Not doing a rope drop -is this possible?

[loves to dive]

I know you said you have hoppers, which is great. How long are you going to be there? I was there a couple of weeks ago for a 6 1/2 day trip. I had hoppers (turned into an AP 2nd to last day of trip) and did not buy Genie + or ILL and rode every ride in Epcot (including Guardians) except for Mission Space. Rode every ride in AK except Kali River Rapids and saw every show. Rode every ride in HS except Star Tours and Mil. Falcon (and that was just because I don't like those rides, could have easily ridden them) and saw all the shows. Rode all the adult rides in MK including Tron except Space Mountain (hurts me). I didn't ride things like dumbo, teacups, Buzz Lightyear (I don't like it). Saw the parade. I saw Epcot Forever and Fantasmic. Did not see the MK FWs but that was by choice since it was very windy all week and I knew Tink would not fly. I did not rope drop any parks, I think I did the very last minute of an EE at HS, and did not do extra evening hours for Deluxe (did qualify) and the only time I stayed til park close was for Epcot forever. I took an afternoon break for at least a hour, sometimes 2 or 3 every day.

That week is was very quiet, I think I only waited over 30 min. for one ride. I actually got Tron at the 1 pm drop. I usually go to one park in the morning then a different park in the afternoon. By doing that, I knew what ever rides I didn't get on park reservation day, I could just hop into that park later in the week after 2. July is going to be more busy than when I was there but if you have more than 5 park days, it will be doable.

 

[lockets]

I didn’t read all the responses but G+ was $22 this week and I’m similar to your teens. I don’t want to rope drop and yet I don’t want to wait an 90 minutes for haunted mansion.

I wonder if it makes sense for the teens to pay for their own G+ (assuming they get allowances or have some kind of little savings somewhere from work or odd jobs or gifts) so they can see the cause and effect of the sleep-in and get the experience of how much it costs to exert more control over their day by coming out of pocket for G+?

 

[BriarRose924]

I know you said you have hoppers, which is great. How long are you going to be there? I was there a couple of weeks ago for a 6 1/2 day trip. I had hoppers (turned into an AP 2nd to last day of trip) and did not buy Genie + or ILL and rode every ride in Epcot (including Guardians) except for Mission Space. Rode every ride in AK except Kali River Rapids and saw every show. Rode every ride in HS except Star Tours and Mil. Falcon (and that was just because I don't like those rides, could have easily ridden them) and saw all the shows. Rode all the adult rides in MK including Tron except Space Mountain (hurts me). I didn't ride things like dumbo, teacups, Buzz Lightyear (I don't like it). Saw the parade. I saw Epcot Forever and Fantasmic. Did not see the MK FWs but that was by choice since it was very windy all week and I knew Tink would not fly. I did not rope drop any parks, I think I did the very last minute of an EE at HS, and did not do extra evening hours for Deluxe (did qualify) and the only time I stayed til park close was for Epcot forever. I took an afternoon break for at least a hour, sometimes 2 or 3 every day.

That week is was very quiet, I think I only waited over 30 min. for one ride. I actually got Tron at the 1 pm drop. I usually go to one park in the morning then a different park in the afternoon. By doing that, I knew what ever rides I didn't get on park reservation day, I could just hop into that park later in the week after 2. July is going to be more busy than when I was there but if you have more than 5 park days, it will be doable.

we will be there for a week but we only are doing 4 park days. I guess we can add on park days /reservations but we were trying to really take time to enjoy the resort and CL lounge through the week .

 

[BriarRose924]

I didn’t read all the responses but G+ was $22 this week and I’m similar to your teens. I don’t want to rope drop and yet I don’t want to wait an 90 minutes for haunted mansion.

I wonder if it makes sense for the teens to pay for their own G+ (assuming they get allowances or have some kind of little savings somewhere from work or odd jobs or gifts) so they can see the cause and effect of the sleep-in and get the experience of how much it costs to exert more control over their day by coming out of pocket for G+?

not a bad idea. honestly we dont really mind paying for it, but we have heard so many stories of it not working and not getting any good rides or good times. I wasn't sure if it was worth the expense.

 

[bluezy]

Yes we are at Polynesian but of course we did a test day on Wednesday so only have one night for the extra evening hours. Yeah I might have to rethink genie. I’ve heard so many complaints about it. I thought it wouldn’t be worth the cost

Keep in mind that far more people will complain about something publicly than will praise it. We were at Disney at the end of June last year. There were 11 of us in the group (DH & I, our 5 "kids" and 2 grandchildren) most of whom didn't want to do rope drop at all (in the past, we were a rope-drop-almost-every-day family). We compromised and only did rope drop on 3 of our 8 days (Epcot was the only park we didn't rope drop). We did, however, buy G+ and ILL every day (of course, that was back when you could buy G+ for the length of stay before arrival for $15/day so I'm not sure if we'll do it every day in the future). I will say that G+/ILL was worth every penny for us. It was one of our most relaxing Disney vacations and I was *not* on my phone all day to make reservations. I'd book a LL and ILL at 7:00 every day and then set an alarm for 5-10 minutes before we'd be able to book the next ride and put my phone away. G+ allowed us to sleep in 5 of our 8 days but still enjoy headliners at each park every day. We could have skipped rope drop at AK but one of our sons wanted to do FOP at rope drop in addition to getting an ILL for it, so we all did rope drop that day. We typically would go to Disney for 6-7 days, but last year's trip was our first trip since 2018 (had 4 trips cancelled/postponed because of Covid) and we knew we had a lot of catching up to do so we booked for 8 days on that trip. We knew we wouldn't get to do everything we wanted to that week, but we had our game plan of hitting all of the new things (Star Wars Land, Toy Story Land, GOTG, & Remy) and our top 2 favorite additional rides in each park. Well, thanks to Genie+, we were able to do all of that *and more* in the first 5 days of our stay. The last 3 days were spent going back to parks and doing our favorites again and doing things we didn't think we'd have time for. Genie+/ILL cost us about $850 for 4 people for those 8 days, but we felt it was totally worth it. We spent more time relaxing in the room than we ever have on a Disney trip because our days were very efficient.

So my advice -- as others have also recommended -- is to compromise with the teens. Do EE rope drop a few days (definitely at DHS) and sleep in the other days but consider buying G+ and/or ILL for those sleep-in days. And getting in line for a headliner ride just before park close is also a great strategy, but my advice is to get in line at least 15 minutes before park closing if possible. One year we rode 7DMT near the end of the night. We got in line about 45 minutes before park close and the posted wait time was 30 minutes (we were through in about 20...but this was back when MK was open much later so far fewer people in the parks at this time). When we got off the ride, they had already closed the line and weren't letting anyone else enter even though the park wasn't closing for another 20 minutes. There were some very unhappy guests. And I also agree that they dramatically inflate the wait times at the end of the night. Same night as the 7DMT experience, the kids wanted to ride Space Mountain (this was about 60 minutes before park close...just before we went to 7DMT). The posted wait time was 50 minutes. There was a CM standing at the entrance barking, "This wait time *IS* accurate. If you get in line for Space Mountain you will most likely not get to ride any other attractions this evening." I rolled my eyes and told the kids to get in line (they were complaining that they weren't going to get to ride anything else) that there was no way the wait was 50 minutes long. There were maybe 2 dozen people in Tomorrowland at the time. I said we'd walk through the line and see how backed up it was. If it really looked like it was going to be a 50 minute wait, we'd just get out of line. It wasn't a 50 minute wait. We walked straight through to the area just before they tell you which line to get in to load into a car. We were walking out of the building about 10 minutes after we walked in.

 

[BriarRose924]

Keep in mind that far more people will complain about something publicly than will praise it. We were at Disney at the end of June last year. There were 11 of us in the group (DH & I, our 5 "kids" and 2 grandchildren) most of whom didn't want to do rope drop at all (in the past, we were a rope-drop-almost-every-day family). We compromised and only did rope drop on 3 of our 8 days (Epcot was the only park we didn't rope drop). We did, however, buy G+ and ILL every day (of course, that was back when you could buy G+ for the length of stay before arrival for $15/day so I'm not sure if we'll do it every day in the future). I will say that G+/ILL was worth every penny for us. It was one of our most relaxing Disney vacations and I was *not* on my phone all day to make reservations. I'd book a LL and ILL at 7:00 every day and then set an alarm for 5-10 minutes before we'd be able to book the next ride and put my phone away. G+ allowed us to sleep in 5 of our 8 days but still enjoy headliners at each park every day. We could have skipped rope drop at AK but one of our sons wanted to do FOP at rope drop in addition to getting an ILL for it, so we all did rope drop that day. We typically would go to Disney for 6-7 days, but last year's trip was our first trip since 2018 (had 4 trips cancelled/postponed because of Covid) and we knew we had a lot of catching up to do so we booked for 8 days on that trip. We knew we wouldn't get to do everything we wanted to that week, but we had our game plan of hitting all of the new things (Star Wars Land, Toy Story Land, GOTG, & Remy) and our top 2 favorite additional rides in each park. Well, thanks to Genie+, we were able to do all of that *and more* in the first 5 days of our stay. The last 3 days were spent going back to parks and doing our favorites again and doing things we didn't think we'd have time for. Genie+/ILL cost us about $850 for 4 people for those 8 days, but we felt it was totally worth it. We spent more time relaxing in the room than we ever have on a Disney trip because our days were very efficient.

So my advice -- as others have also recommended -- is to compromise with the teens. Do EE rope drop a few days (definitely at DHS) and sleep in the other days but consider buying G+ and/or ILL for those sleep-in days. And getting in line for a headliner ride just before park close is also a great strategy, but my advice is to get in line at least 15 minutes before park closing if possible. One year we rode 7DMT near the end of the night. We got in line about 45 minutes before park close and the posted wait time was 30 minutes (we were through in about 20...but this was back when MK was open much later so far fewer people in the parks at this time). When we got off the ride, they had already closed the line and weren't letting anyone else enter even though the park wasn't closing for another 20 minutes. There were some very unhappy guests. And I also agree that they dramatically inflate the wait times at the end of the night. Same night as the 7DMT experience, the kids wanted to ride Space Mountain (this was about 60 minutes before park close...just before we went to 7DMT). The posted wait time was 50 minutes. There was a CM standing at the entrance barking, "This wait time *IS* accurate. If you get in line for Space Mountain you will most likely not get to ride any other attractions this evening." I rolled my eyes and told the kids to get in line (they were complaining that they weren't going to get to ride anything else) that there was no way the wait was 50 minutes long. There were maybe 2 dozen people in Tomorrowland at the time. I said we'd walk through the line and see how backed up it was. If it really looked like it was going to be a 45 minute wait, we'd just get out of line. It wasn't a 50 minute wait. We walked straight through to the area just before they tell you which line to get in to load into a car. We were walking out of the building about 10 minutes after we walked in.

That is very true!! Thank you for that!!
This was such a great overview and great tips! I am going to have the kids read this thread and hopefully they will see the worth in getting up at the crack of dawn hahaha
What time do you suggest getting to the bus or monorail for the parks? They always say I want to be there overly early. Haha what’s a good time do you think? I assume we won’t have time to grab breakfast in the CL before hand on park days

 

[BridgetR3]

Here is what we do which doesn't work for everyone obviously -

We schedule park days for every day of our trip but my kids sleep in and sometimes it is noon or after before we are in the parks. I do not get G+ except for MK because I am not going to wake up before 7 and be on my phone all day for every park trying to fit it all in. Instead, I get up, enjoy breakfast at the resort and then relax poolside or in the lobby while waiting on the boys to get up.

We also typically close out parks at night and find that we can get a lot done in those last couple of hours especially when the parks are open to midnight or 1 a.m. which is MUCH less crowded and cooler than the blazing summer sun.

Also, something to consider is that if you get there for rope drop at 7:30 for an 8:30 opening, you are still waiting in line for 1 hour before you even get into the park. That is something to consider as well.

However, I will say that we are AP holders and go to WDW a couple times each year so we often don't ride/do everything. For FOP and Rise, we get in line at the end of the night as the wait times are usually super inflated but if they aren't we wait anyway because we will just sleep in the next day. It's all in preference honestly.

 

[bluezy]

That is very true!! Thank you for that!!
This was such a great overview and great tips! I am going to have the kids read this thread and hopefully they will see the worth in getting up at the crack of dawn hahaha
What time do you suggest getting to the bus or monorail for the parks? They always say I want to be there overly early. Haha what’s a good time do you think? I assume we won’t have time to grab breakfast in the CL before hand on park days

Ahhh...what time to get to the parks for EE. That's still a sore point for my kids (I use that term loosely -- the youngest is 18). *I* like to plan to be at the park at least 45 minutes before EE time -- which means getting on transportation at least another 30 minutes before that (depending on where you're staying). They all complain about getting there so early. But then they're all happy they were there so early when the gates open 10-15 minutes before the posted opening time and we're able to be near the front of the line on our first attraction -- often managing to be on and off a ride before the official park EE opening time. They all really complained when I said we needed to be a DHS by 7:00 for an 8:00 opening (we ran late and didn't get there until 7:20...but it was ok). They opened the gates at 7:40 and the kids were on and off ToT before 8:00. And then they hit RnR. And then we were in line for MMRR before the park opened to everyone else. We did a few other things that morning, ate lunch at 11:00, and were back in our hotel rooms a little after noon and able to nap, swim, whatever. Of course, as we were all leaving the park at noon, they were all happy that I made everyone get up early.

 

[BriarRose924]

Here is what we do which doesn't work for everyone obviously -

We schedule park days for every day of our trip but my kids sleep in and sometimes it is noon or after before we are in the parks. I do not get G+ except for MK because I am not going to wake up before 7 and be on my phone all day for every park trying to fit it all in. Instead, I get up, enjoy breakfast at the resort and then relax poolside or in the lobby while waiting on the boys to get up.

We also typically close out parks at night and find that we can get a lot done in those last couple of hours especially when the parks are open to midnight or 1 a.m. which is MUCH less crowded and cooler than the blazing summer sun.

Also, something to consider is that if you get there for rope drop at 7:30 for an 8:30 opening, you are still waiting in line for 1 hour before you even get into the park. That is something to consider as well.

However, I will say that we are AP holders and go to WDW a couple times each year so we often don't ride/do everything. For FOP and Rise, we get in line at the end of the night as the wait times are usually super inflated but if they aren't we wait anyway because we will just sleep in the next day. It's all in preference honestly.

I might try to do something like this. Thank you!

 

[CKCruising]

I find it interesting that people won't pay ILL/Genie+ due to the cost but will add extra days to their trip. Adding a day to a park hopper ticket is rarely much less than 100pp (it depends on how long the ticket and when, but its not 10pp anymore). We just went from 3 to 4 in May and it was 130pp.

 

[BridgetR3]

I find it interesting that people won't pay ILL/Genie+ due to the cost but will add extra days to their trip. Adding a day to a park hopper ticket is rarely much less than 100pp (it depends on how long the ticket and when, but its not 10pp anymore). We just went from 3 to 4 in May and it was 130pp.

We won't add G+ but add days because we enjoy a more relaxing vacation without all of the racing from one attraction to the next. We go at a leisure pace and don't feel the need to ride everything. However, we do feel the need to eat everything so that takes a week or so anyway. lol.....

 

[BriarRose924]

I find it interesting that people won't pay ILL/Genie+ due to the cost but will add extra days to their trip. Adding a day to a park hopper ticket is rarely much less than 100pp (it depends on how long the ticket and when, but its not 10pp anymore). We just went from 3 to 4 in May and it was 130pp.

Its not really due to the money, more the worth. I keep reading people are having so many tech issues and a lot getting only 2-3 rides a day.. and constantly on their phones and running from attraction to attraction back and forth across the parks.. an extra day at the park seems like a better way to spend the money for me personally. And I like a more relaxed park day. So hitting up the rides we didnt get to on an extra park day feels more like the vacation vibe we like. We also want to be able to take mid day breaks and go back to the pool, have apps at the CL lounge then back to the park at night.

 

[bluezy]

I find it interesting that people won't pay ILL/Genie+ due to the cost but will add extra days to their trip. Adding a day to a park hopper ticket is rarely much less than 100pp (it depends on how long the ticket and when, but its not 10pp anymore). We just went from 3 to 4 in May and it was 130pp.

It has always been fairly expensive to add days to a ticket until you hit the 5-day ticket. Then the price drops dramatically. I can remember when it was $5-10/day to add a day to a 5-day ticket. Now it's usually about $20-25 a day (depending on time of year) after 5 days, so that's still a bargain. We always get tickets for every day of our stay (usually 7 or 8 days) because we know we'd get 5-day tickets no matter what, so adding 2 or 3 more days is a no-brainer if it's only $25/day. Even if we only go to the parks for a few hours some days, we feel it's well worth the extra $25 for that day. Of course, even when we were there for 8 days, with 8 days of PH tickets, we still bought Genie+ and ILLs every day, but we did realize that if we go to Disney for 8 days next time, we probably won't need G+ every day, but we purchased it ahead of time last trip and were glad we had it.

 

[CKCruising]

It has always been fairly expensive to add days to a ticket until you hit the 5-day ticket. Then the price drops dramatically. I can remember when it was $5-10/day to add a day to a 5-day ticket. Now it's usually about $20-25 a day (depending on time of year) after 5 days, so that's still a bargain. We always get tickets for every day of our stay (usually 7 or 8 days) because we know we'd get 5-day tickets no matter what, so adding 2 or 3 more days is a no-brainer if it's only $25/day. Even if we only go to the parks for a few hours some days, we feel it's well worth the extra $25 for that day. Of course, even when we were there for 8 days, with 8 days of PH tickets, we still bought Genie+ and ILLs every day, but we did realize that if we go to Disney for 8 days next time, we probably won't need G+ every day, but we purchased it ahead of time last trip and were glad we had it.

I guess I haven't priced that many days recently. You are 100% correct.
No brainer at 25/day. There is way more value than Genie+

 

[Davey Jones II]

Nice! Yeah I have noticed that they intentionally over inflate the wait times towards the end of the night, probably to discourage guests from jumping in line like that, but FOP especially seems to do it a lot. Mine Train is another one notorious for it, I like to ride that at park close. They will post 60 min wait time after fireworks when it’s more like 10-15.

Is that immediately after fireworks? We will probably go to MK one night to watch the fireworks from Fantasyland, then quicly hop into line for Mine Train. Can we expect a short wait, or should we do that ride later that night?

 

[DisneyDillyDally]

When are you going? Which parks? What are your priorities? Your tolerance for waiting in standby lines? It’s “doable” depending on how you define that but it’s going to be much easier and more bearable in some parks than others. You will be walking in during peak heat and crowds.

Personally I would start with doing shows and “filler” attractions if coming in that late and bide my time until after hopping hours. People who were there for EE start leaving around noon for midday breaks and you do see a reduction in waits. And AK in particular sees wait times plummet because most people hop out of it. Epcot is somewhat an exception because people love to hop in to eat.

HS is extremely challenging even if you do EE. Wait times build extremely quickly and don’t really go down until late afternoon. Going in at 10 is far more miserable than just getting up early. But if your family still won’t and you can’t or don’t want to G+ that day, I would just spend the morning at your resort having a leisurely TS breakfast, hanging out at the pool etc and don’t bother going to HS until after 2. It’s not as pronounced as at AK but folk get frustrated by lines and hop out. Waits will still be high at the heavy hitters but you can knock out some shows until things start to calm down later in the afternoon. Tbh everything I’m seeing in my own research of recent crowd patterns says pm at HS is best.

We were there about a month ago, and I formed opinion best approach would be to get Genie+ and stack rides for the afternoon/evening and go to the park later in the day rather than rope drop.

 

[DisneyDillyDally]

We were there about a month ago, and I formed opinion best approach would be to get Genie+ and stack rides for the afternoon/evening and go to the park later in the day rather than rope drop.

I’m talking about DHS here…

 

[kylenne]

Is that immediately after fireworks? We will probably go to MK one night to watch the fireworks from Fantasyland, then quicly hop into line for Mine Train. Can we expect a short wait, or should we do that ride later that night?

It tends to be closer to park close that the actual wait is that low. You would most likely still have a decent-ish wait if you did it right after fireworks but I think if you really want to be on the safe side you could probably knock out another ride or two in Fantasyland first. Maybe the difference between a 40 minute and a 20 minute wait depending on how crowded it is.

We were there about a month ago, and I formed opinion best approach would be to get Genie+ and stack rides for the afternoon/evening and go to the park later in the day rather than rope drop.

For my birthday we are planning to hop into HS after spending the morning in Epcot and will be stacking LLs for the evening. We are still rope dropping the day before though (the reverse plan, going into Epcot after our midday break for EEH).

 

[Robber Baron]

Let them skip rope drop for a while. They will be back in the fold in no time.

We have been on over 30 week long vacations to WDW. We happen to believe being at the park at opening is THE number 1 hack there is to doing everything you want to do.

Our kids are now 33 and 28 and when they go to WDW, they always do rope drop.

 

[Babe the Blue Ox]

We don’t attend rope drop, it’s way too crowded and stressful for us. We can always get in multiple rides on the headliners by simply staying until closing time each day. You just have to understand the crowd patterns and know how the inflated wait times work.

We do buy Genie + each day, but don’t buy $ILL as those lines get very short near the end of the day.

I do sometimes feel bad when we see families turn away from an attraction with a high wait time when you just know it’s not accurate.

I good example from early last summer is Rise of the Resistance. The posted wait time about 80 minutes before close was 110. There was hardly anyone milling around, which is usually a pretty good indicator of the wait time inside.

We rode 3 times before the park closed. You can’t do that in the morning no matter how early you arrive.