Really, How Hard is it to Make Rope Drop?

[maxiesmom]

It is very easy for me to make rope drop. I'm up by 4:30 am for work, so sleeping in until 6:30 while at WDW is awesome!

Now when I am at WDW with my sister and her family, it isn't so easy. They like to sleep in. But I went with my 22 year old nephew last year, and made him a rope drop believer. The first 90 minutes are golden--you can walk on to whatever ride you want. Go early, and take a nap during the middle of the day when the parks are packed.

 

[DakotaRose]

I feel like this would be my family! My girls will be 4 & almost 6 when we go in May, so tantrums/morning grumpies are a real possibility. Let's say we can make it happen - coffee in the room, granola bars & fruit packed, sunscreen lathered on - are there restrooms at MK at bag check/rope drop? Someone ALWAYS seems to have to go to the bathroom. Just want to know what I'm getting into here!

The restrooms I'm aware of are near the guest relations window. They are outside of the ticket gates (Mickey readers), but inside the bag check area, so you'd need to scan your Magic Band, but not go thru bag check. Hoping someone else will chime in with something more convenient for rope drop.

 

[fishhunter]

I have always shuddered in horror at the thought of Rope Drop. After all, I'm at Disney on VACATION! No alarm clocks! Lazy mornings at the pool with the kids!

However, this is the 1st year that we are staying on the monorail - at the Grand Floridian. Magic Kingdom is the only place we care about getting to for Rope Drop. So, how difficult/challenging/stressful should that be? The kids wake up by 7-7:30 usually. And being 1 stop from MK, we shouldn't be too worried about it, right? Surely we can make it by 9....right?

And I know people say that you can get so much done in those 1st 2 hours - REALLY??? Talk to me about it. PLEASE!

An hour before rope drop is our tradition. Sip a cup of coffee and wait for the show. Althougth, we are early risers at home. Honestly, I do question those that I see wandering in the park, picking up a map and trying to figure out what they're going to as we are leaving having completed everything on our agenda for that morning with little or no wait. Little do they know they have at the very least an hour wait for most rides ahead of them. I guess everyone does it different.

 

[5Hfan]

I am not a morning person except at Disneyworld, when I am the first one up and ready for rope drop! If you can drag people for rope drop once, they generally see just how valuable it can be! Now more people will make 9 am then say 7 am EMH...

We lay out clothes night before, fruit, juice, granola bars and coffee for breakfast, apply sunscreen waiting in line. And we do plan our rope drop mornings around a few very late nights (have a pic of the kids leaving MK RARING to go at 245 am from our last trip lol), then sleep in/pool days.

Hopefully once offsite can prebook fast pass + rope drop will lighten a bit as many were getting there early to get in line to book them? Here's hoping anyways!

 

[PinkBudgie]

Keep in mind that there are a few folks from the West Coast at WDW. So getting up at 6:30 literally feels like getting up at 3:30am. And this is after a full day, non stop, walk 6 miles, schedule.

It's really, really, really hard......

Yeah, so here's my plan: I'm going to set all the clocks in the house to eastern time about a week before we go.

I was surprised at the shorter hours at WDW parks. DLR parks open at 8am. If it weren't for the time difference, it would feel like sleeping in. Of course at DLR we stay at the Candy Cane Inn and are only a 10 min walk from the parks.

Also, I think we will probably continue with our normal afternoon naps. That lets us get to RP in the morning and do evening shows at the parks and still get a little sleep here and there. For WDW, we even built in two "days of rest non park days" in the middle of our trip. So, 4 park days, a day off, 4 park days, a day off, then 2 last park days. Go home the next day.

 

[ariel326]

We had every intention of making rope drop. We had a 7:20 character meal at chef Mickeys and then we were going to go to the park and be there by 9.

But they changed the park hours to open at 8 instead of 9. So it didn't work out. We got there about 8:50 and the place was still pretty empty. We were able to through the FP line quickly, and we were able to get on a few rides with out much of a line. I think the only reason it was still pretty empty at 9 was people maybe didn't realize the park opened an hour early. Because by 9:30 it started to fill up quickly.

I highly suggest being there at rope drop, or as close to rope drop as humanly possibly. It really makes a big difference.

 

[xie]

Half our family are morning people. They get up at 6am on the weekends just because they like to. They are also falling asleep at 10pm. I do not understand this at all.

Half our family are night people. We normally wake around 8am naturally on the weekends, and are happy staying up until 1am every night.

The morning people have always loved our WDW trips because in order to avoid lines, we always get up at 5 or 6am so everyone can shower, then eat breakfast and head to the parks before they open. Depending on time of year of course - if it's a 9am low season opening, we might sleep til 6:30. But if the parks are open at 8, we're up at 5.

The good side to this is that we always got a lot of riding done before things got too packed. Then we would have a lunch and leave the park for the afternoon. Often we would go back to a park (not even necessarily the same one as morning) to see parades or fireworks. However, the night people always wanted to stay and ride more rides after 9pm, but the day people were too whiny and tired and made it NOT FUN.

Now, with FP+ on our most recent trip, we tried booking the FP at night, and still did rope drop. The morning people got their wish that we rise with the chickens and go early. The night people go along with this because otherwise, there aren't any tolerable standby lines. However, we do go back and use FP at night. The day people are still whiny and tired but we get it done.

By the end of the trip, everyone is exhausted. The night people from getting up before dawn. The day people from staying up too late. Everyone is sleep deprived. It's not really so much a vacation as an endurance marathon.

 

[bigskip]

Keep in mind that there are a few folks from the West Coast at WDW. So getting up at 6:30 literally feels like getting up at 3:30am. And this is after a full day, non stop, walk 6 miles, schedule.

It's really, really, really hard......

And people coming from Europe, who are thinking why is it opening so late

 

[5Hfan]

By the end of the trip, everyone is exhausted. The night people from getting up before dawn. The day people from staying up too late. Everyone is sleep deprived. It's not really so much a vacation as an endurance marathon.

So so true!!

 

[babiektcher]

This will be my umpteenth trip, and every time, I say we are going to make it for rope drop. I can never get up that early, especially after staying up late, or getting all the good exercise. I also fall back into the mentality, "But, I'm on vacation!!" Maybe this will be my year!!!

 

[kangaroodle]

It REALLY depends on the time of year you will be there. Last year for Spring Break, MK opened at 7am. We were at the bus stop at 6am (with 2 not -very -happy-to-be-up-that-early teenagers!) BUT by 10:30 am we had gone on:
Enchanting Tales with Belle
Buzz...TWICE!
Splash Mountain....TWICE
It's a Small World
Pirate of the Caribbean
Big Thunder Mountain
Ariel

Plus we stopped and ate a snack and also played around in Gaston's taking pictures in his big chair etc with NO ONE else around!

The kicker.....MK closed EVERY DAY that week to capacity by 1pm!! Each hour things got busier and busier....Kids didn't even complain when we had gotten that much done.

Besides....there's no relaxing on a Disney Vacation!!!!

Go to rope drop!

 

[Redmic]

The main problem with the nap strategy is that there are screaming children running by your door constantly. We taught our kids from day one to always use their indoor voices in hotels and pretend there are babies sleeping in the rooms, but sadly few parents teach that any more. We have never been able to nap at Disney. I mention this because it could really throw off your plans if you plan to get meaningful sleep during the day.

 

[spg181]

It can be hard for many reasons to make rope drop. But even if members of your family are not early risers I feel it is helpful to try to make it early at least once during your trip. Tricks that I use to get everyone up and at 'em in my camp: Use the hotel's wake up call service (if you stay onsite you get a call from a disney character; if you have young kids this is a great motivator). Order room service breakfast the night before, set for a time 10 minutes after you want to wake up, food is the best to wake up to. Also, the night before set outfits out and pack up everything you will be taking to the park, go to bed early and get excited for your next day's adventure!

My family does this and usually even the extremest of non-morning people get up without issue. We always keep in mind that the morning is nice to get going and come back in the afternoon to relax while the park is at its hottest and busiest.

 

[eangel12]

I'm confused...do people really get to sleep PAST 6am on any morning?! My 4 year old and 2 year old start at 5:30am sharp. Occasionally they will sleep in until 5:45am. My stress is keeping them occupied until we can leave for a park. They begin to get antsy when I make them stay in a room for extended periods of time!

 

[PinkBudgie]

The main problem with the nap strategy is that there are screaming children running by your door constantly. We taught our kids from day one to always use their indoor voices in hotels and pretend there are babies sleeping in the rooms, but sadly few parents teach that any more. We have never been able to nap at Disney. I mention this because it could really throw off your plans if you plan to get meaningful sleep during the day.

Good point. This is why we always travel with our sound machine. Actually, because we are flying, we will probably just use the sound app on our Kindle. Having some sort of "rain" sound makes a world of difference in a hotel. No, it won't disguise really loud bangs or yells, but it does help! Plus, we are really really tired by afternoon.

 

[DizneyLizzy]

If you plan on getting sleep during the day, do NOT under any circumstances get a pool view room. We had what we thought was a amazing room at the Yacht Club last fall, and it was amazing....until the pool party started right around 1:00 aka nap time...and went throughout the entire afternoon.

 

[bean]

We're early risers for the most part but it's hard to make rope drop when we've been up late the night before. Which is really easy to do during crowded times when it takes forever to get out of a park.

 

[tiggertabi]

Our strategy has always been rope drop and do fantasyland before everyone else gets there. Then head down to the other end of the park when everyone was arriving. We often didn't ride any fantasyland rides after that morning trip because I am not standing for 55 minutes to ride Peter Pan! We could usually do tomorrow and fantasy (with the old fast pass) by 10 am with a 9 am rope drop!!

 

[travelinggnomes]

We are not morning people...at all! We homeschool, and dh is a pastor, so naturally, we don't have a normal schedule of a school/work family. We are all up and at it by 8:30 most days. In 9 trips, we have NEVER been to a rope drop, b/c we don't normally take a break in the middle of the day. We just got up when we wanted...and stayed till the shops turned their lights off. BUT, we have also NEVER seen a "Welcome to the Magic Kingdom" show either.

We will be staying and Windsor Palms (just outside of gates). What time do we need to leave the condo to be able to see the show. That is actually all we really care about, since dh says we are not going to make a mad dash for rides. (Silly guy) SO, what is the best strategy to watch the train come in and see the show? We are going on a crowd level 5 day.

 

[RllngRckBrw]

We love rope drop because it allows us flexibility and the rest of our day. We can accomplish a lot of the major attractions and rides early in the morning before lines which gives us time basically to wander the park and do what we want the rest of the day without feeling pressure of having to get on certain rides. I feel it adds a lot less stress and a lot more flexibility to our trips. That being said we go in the very commando the first two hours. We have a long list of attractions that we need to hit and are very careful not to engage any of the distractions or characters as we enter the park.

As far as waking up in the morning it can be a pain. We are sure to get the kids cleaned the night before and my wife and I take turns on getting ready in the morning. Usually I will shower first then go to the food court pick up breakfast for everyone. I usually return as she is getting out of the shower and the children are waking up. it seems to be a plan that works for us and gets us out the door of the fastest.