if everyone is zigging, should I zag...no rope drop

[mdonner1175]

July 8-13 trip coming up. Six day pass, 2 days at HS and MK, 1 day at AK and Epcot. Staying off-site with a car. 6 of us, 17,15,13,10 and my wife. I have been watching the Lines app and reading all of the here and back/rope drop posts.

I'm seeing this trend - you can rope drop one headliner and when you get out the queue, lines are long for other headliners. Second tier rides are pretty stable all day. Headliners become manageable after 4 pm.

Is rope drop done? All of the touring plans reflect realities that are not present anymore - FP+, rope drop at posted opening, large shows and parades, people sleeping in and staying late, normal dining patterns, magic hours.

So, do I zag - do we show up after the initial craze of rope drop? We can then go on all of the second tier rides, head back to the pool at lunchtime, and then close the park, trying to nail a headliner at a minute or so before close.

Only park we are 100% considering rope drop is HS if we get a boarding group at 7am.

 

[Makmak]

We have a “here now and just back” thread going and if you start near the end of the posts you’ll see advice from many people there now : Here’s the thread

 

[ML_LovesDisney]

July 8-13 trip coming up. Six day pass, 2 days at HS and MK, 1 day at AK and Epcot. Staying off-site with a car. 6 of us, 17,15,13,10 and my wife. I have been watching the Lines app and reading all of the here and back/rope drop posts.

I'm seeing this trend - you can rope drop one headliner and when you get out the queue, lines are long for other headliners. Second tier rides are pretty stable all day. Headliners become manageable after 4 pm.

Is rope drop done? All of the touring plans reflect realities that are not present anymore - FP+, rope drop at posted opening, large shows and parades, people sleeping in and staying late, normal dining patterns, magic hours.

So, do I zag - do we show up after the initial craze of rope drop? We can then go on all of the second tier rides, head back to the pool at lunchtime, and then close the park, trying to nail a headliner at a minute or so before close.

Only park we are 100% considering rope drop is HS if we get a boarding group at 7am.

I would say you're right. We did rope drop one day, and then the parks were emptying out by around 2pm over Memorial Day weekend. Getting there later was actually better; yes, the lines for the 1-2 headliners that are always long in each park were like 60-65 minutes, but we rode FOP in AK in a 40 minute line at 2pm

 

[MomOTwins]

Well, the zig while others zag phrase means to avoid what all the rest of the herd is doing. But everyone else is in the park midmorning doing second tier rides. So you are still zagging with the crowd at that point.

 

[punkin]

I'm concerned about this also. We are going for a very quick trip end of July with only 2 days in the parks the original plan was rope drop MK one day, AK the other then hop to Epcot for the afternoons. We are staying off site so that's an issue being there early, particularly at MK.

 

[ENJDisneyFan]

Other than waking up earlier there is no down side to rope drop. Even if you only get on one headliner before lines start to build, that’s better than nothing.

 

[mdonner1175]

Well, the zig while others zag phrase means to avoid what all the rest of the herd is doing. But everyone else is in the park midmorning doing second tier rides. So you are still zagging with the crowd at that point.

I guess what I'm seeing is that for an off-site rope drop, we would be behind most on-site rope drop arrivals, so why get up so early to hit one or two rides. We wouldn't get there too late, just walk in around normal opening and hit some rides and then leave. The zag is to close out the park hard, running around to hit as many as possible after 3pm.

 

[nkereina]

We were there in October when park hours were more limited than what summer hours apparently will be, so we still chose to rope drop to maximize our time. At DHS, we rope dropped MMRR one day and Slinky Dog a second day. At the time, the park was still unofficially opening earlier than the posted time so we were also able to sneak in a ride on Smuggler's Run before the line built. At AK, we went straight for FOP and had about a 30 minute wait even though the line looked massive.

We didn't find it to be efficient to take a mid-day break like we normally do because of the shortened park hours. Instead, we had TS lunches booked which doubled as our break. It also saved us from the busy lunch hour and limited options at QS places using mobile order. We finished each park for the day around 4pm, and then would head back to the pool to swim. We left our evenings open and flexible - one night we stayed in and ate at the resort, a few other times we went to Disney Springs and ate QS or booked a TS on the fly. We also found the pool wasn't quite as busy after 3-4pm as well. Worked out well for us.

 

[MomOTwins]

I guess what I'm seeing is that for an off-site rope drop, we would be behind most on-site rope drop arrivals, so why get up so early to hit one or two rides. We wouldn't get there too late, just walk in around normal opening and hit some rides and then leave. The zag is to close out the park hard, running around to hit as many as possible after 3pm.

The reason that people are recommending rope drop, midday break, park close is that the first 45 minutes and last 2-3 hours are the lowest wait times, so that is when you can get on the headliners without waiting over an hour. Park open through afternoon are high wait times. So while I agree that the end of the day is relatively a good time to go, you'll also be there during peak waits the bulk of the time you are there, and I think you may find you aren't able to get everything done that you want. Which is fine if you are not a "do everything" person, but you shouldn't expect the parks to be cleared out with walk-ons by 3pm either. You may be waiting 30 mins for Space Mountain instead of 60, but that is still 30 minutes, and with limited park hours, walking to get to rides, actual time ON the ride, needing to break for dinner etc., the time goes faster than you think.

Also remember, if fireworks return, the "evening advantage" will more or less disappear.

 

[fabfemmeboy]

When we went in December, the only real benefit to rope-dropping was to hit certain headliners. Not all of them, mostly MMRR at DHS and FOP at AK. Oh, or maybe FEA at EPCOT, but we didn't track times on that enough to know for sure. Splash was often the biggest line at MK but it rarely opened first thing IME. The problem was that everyone rope-dropping went right for those rides, so the wait times ballooned if you weren't the very first people in the park, which meant waiting in the throng stupid-early.

On the other hand, if you went to those rides about an hour before park close, the wait time was less than half what it was all day - certainly for MMRR anyway. So for us, we chose not to deal with the hoards of people showing up for the pre-45 entry into the park and instead opted to show up an hour or so later. But then, we also don't see any benefit in being the "first" ones on a particular ride if it means waiting an hour in front of the turnstiles and another 30 minutes once we're inside the park for the ride to start boarding guests. The way we see it, that means we still waited 90 minutes for the ride. So it's a YMMV kind of thing.

 

[wdw&sonny]

I always feel rope drop is best strategy. Although there is a large influx right at opening, the total number continues to rise through mid-day. If you don't mind skipping headliners, rope drop the tier 2 rides and you'll get a lot done early.

 

[mdonner1175]

When we went in December, the only real benefit to rope-dropping was to hit certain headliners. Not all of them, mostly MMRR at DHS and FOP at AK. Oh, or maybe FEA at EPCOT, but we didn't track times on that enough to know for sure. Splash was often the biggest line at MK but it rarely opened first thing IME. The problem was that everyone rope-dropping went right for those rides, so the wait times ballooned if you weren't the very first people in the park, which meant waiting in the throng stupid-early.

On the other hand, if you went to those rides about an hour before park close, the wait time was less than half what it was all day - certainly for MMRR anyway. So for us, we chose not to deal with the hoards of people showing up for the pre-45 entry into the park and instead opted to show up an hour or so later. But then, we also don't see any benefit in being the "first" ones on a particular ride if it means waiting an hour in front of the turnstiles and another 30 minutes once we're inside the park for the ride to start boarding guests. The way we see it, that means we still waited 90 minutes for the ride. So it's a YMMV kind of thing.

I forgot to mention the rides not opening also, great point- at HS they all seem to be opening but MK, AK (safari seems to be a half hour), and Epcot seem to have some open and others that lag

I totally agree with what you said about the 90 minute start to finish- rope drop+wait time is the longest line of the day from what I see for some rides

fireworks will change things too

 

[TheSouthernBelle]

July 8-13 trip coming up. Six day pass, 2 days at HS and MK, 1 day at AK and Epcot. Staying off-site with a car. 6 of us, 17,15,13,10 and my wife. I have been watching the Lines app and reading all of the here and back/rope drop posts.

I'm seeing this trend - you can rope drop one headliner and when you get out the queue, lines are long for other headliners. Second tier rides are pretty stable all day. Headliners become manageable after 4 pm.

Is rope drop done? All of the touring plans reflect realities that are not present anymore - FP+, rope drop at posted opening, large shows and parades, people sleeping in and staying late, normal dining patterns, magic hours.

So, do I zag - do we show up after the initial craze of rope drop? We can then go on all of the second tier rides, head back to the pool at lunchtime, and then close the park, trying to nail a headliner at a minute or so before close.

Only park we are 100% considering rope drop is HS if we get a boarding group at 7am.

Just know that whatever is going on today at WDW will likely be different by the time your trip comes in July. Epcot has just started to reinstate traditional rope drop with holding people back as opposed to opening early and letting guests in so I wonder if the other parks will follow.

Since you're visiting in mid summer, early to park when not as hot, leave midday and return later in the evening is always a good move. You cannot go wrong with that approach since you're likely to get at a min one headliner in. You can also switch up your approach and do later arrivals, stay until close and get in line at park close or close to it. We do both when we take longer trips since running early morning to late at night more than a few days can really get tiring. Closer to your trip, just double check park hours and plan from there. I've found that our trips post Covid are less stressful, Not having to mess with FP+ is really nice.

 

[Mango7100]

We went May 21-26 and did not rope drop a single park—first time in the last 8 trips over 4 years we have ever done it that way. We went to parks at 4ish (we do have APs so that probably makes a difference in that we were fine only being at a park for 4-5 hrs). We went to the pool first in the morning and got seats—then everyone else who went to the parks in AM were coming starting at 12 and couldn’t find anywhere to camp out.

We drive our car even though we were onsite. We did not do Smugglers Run and did not go to AK this trip, but we rode SDD 2 times one night with less than a 30 min wait, MMRR three times in one hr, 7D with a 23 minute wait, and a bunch of other rides with less than 15 minutes waits. It was the most relaxing trip we have had since we weren’t waking up at 6 am everyday and running out the door,

 

[parasail_of_congress]

I would just keep in mind that if you choose not to do rope drop, there's always a chance of any number of things occurring later in the day - rides being down, weather, etc. You can always be there for rope drop and skip a later opportunity to ride a ride, but you can't do that in reverse order.

 

[jimmymc]

I think rope dropping is still worth it for the medium crowd attractions:

MK: Jungle Cruise, Pirates, Buzz Lightyear
Ep: still go for Frozen, Soarin and Test Track are short in the evenings
Studios: Tower of Terror and Rockin Roller Coaster
AK: Everest, the Safari, then Dinosaur

You can hit a few of these before the crowds make their way over from the top tier rides.

 

[_19disnA]

Without FastPass, you really just have to see how busy a ride is and decide if you want to wait that long. I would avoid the mass of humanity at rope drop (there are probably heading to the most popular rides like most everyone else) and go to the park later in the day when things are slowing down. Also near closing time you see many people reporting shorter lines as others have already been there all day and now are exiting. Zig-zagging all over the park to get to your next FastPass never made any sense to us. When it was available, we would try to do FastPass for rides that are in the same general area. Walking to the other end of the park for one ride never seemed like a good plan to us.

If you walk by a ride that just reopened after being closed for maintenance you might get lucky and have a very short wait. Those are the things to look for when at the park.