We were at ropedrop at DCA last Thursday (March 24th), a non EMH day. The turnstile CMs let the crowd in early, about 25 minutes, and we headed up to the rope at Carthay Circle. While standing in the front of the crowd, the CMs told us that they would be doing ropedrop differently that day, that they would not be rope-walking us all the way to Cars Land. Instead, at normal park opening time, they would remove the rope in front of us and expect us to "walk" to our chosen destinations

.
My family decided to divide and conquer--Hubby (fastpass runner) stayed left in the crowd so that he could get fastpasses for RSR while the kids and I made our way to Cars Land, snapping pics along the way.
We all met up at the entrance to RSR within minutes, ready to ride RSR standby first, then later with our fastpasses.
Worked out great for us!