Rope drop-help

[susanh]

Please help me understand what happens at rope drop and why some tour plan guides recommend showing up 30 minutes before RD. Is it crazy at rope drop or low key? Do they routinely let you in to part of the park before RD, like onto Main street at MK or the Oasis at AK to look around before official opening time? (I read this in Unofficial Disney)
TIA!

 

[anonymousegirl]

Reason number one: to really benefit from RD you need to be at the FRONT of the queue when they drop the rope. It doesn't do you much good to be 200 people back if you are trying to power walk over to Toy Story or Enchanted Tales with Belle.
Reason number two: flexible opening times--sometimes to help manage the crowd flow, management will drop the rope as much as 30 minutes earlier than posted opening time. So if you arrive right at 9am for rope drop, and the park has been "open" for 30 minutes, you have missed out on all the benefits of rope drop.

 

[Redarrow5150]

The benefit of Rope Drop is to get on rides before the bulk of crowds arrive. Typically young parents with kids don't hit the parks until 10am (generally) so that leaves more possible rides and less wait times. In regards to other question about entering the parks you "may" be able to do this with breakfast reservations that coincide of around the time the park opens. If MK opens at 9AM then you may be able to get breakfast reservations at 8AM in the park and CM may allow you to roam around before the parks officially open.

 

[JimmyV]

Reason number one: to really benefit from RD you need to be at the FRONT of the queue when they drop the rope. It doesn't do you much good to be 200 people back if you are trying to power walk over to Toy Story or Enchanted Tales with Belle.
Reason number two: flexible opening times--sometimes to help manage the crowd flow, management will drop the rope as much as 30 minutes earlier than posted opening time. So if you arrive right at 9am for rope drop, and the park has been "open" for 30 minutes, you have missed out on all the benefits of rope drop.

This sums it up well. The actual opening time is a crapshoot so you want to be there before the earliest likely time. And there is a big difference when arriving at DHS between being at the turnstile when the park opens and being behind the bag check security tables. There are around 30 or so tapstiles. If you are parallel with the other folks who are the 50th people behind their respective tapstiles, then you are the 1,500th person in the park. And when 2/3rds of those people are all headed to the same place, then getting up so early was largely wasted. If you are going to go to the park early, might as well make it worthwhile.

 

[susanh]

This sums it up well. The actual opening time is a crapshoot so you want to be there before the earliest likely time. And there is a big difference when arriving at DHS between being at the turnstile when the park opens and being behind the bag check security tables. There are around 30 or so tapstiles. If you are parallel with the other folks who are the 50th people behind their respective tapstiles, then you are the 1,500th person in the park. And when 2/3rds of those people are all headed to the same place, then getting up so early was largely wasted. If you are going to go to the park early, might as well make it worthwhile.

Seriously? Are there 1500 people in the gates at opening?

 

[TiggerBouncy]

Seriously? Are there 1500 people in the gates at opening?

Usually much more. That was middle or early in the line.

The quick summary though is by example. 2 weeks ago at mk we did rope drop. Walked onto jungle cruise. Walked inti tiki room as the door opened. Walked into pirates. 5 minute wait at btmr.and ride it again with less than 5 minutes wait. Road haunted mansion followed by little mermaid. It was now 10:30. Stopped for food. By noon, rides were running 30 minutes wait and growing toward an hour.

In other words in 1.5 hours we did easily 4 hours of touring.

 

[abner1776]

A lot of it depends on the park...at MK, there are enough premium rides to spread out the crowds while at parks like DHS or EP you have a limited number of premium rides that everyone is headed for so front of the line RD is imperative...especially if you want multiple rides.

We did DHS in early Feb and got there 8:15 ish and were # 4 in our line. By 8:45 there must have been 100 people behind us in our line and the same in the other 10 lines. Like 99% of the people, we were headed to TSM and after our ride it was already a 20 minute wait for TSM and it was barely 9am as the park had opened 15 minutes early. Even TOT was 20 minutes and Aerosmith was 15 minutes...at 9 am.

When 7DMT opens in a few weeks, you are gonna see RD crowds like you haven't seen in years...all heading in ONE direction.

 

[GeorgiaHoo]

Depends on when you are going, where you are going and what you want to do. If you are trying to go to the Belle story time thing or ride Toy Story Mania (regardless of time of season) then you want to arrive earlier for rope drop since many people make a bee line for those rides. If you are like us and you go in the off season and want to ride Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain and others that have higher capacity and aren't the first thing everyone runs for then you can arrive 5-10 minutes before rope drop and be fine. We've had the most success at Magic Kingdom rope drop because there are so many rides that people spread out and we aren't interested in the rides for smaller children or the character meet and greets. It is more difficult at Hollywood Studios because most people want to get on Toy Story Mania and that line backs up quickly (we've seen it at 30 minutes within a few minutes of rope drop) and Rock n Roller Coaster can back up quickly as well. Same with Epcot and Soarin'/Test Track and Safari at Animal Kingdom.

Before the end of the old fastpass system we would get to HS around 845 for a 9 rope drop, go grab fastpasses for Toy Story and go ride Rock n Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror then back to Toy Story. Going to have to see what we can do with FP+ now.

 

[redrosesix]

Depends on when you are going, where you are going and what you want to do. If you are trying to go to the Belle story time thing or ride Toy Story Mania (regardless of time of season) then you want to arrive earlier for rope drop since many people make a bee line for those rides. If you are like us and you go in the off season and want to ride Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain and others that have higher capacity and aren't the first thing everyone runs for then you can arrive 5-10 minutes before rope drop and be fine. We've had the most success at Magic Kingdom rope drop because there are so many rides that people spread out and we aren't interested in the rides for smaller children or the character meet and greets. It is more difficult at Hollywood Studios because most people want to get on Toy Story Mania and that line backs up quickly (we've seen it at 30 minutes within a few minutes of rope drop) and Rock n Roller Coaster can back up quickly as well. Same with Epcot and Soarin'/Test Track and Safari at Animal Kingdom. Before the end of the old fastpass system we would get to HS around 845 for a 9 rope drop, go grab fastpasses for Toy Story and go ride Rock n Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror then back to Toy Story. Going to have to see what we can do with FP+ now.

ITA with this

While we were there last week they did early opening at DHS and AK (even though AK was EMH), and the RD show at MK during EMH. Epcot opened precisely at 8 am on EMH day. Not sure about regular days at some parks -- EMH is what got us through our touring without FP-

It's not totally crazy at RD but if you don't plan to run to rides like TSMM make sure you let other people get by. We were always there before RD, with plenty of time for bag check and the turnstiles (leave more time for this now, since it takes longer for many people to go through with the new system -- the cards were faster).