Onsite worth the extra 30 minutes?

[EllenMurphy]

Are you a morning or evening person? As using Genie+ .. while one person had to get up at 7 am to get the first ride (I’m up anyways…) we hit most of the rides in the evening by stacking LLs. (DHS & MK only, AK & EP we did ILL for FOP & Frozen) The only lines we stood in were ROTR, MMRR, & Remy.

I’m normally an off-site person - as we stay at non-DVC timeshares. I have stayed on-property once - during pandemic w/no Perks. My next trip is 4 nights at Riverside.

My kids normally get up at 6 am so really that is our normal time to wake up. We don't really have any major must dos. Magic Kingdom is our biggest lure.

 

[EllenMurphy]

As others have noted, the benefit of staying onsite depends on two things:
1) Will you and your party get up and out the door early enough on vacation to get to the park for that early entry?
2) How important are the big-name ILL rides to you?
I'm taking a massive OG SW fan to DHS for MTFBWY. So yeah, we're staying onsite so I can smash my phone at 7:00:00am to get RotR ILL because I will lose my mind if I, the travel agent and tour director for my friend who has never been to WDW, can't get her on that ride. Totally worth it for us.

Oh, no not massive Star Wars fans. Mostly going for Magic Kingdom.

 

[lizzyb]

The price for staying onsite for a family of 5 is crazy right now. I even looked at staying offsite at a good neighbour hotel and the price difference was still crazy. Definitely not worth 30 minutes for us.

 

[EllenMurphy]

The price for staying onsite for a family of 5 is crazy right now. I even looked at staying offsite at a good neighbour hotel and the price difference was still crazy. Definitely not worth 30 minutes for us.

Its insane esp for Canadians with the exchange rate. Already this trip is mega expensive

 

[wdwmom3]

So we did early entry most days. And it allowed us on one or two rides without a huge wait (the second was always a less popular ride). But we were also able to book the lightning lane at 7. That helped us get some rides we wanted.

But if budget was a factor I would look into the partner hotels that give you the same benefit but are cheaper.