Leisurely early entry - what time to arrive?

[liamthompson]

Staying at AoA and planning on a day at Epcot and HS each. Will have stroller child and unimpressed-by-disney spouse in tow so hoping for an easy early early entry process rather than jostling for a good position in the rope drop line.

Epcot: Target is soarin' (so skipping GotG, frozen, and remy)

HS: Target is smugglers run or MMRR. Not sure which one is a better first choice. We will have to child swap smugglers run which will double the time. (Skipping slinky, TSM, ToT. Planning on buying LL for Rise. Still debating if I should buy LLMP for slinky to just make the day less stressful)

Also, I've been checking the crowd forecasts and see lower crowds for HS for Tuesday-Thursday. Does the day of the week make that significant of a difference? We are checking in Sunday 4/6 and leaving Friday 4/11. HS is the priority so I would like to go sooner but I'm wondering if it's "worth it" crowd-wise to wait later in the week.

 

[Mle8308]

Really no such thing as a leisurely early entry. Leave your resort at least an hour before, probably even longer because the Skyliner is the only method of transportation to EC and DHS from AoA. Lines are LONG in the morning to board and you'll have to transfer to another Skyliner line. You will be jostling with crowds, only way to avoid that is to arrive at 11am. Soarin' at Epcot won't be an issue, most people are running to GoG, Frozen, or Remy. I'd head to MMRR at DHS before Smugglers Run, because only one of you will be riding at a time, you can do the single rider line and even in the busy time of day, it's almost never more than a 5 minute wait. You may not get to be the pilot, but I prefer not to be anyway (too much pressure, especially if riding with strangers). And from what Touring Plans (highly recommend subscribing) says, the difference in crowd levels from say a 4 to a 5 may be an additional 5 minute wait for some attractions. So unless it's a big difference from one day to the next, I wouldn't worry about a 5 versus 6 day or so on. Epcot during festivals tends to be noticeably more crowded Fri - Sunday, but it's usually locals and they are not always riding attractions.

 

[ParrotBill]

I had the same reaction to "leisurely." Suggest you make SURE you get there just after early entry opening and get in during the window and to your first ride before general entry begins.

As for crowds... crowd calendars are only roughly right and I agree with what Mle8308 said. The only thing I see consistently is Sunday is a good day to be in MK in the morning.

 

[focusondisney]

Leisurely & early entry really don’t go together. Early entry is only a half hour, 30 minutes. If you don’t get to the park awhile before early entry actually begins, you could spend the whole 30 minutes getting thru security, tapping into the park & walking to your attraction. Tapping in is still a hassle sometimes. If someone in front of you has an issue, you could be standing in line while lines next to you are moving along. The CMs don’t really do anything to get others in the line around the people having problems. You just stand there waiting.

 

[pixiedust33]

Hey I get what you’re going for and it is possible with lower priority rides like the ones you mentioned. We did something very similar during our trip last March and leaving in a couple days to try it again. My husband also hates crowds, especially hectic pushing ones, and we had a 2.5 year old in tow.

I can’t speak to Skyliner lines because we were at the poly but if you’re willing to shell out some cash to make it even easier - order a Minnie van. We took a Minnie Van to HS at about 8:05am, arrived at 8:20am, flew right through security with no line because at HS they let people go to their ride lines way earlier than that and were in line for MMRR by 8:25. There were a decent number of people in front of us but we were done before early entry ended and walked over to toy story mania and walked on there too.

We didn’t rope drop Epcot at all, and I actually never have, so I don’t have any specific advice there.

 

[traveler9]

Leisurely & early entry really don’t go together. Early entry is only a half hour, 30 minutes. If you don’t get to the park awhile before early entry actually begins, you could spend the whole 30 minutes getting thru security, tapping into the park & walking to your attraction. Tapping in is still a hassle sometimes. If someone in front of you has an issue, you could be standing in line while lines next to you are moving along. The CMs don’t really do anything to get others in the line around the people having problems. You just stand there waiting.

They really should send people having issues straight to Guest Relations instead of holding up the line

 

[focusondisney]

They really should send people having issues straight to Guest Relations instead of holding up the line

Yea they should at least pull them aside so other people can use the tap points. Unfortunately they don’t.

 

[HeiHei2018]

As others have said, there is no way to time Early Entry “just right”. Buses/trams and security lines are too variable. Plan to arrive before early entry starts. If not, you could miss most of EE if you are delayed somewhere. Once in the park and through the EE scan, you can hang back from the EE crowd.
We got lucky last trip and walked into Epcot at exactly 8:29 with no crowds in front of us because they had already released them. We walked right onto Soarin. The previous day, we had bus troubles and had to wait for secondary screening at security and walked into MK with only five minutes left of EE.

 

[kylenne]

Epcot: Target is soarin' (so skipping GotG, frozen, and remy)

Everyone else is right tbh. But a more leisurely EE experience is absolutely possible at Epcot at least, because we did it on our last trip. We had been out super late the night before at MK doing EEH so getting up early enough to be front of pack was just not happening, and I knew we wouldn't want to criss cross the park either. I opted to buy LLMP ahead of time and prebooked Remy, Spaceship Earth, and Pixar Film Fest (throwaway at park open). We arrived to the park just shy of 8:30, the start of EE, and headed to Soarin. It was about a 10 minute wait. Afterwards we tapped into our burner LL and were able to book Frozen for 6pm, which worked out great as we are midday break people. It was such a chill morning that tbh I think we may end up doing Epcot this way from now on. Hit up Guardians back to back on VQ and SP before heading out for the midday break.

Granted, we were staying at the GF so were monorail guests, and Guardians was still on the VQ. But Guardians being standby would only work in your favor for this, and I'd imagine you could manage just fine coming from the IG, because the current meta at Epcot is hitting Frozen second, regardless of if ride 1 is Remy or Guardians. Soarin will stay pretty low for a long time during rope drop.

I think if you're rope dropping "second tier" attractions and utilizing LLMP/SP it wouldn't be the worst thing to not be front of the pack. The fact that you're not really interested in the other Tier 1s helps a lot. If you don't care about maximizing EE time and don't mind spending on LLs then this is perfectly viable strategy.

HS: Target is smugglers run or MMRR. Not sure which one is a better first choice. We will have to child swap smugglers run which will double the time. (Skipping slinky, TSM, ToT. Planning on buying LL for Rise. Still debating if I should buy LLMP for slinky to just make the day less stressful)

At HS I would actually target Smugglers Run. At that time of morning I would imagine a "Pandora Effect" where everyone headed back to that part of the park is headed to Rise and you'll probably walk straight into Smugglers Run, even getting there later. But Runaway Railway gets higher faster because it's the first thing people see. Smugglers Run waits don't tend to start creeping up until people start getting off Rise in numbers, or stragglers start coming into GE, see the line there, and then head to the Falcon instead.

Also, I've been checking the crowd forecasts and see lower crowds for HS for Tuesday-Thursday. Does the day of the week make that significant of a difference? We are checking in Sunday 4/6 and leaving Friday 4/11. HS is the priority so I would like to go sooner but I'm wondering if it's "worth it" crowd-wise to wait later in the week.

During this time of year (eg not during MK party season), I would honestly not really put much stock into agonizing over specific days of the week other than avoiding Epcot on the weekends because of locals bumping up festival crowds.

 

[woodys_girl]

At HS I would do MMRR first because you can all ride it. I have had an experience where Rider Swap was not up and running during early entry and even if it is it takes time to set it up so I usually start with something every one can do. Smugglers can be done single rider so you'll have a short-ish wait whenever you do it.

 

[glamdring269]

Leisure is the reward you get around lunch time and the rest of the afternoon if you leverage early entry (and potentially LLMP) properly. If you kind of leisurely try to attack early entry/RD I think the word you'll mostly likely end up with is 'frustration', not 'leisure'. It's definitely not for everyone.

 

[scrappinginontario]

If you wish to (hopefully) have less people entering the park you would likely be looking 11AM or later but as others have shared, lines continually fluctuate. There is not guarantee when you will arrive to possibly lower crowds.

Park entry is efficient and even when there are many people, things normally flow very well.

 

[hes122]

If you don't care which role you have on Smugglers Run, you can take turns and utilize the single rider line.

 

[disneydreamer1980]

HS tends to be super busy every day, with little crowd differences as to specific days of the week, unlike the other parks (at least in my experience). Epcot is usually busier on Fridays and weekends. Just my opinion (as someone with 5 kids), but why skip Remy and Frozen? Most little ones would probably enjoy Remy and Frozen more than Soarin. Although Soarin is awesome.

 

[CaroM8]

I can relate to the "not impressed by Disney spouse"

On our trip last September we took a sort of leisurely approach in the mornings. Mind you mid-September crowds are way less intense. Each day we got to the parks about 30 mins after regular park opening and there was never any line ups to tap in or security. Which set hubby up to be in a good mood for the rest of the day, haha. We did have LLMP for most days too which helped.

Even though the parks weren't that busy, Slinky had a wait time of over 50mins consistently throughout the day so we were glad we had that one picked with LLMP. I think HS is the park where day of the week doesn't really matter - its pretty consistent.

I just make a point of avoiding Epcot on the weekend if possible. Lots of locals around on the weekend, especially during a festival. Not a bad thing, just more people that's all.

 

[_19disnA]

It always been my impression that those who are the go-go-go types get up at the crack of dawn and race off to be with the masses of people hoping to be near the front of the line when a park first opens. None of that sounds 'leisurely' to me. Probably why we have NEVER done that since we are on vacation when @ Disney and don't care to be part of that. Crowds tend to be lower early or late in the day. I would imagine that most who got up at dawn are worn out by mid-afternoon and likely back at their hotel snoozing.

I wouldn't decide which parks to do based on forecasts of future attendance. Even Disney has no idea when locals with AP will suddenly decide to show up on a day with good weather. The most popular rides tend to have the longest lines. Projections of future crowds weeks/months in advance are mostly educated guesses likely using historical attendance data. While anyone can create a forecast, it doesn't mean it will be accurate.

 

[liamthompson]

Thanks all for the helpful replies. I've been watching the wait times today and yesterday on the MDE app and see what you folks mean by there not being such thing as leisurely early entry

I showed my 3yo a ride video of MMRR and he flinched during the opening crash and asked me to turn it off...so now I'm thinking we might skip that too if we straggle in too late.

 

[liamthompson]

I can’t speak to Skyliner lines because we were at the poly but if you’re willing to shell out some cash to make it even easier - order a Minnie van. We took a Minnie Van to HS at about 8:05am, arrived at 8:20am, flew right through security with no line because at HS they let people go to their ride lines way earlier than that and were in line for MMRR by 8:25. There were a decent number of people in front of us but we were done before early entry ended and walked over to toy story mania and walked on there too.

Thanks for the Minnie van suggestion, I had not thought of this! It seems like early entry is more important for HS than Epcot and it might make sense for us to Minnie van in the morning to HS and use skyliner to get back to the hotel for afternoon nap.

 

[liamthompson]

At HS I would do MMRR first because you can all ride it. I have had an experience where Rider Swap was not up and running during early entry and even if it is it takes time to set it up so I usually start with something every one can do. Smugglers can be done single rider so you'll have a short-ish wait whenever you do it.

I had not realized that rider swap wasn't available at all times, thanks for pointing this out!

 

[mi*vida*loca]

Buy LLMP and LLSP for the most popular rides, arrive close to EE time and do the opposite of what the masses run to at RD.

You won't need to be in the front of the pack if you aren't going to Slinky, Rise, Guardians, Remy or Frozen at park open.

We don't do front the pack RD. We arrive around 8ish for 8:30 am EE. And we zig while everyone zags and have never had a problem or felt the crush of RD crowds.