Rope Drop Wait Times w/o Early Entry

[SquashBanana]

Hey everyone!

Attending both parks for 5 days during the Week of Thanksgiving. We are staying offsite and are not planning to purchase Express Pass. Both parks have a 7 am early entry but we won't be able to enter until official opening at 8. We were planning to rope drop some of the headliners when the park opens at 8.

Incredible Hulk
Minions
Olivanders
HP & the FJ
Hagrids (assuming stand-by is open that day)

My question is, how will the early entry hour affect wait times for those who can't enter until the regularly scheduled time? Thanks!

 

[Tormania]

I'm not sure but best of luck to you. We're staying on property and I will be cracking the early morning whip to get folks up and out the door to be ready to enter the parks at 7am for all 3 days of our visit, 11/25-11/27.

 

[SquashBanana]

I'm not sure but best of luck to you. We're staying on property and I will be cracking the early morning whip to get folks up and out the door to be ready to enter the parks at 7am for all 3 days of our visit, 11/25-11/27.

Let's hope you are in the minority!

 

[ghtx]

We will be in the parks the 23rd-25th (Mon-Wed) of Thanksgiving week. We are hoping that because it is the first half of the week, it won't be as crowded as later in the week or the weekend. Also we are staying at RPR so will have early entry and express pass. Our plan is to do early entry just one day (for Hagrid's) and use Express pass for the rest. Without either early entry or express pass, I would of course rope drop at 8am all the days you are there. Hopefully with five days, you should be able to hit each of the rides that you list on one day with a wait time that's not too bad (maybe 30 minutes?). 8am still is pretty early for most people!

 

[SquashBanana]

8am still is pretty early for most people!

That is what I was thinking... there is a big difference between EE at 7 and open at 8 vs. EE at 8 and open at 9.

 

[twasbrilig]

I'm going this week and am planning on heading over to hagrid after lunch. The wait times tend to drop after 12:30 and stay at their lowest for the day for a couple of hours. It's not as good as rope drop, but seems like the best alternative when you can't do EE.

 

[SquashBanana]

I'm going this week and am planning on heading over to hagrid after lunch. The wait times tend to drop after 12:30 and stay at their lowest for the day for a couple of hours. It's not as good as rope drop, but seems like the best alternative when you can't do EE.

I'm assuming Hagrids will be VL only each day of our visit. If that's the case, we are going to shoot for a VL spot around lunch.

 

[cfoxga]

We've been during Thanksgiving twice (Sat-Wed), and are going again this year (Sat-Sat). Our previous trips, the parks got more crowded as the week went on. The weekdays got crowded enough that we had 45+ minute waits for the EP line in the afternoon. I am expecting every day to be busy, so we'll head in to the parks early to try and minimize the crowds...