Where do the crowds flock to after rope drop?

[Rash]

So it sounds like a good strategy is to fast pass the most popular attractions in the afternoon, do the medium popular ones at rope drop, and fill in gaps of time with the less popular ones?

Except you might want to do Safari in AK early (FP+ or RD) since the animals tend to be more active in the morning before it gets too hot.

 

[Disneylovers2000]

If you are staying onsite and plan on doing early EMH at MK, be aware that Frontierland and Adventureland are NOT open during early EMH. We were just at WDW for spring break/Easter. We did Fantasyland for one EMH rope drop and knocked out almost everything there with little to no waits. On our second MK day, we did EMH rope drop in Tomorrowland and it was MUCH emptier. We rode Space Mountain 3 times in a row and knocked out most of tomorrowland before the park even opened! We didn't use any FP for Tomorrowland as we were committed to doing rope drop in Tomorrowland. It worked out well.

For AK, we arrived shortly after 7am rope drop and walked onto the Safari, then headed over to Everest (20min wait), then knocked out the Dino area.

It was so worth getting up early! Evening EMH's were always very crowded.

Now this is the kind of morning I would love to have!! Great job skuttle!!!

 

[atilley01]

If you do the most popular at RD & then have fast passes for later you can be sure to ride them twice.

During Easter week we did RD 3 times at MK for EMH. 7 am start. We did A&E one day. 3 rd on line and 7Dwarfs the other two. We were in the first car of the day both times. Did Space Mt, Peter Pan, Buzz then got ready for the second rope drop at 8 when the rest of the park opened. First car of day for Thunder, the Haunted and Pirates. No wait for any.

Enjoy your trip!

We're staying offsite and plan to stay far away from any park with EMH that day. Do you think this would still work for a regular 9:00am RD?

 

[Sargeant Tibbs]

This is interesting, because we DID book a FP for Peter Pan on ONE of our MK days, and we went straight to the mountains at rope drop. Rode BTMRR twice with no wait, then Splash. It was a ghost town over there!

The below will show you why people use their FP on Peter Pan - the lines build to "unbearable" FAST.

http://www.easywdw.com/reports13/mk32715.jpg

With the exception of SDMT and A&E, all lines are "short first thing at RD". It's just a matter of what your priorities are.

In MK, there are any number of ways to go. It's much more clear cut in, say, Epcot. We USED to always start off at Fantasyland, but my daughter is 13 now, and doesn't want to ride many of those attractions anymore (Pooh and the Carousel come to mind) - at least they're not a priority anymore.

PP has always been the first ride we hit nearly every trip, since I was little (I'm 33 now), and that's a lot of trips...we went from yearly visits, to DVC back in the mid late 90's (Disney Institute, anyone!?), to my folks being AP, and now they work there. We've experimented with other touring plans and depending what we want out of the day we will sometimes switch it up.

PP is always a walk on or very short wait first thing at RD, no matter what time of year. The only reason I recommend fantasyland first is as mentioned in my pp, the rides themselves are so short that you can get far more attractions done with short waits there than in any other part of the park. The average ride time is about 3 - 4 minutes in Fantasyland. Splash, Pirates, JC, are all substantially longer, more like 10 - 12 minutes. Just the math alone would prove the RD odds are better in fantasyland. If, as a tourist, your goal is to hit as many attractions as possible in a given day at the MK, I do think that RD fantasyland is the way to go. You're right though, lots of ways to tour.