]

Your strategy probably depends more on what your overall goals are.

Do you want to do both SW rides? Is SDD a must do? How late can you stay?

Personally I'd be inclined to head straight to toy story land, get on slinky dog dash before that line gets too long then use your midway mania FP and try to move your tier 2s to an earlier time so you can get more tier 1s.

If you can stay late, the falcon wait times have been manageable in the evening hours. ROTR might have "unexpected" down time, so until we know what that looks like, I'm not sure what the best strategy for that will be.

 

[wareagle57]

I would suggest going to Slinky first for a couple reasons.

You won't have to get to the park as early since there will be way more people going to GE.

It takes FOREVER to be walked back to MFSR by CMs. Even if you are near the front of the pack, you are looking at a 30+ minute experience, and I prefer not to spend that much time on one ride at RD, same reason I don't like to RD Safari at AK. If you end up late and further back, you may even miss your TSMM FP, though this is doubtful. Those rides are actually really close to each other, so walking time won't be much. You will be on and off Slinky in no time at RD and would have time to ride AS2 before your TSMM FP if you wanted.

Slinky waits tend to be longer during the day that MFSR, and it is a much more boring wait. Until they start doing FP at MF, the line is constantly moving and it doesn't feel like that long, so it's a decent option in the middle of the day since there isn't much to do at studios anyway. You could RD Slinky and be out of TSL and on to Tower of Terror/RnR and be finished with all of those less than 2 hours after the park is open.

 

[shanes17]

I would suggest going to Slinky first for a couple reasons.

You won't have to get to the park as early since there will be way more people going to GE.

It takes FOREVER to be walked back to MFSR by CMs. Even if you are near the front of the pack, you are looking at a 30+ minute experience, and I prefer not to spend that much time on one ride at RD, same reason I don't like to RD Safari at AK. If you end up late and further back, you may even miss your TSMM FP, though this is doubtful. Those rides are actually really close to each other, so walking time won't be much. You will be on and off Slinky in no time at RD and would have time to ride AS2 before your TSMM FP if you wanted.

Slinky waits tend to be longer during the day that MFSR, and it is a much more boring wait. Until they start doing FP at MF, the line is constantly moving and it doesn't feel like that long, so it's a decent option in the middle of the day since there isn't much to do at studios anyway. You could RD Slinky and be out of TSL and on to Tower of Terror/RnR and be finished with all of those less than 2 hours after the park is open.

Thank you, this all makes sense to me so I think our strategy then will be to hit SDD and AS before our FP for TSMM. Then like you mentioned, hit some of the other T1 rides and maybe save SWGE stuff for at night. As long as we do 1 of the SW rides (probably MF) I will consider it a success. I am not expecting to ride both MF and ROTR, but we will try!

 

[shanes17]

Your strategy probably depends more on what your overall goals are.

Do you want to do both SW rides? Is SDD a must do? How late can you stay?

Personally I'd be inclined to head straight to toy story land, get on slinky dog dash before that line gets too long then use your midway mania FP and try to move your tier 2s to an earlier time so you can get more tier 1s.

If you can stay late, the falcon wait times have been manageable in the evening hours. ROTR might have "unexpected" down time, so until we know what that looks like, I'm not sure what the best strategy for that will be.

Yes, I think you are right with heading straight to Toy Story land and hopefully getting SDD and AS before our FP now for TSM. If we could do all that within the first hour/hour and a half of park opening I would feel pretty good about getting in MF at some point.

We are staying at the park from RD to close, have been conditioned this way for a while Some think its crazy but we dont get to go as often as we would like so when we do, we take full advantage of it.

As the other poster mentioned above we will likely hit TOT and maybe RRC mid day while using some of the other FPs up, then use the night time to hopefully wait out MF and if we are lucky enough, get in line for ROTR just before lines get closed off.

We do have a fast pass also for Indiana Jones show mid day and Star Tours at 10-11am, along with attending Fantasmic show which now I am not sure about? I want to make sure we have some time to be in line for MF before 9pm, if Fantasmic is a full on hour long show we might need to reconsider.

 

[Sjm9911]

Fwiw, slinky dog dash is awsome. I didn't like MF. Star tours i though was much better even at its age.

 

[wareagle57]

Thank you, this all makes sense to me so I think our strategy then will be to hit SDD and AS before our FP for TSMM. Then like you mentioned, hit some of the other T1 rides and maybe save SWGE stuff for at night. As long as we do 1 of the SW rides (probably MF) I will consider it a success. I am not expecting to ride both MF and ROTR, but we will try!

Try MF midday and do Rise right before closing. We’ll know more in the next week or 2 of how it will actually affect wait times, but right now that would be my best thought on strategy (assuming they allow people to queue for Rise until closing and they don’t pull a Hagrids.

 

[wareagle57]

Fwiw, slinky dog dash is awsome. I didn't like MF. Star tours i though was much better even at its age.

I think ST is more re-rideable. The plot to MF is just kind of boring and not enough SW in it. But the first time you do it is awesome. And I think the entire experience is way better than ST. Queing for ST (even with FP) and the ride vehicle itself are pretty miserable to me, but I do enjoy what’s on screen more.