Which park is it most important to get to by opening time?

[Albertan mom]

With each park, how important is it to get there before opening?
I can see with MK you would want to be there by what, say 8:30 for a 9:00 opening?
Correct?

With the other parks, should you be there 1/2 hour before opening? Epcot even?
Or is it sufficient to get there right at opening time? Or will there be huge lineups?

Mostly wondering about Epcot, MGM, and the Waterparks.

thanks!

 

[HaleyB]

Waterparks I have never tried being there at opening, but don't see as much of a need for it.

Any park you want to ride the headliners without a long wait, you need to be there at opening and have a good plan in hand. The sponser of this board, www.tourguidemike.com is a wonderful source of information and you really will avoid lines if you use his touring advice.

 

[Zippa D Doodah]

I will second the TGM recommendation. I signed up with him for our upcoming trip. I notice that he has insights and reasoning about park recommendations for each day. His advice looks pretty well thought out. I guess Iwon't know for sure until after the trip, but I'm gonna cast my lot with his advice about what to do at which park for park opening,

[Note: I am not TGM, nor do I play him on TV ]

 

[hookedonthemagic]

I can't speak for the waterparks, but with Epcot, the big rush is TT, MS, and Soarin'. At MGM it's ToT and Rock N' Roller. I would base my decision off of the following:
1) Do you plan to ride those rides?
2) Are you willing to use FP?
3) Are the folks traveling with you early risers?

Now all that being said, I do believe in arriving at the parks by at least the time that they are opening. If you do that, you will not have any problems. Also, in addition to tour guide Mike, whom I'm sure is fine, the Unofficial Guide to WDW by Bob Sehlinger has my favorite touring plans. I use them every time. We never wait.

 

[susykt4]

Another vote for TourGuideMike! MGM is my family's least favorite park, so maybe I'm biased, but we got there a little over a half hour before opening and it was sooooo boring waiting to get in. Then EVERYONE goes to ToT or RNRC. If it's a big deal for your family to ride both multiple times, be there before opening. If not, many attractions don't have their first showing until 10. We only went on ToT and then wandered around for a while before other stuff opened.

I think it's important to hit Epcot maybe 15 minutes before opening since it's likely your group will want to do at least one of the headliners.

I also enjoy getting to Animal Kingdom early and being on an early safari. We've just had the best luck seeing lots of active animals first thing in the morning.

 

[Leota]

Even tho we aren't Commando Park Goers anymore, I do hit each of the Parks for Opening at least once a trip. Each one has advantages to being among the first to arrive. We can knock out all our favorites, both the E attractions and many smaller ones by lunchtime. We use this same strategy for Water Parks & are able to do all the slides at least once before noon. The only time we do waterparks is in the summer & they get packed by the time we leave.
We're early risers anyways. Unless we do Adventurer's Club the night before

 

[Threeriversdisneyfan]

If I recall most of people who went last year during your week (late Aug) were commenting on how dead it was. Disney is not going to give free dinning during crowded times, remember they extended it twice this year, and also offered discount codes right after that, during the value season. With alot of the southern states schools back in session, and what I said above, I can't see a crowded value season.

As for the opening rope drop thing, we never once made it. We had planned on it, but trying to get everyone up early was more of a pain. Family peace was more important than being the first ones in line. If we would have went during a more crowded season, we might have had to rethink our plan.

It all depends on your family, early risers or do they need sleep after an exhausting day @ WDW.

On thing that might help you is the time difference, if my geography is correct your 2 hours behind EST. SO the getting @ 8:30 AM might feel like 10:30 AM to you. Just by your body clock you might be WDW early risers.

 

[MScott1851]

I agree...we go every September, and only went before opening the first day of our first trip. Our only experience with WDW prior to that was in July or Spring Break. Plus the Disboards made it seem like if we didn't get there 1 hour before opening, we'd never ever get to ride anything. What a laugh! When we realized that NO ONE was at MK that morning, and NO ONE was in Epcot that afternoon, we slept in the rest of the trip.

We ended up strolling into the parks around 9:30 or 10 all week, and had plenty of time. Pretty much walked on everything. Plus, the last five years, there has been some kind of GREAT promotion in Aug/Sept. with discounted rooms/free dining etc, and there still aren't crowds!

 

[arielsleepingbeauty]

For us, we have small children DD 4 and 6. We always go to MK for our first full day. Right beforee the park opens the train arrives at the train station and characters come off the train and they sing and dance and it really gets us in the Disney spirit. We love that and wouldn't miss that. Then the characters sign autographs, but we bypass them and go straight to Fantasyland to ride on the rides. We make reservations for character meals so we don't have to worry about waiting in line for autographs or pics. Dumbo, Peter Pan and Pooh lines seem to be the longest so when we get there early we ride them a couple of times before the mad rush. Then if we want to ride them later, we get a FP.
But if you don't care about that, the only other place I would get there before opening is the water parks, especially during the busy season. There is always a rush to get chairs in desired spots.
My family is always up early. I don't like to miss a moment so we are always in line waiting when the park opens.

 

[disneyjulie]

There are alot of variables. What time of year you go. In september you can sleep in because it isn't crowded. But if you go during peak times you will want to get up early and get started. The best thing is to plan around the early openings for disney quests. If you are an early riser then get started early. We rode alot of the rides in the morning and were able to go back to our hotel and rest and change and go out again at night knowing we had seen alot

 

[SCOTTNJ]

Regardless of what time of year that you go, if you arrive early you will get a lot done in a short amount of time. To answer your question about arrival times, I'll break it down by parks that I visited early.

Magic Kingdom - We arrived at 8:30 and were already allowed to go through the bag check and the park turnstiles. We were then held in front of the park to view the grand opening ceremony. Disney characters arrive via the train. I'm guessing this occurred around 8:50. This ceremony only lasted a few minutes and we were allowed on Main St. You will then encounter the various rope dropes that are set up in all the lands. We waited at the rope drop to Tomorrowland, which occurred at 9am. Everyone then RAN to Space Mountain. It was kind of fun if you are into running.

EPCOT - We arrived at 8:30. The turnstiles did not open until about 8:45. The lady working the turnstiles said that once they receive the announcement to open the turnstiles, they are open. Times varies. You will then encounter rope drops on both sides of Future World. At exactly 9am the rope drop occurs. We were on the Soarin side. You then must follow Disney CM in a slow moving calvacade to the entrance of Soarin. They told us don't bother passing us because we are the ones that operate the ride.

Animal Kingdom - We ALWAYS book a 8am breakfast at Donald's with a 9am park opening. We love walking at our own pace in the morning prior to park opening. We eat our breakfast and usually have to wait a couple of minutes for the 9am park opening.

We did not arrive early at MGM.

On a side note, we ate at Chef Mickey's one morning (in July) around 7:20 in the morning. The place was completely empty. Because the place was so empty at that time, we had a lot of character interaction. For all of you early people, this breakfast was perfect at that time. By the time we left, the place was filled.

We also arrived about 8:45 to the waterparks. Those parks were already open for resort guests. We immediately were allowed to enter at Typhoon Lagoon but at Blizzard Beach we had to wait till 9 for the turnstiles to open. We had the place to ourselves for the first hour. If you are a resort guest, you could of had the place to yourself for two hours if you took advantage of the Early Mornings at the waterparks in the summer

 

[tomerin]

honestly on our earliest trips to WDW we did get to the parks at opening and it really was a waste of time for us for 2 reasons. 1) since my DW and DS#1 really arent thrill type ride fans getting to lets say epcot at opening where everyone rushes to the main attractions really is a waste of time for them. we go on while they wait. 2) i would rather they all get some extra sleep in the early am them have to deal with 2 cranky teens and a tired DW. i am the early morning person. strangely enough my DS#2 asked me if on our enxt trip that he and myself could get to the parks earlier so we could ride the main attractions so we could spend more time enjoying the rest of the\day together. i agreed and anything that can get my DW and DS#1 extra sleep they happily agreed to.

with the addition of EE to AK we may just get to AK at opening so we could head over to EE and get a FP and then head over to KS and ride it together and then Dinosaur and then it should be time for EE.

i do plan on my next trip to go to at least one park each day at opening by myself just to take as many photos as i can before the crowds arrive

 

[Albertan mom]

Lots of great advice, thank you!!

We do have a Crystal Palace ADR for 8:05, so that will get us into the park early.
We also have a Donalds Breakfast for 8:00, so that will get us into there early.

We do MGM on our very first day, so I don't know if we will be able to sleep in or not! I think we will be too excited to sleep!

The waterpark days, I heard if you want chairs, you need to be there early.
We are at BB on a tuesday, and TL on a thursday, so hoping it won't be crazy busy! There are 8 of us though, so that is alot of chairs!

Is it hot enough to waterslide at 9:00 am??? Really???? (asked by a Canadian!!)

 

[mickeyluv'r]

RE: swimming - Depends on the time of year. In the winter months, rarely, but sometimes Orlando gets frost warnings, so it might be too cold for even a Canadian, thoughI understand there are some of those polar bear club types who like that sort of thing. I suspect when the weather is that cold they don't open them up, but I could be wrong. In early December, we had one day that was warm, and another where it was really too cold for swimming, several that were in between, depending on your preferences, but really only warm enough to swim in the afternoon for a few hours. I don't know about you, but in late fall, I'm just not very interested in swimming.
March is usally pretty safe to have good swim weather every afternoon, but maybe not at 9am. April - early November is pretty much warm enough to hit the pools first thing.

To the OP, it depends a lot on when you go. If it's a peak time of year, then getting there near opening time is helpful. But don't fret too much if you're there 15 minutes after gate drop, or even an hour, you'll still have a great day. You can also take the opposite approach - sleeping in and staying to close every day. It's practically impossible to go from 8am until midnight or later EVERY day of your trip (though we've actually come close once or twice....but most people don't last that long.) If you're hitting evening EMH then you really don't NEED to be there very early.

I've also seen the crowds fluctuate considerably. I think more and more people are taking afternoon breaks, so afternoons can actually be less crowded. 10-11 am seems to still be a peak time for crowds. Last spring we were at AK, it was madhouse busy. WE were thinking of leaving. most of the fastpasses were gone by 2pm. WE saw the FLK show, and by the time it was done, the parks had largely cleared out. It was amazing. After that, there were no FP, but the lines weren't bad, so we stayed a little longer. I'll wait 15 minutes for rides. We went on a late safari, and it was the best one I've ever been on (so much for the early am strategy...) Every day that we tried to take an afternoon break, the pool at our resort was very crowded.

With Epcot, it totally dpends on your goal. If you're touring the WS, then getting there early doesn't matter. Epcot has plenty of room too. AK used to be not crowded, but with EE it is more so now.

 

[DisneyFreq]

MGM is a good one to get to early. They let ppl in about 15 min before official opening to wait at the rope drop. We always manage 2 trips on RnR and 1 on ToT in the first 30 min that way.....especially on early entry days. Then we can leisurely hit everything else in the park.

Its not NECESSARY to get to AK before opening but my family really enjoyed the Sunrise Ceremony that they preform just before official opening...and you have to be in the park near the tree of life to see it. It also allowed us to do EE three times in the first hour before moving on to everything else. (we left when wait times exceeded 20 min. and rode FRONT SEAT all three times.)

 

[MassMom94]

Is it hot enough to waterslide at 9:00 am??? Really???? (asked by a Canadian!!)

You are going to Central Florida in August - believe, me, it will be warm enough to waterslide at 9 AM!!

I definitely recommend an early start to the water parks. We did them both on our last trip (late August, same timing this year) and they got quite crowded later in the day. FWIW, I found TL more relaxing and a little less crazy busy. This trip we are planning on visiting TL but not BB. The wave pool at TL is not to be missed!

 

[Threeriversdisneyfan]

I have to agree with the one of the Prev Poster, MGM is a park to get to early. Just for the simple fact of the shows and their times. We got there at 11:30 am and noticed LMA and Beauty and the Beast had only two shows left. And the way Disney schedules them, you could only pick one. So the DW and DD did Beauty while Me and DS did LMA. If this only day to do MGM get there early, if you want to she all the shows. If you got a Dinner ADR and then want to see Fantasmic, you better see all the shows by 4 or 5 PM.

 

[Albertan mom]

You are going to Central Florida in August - believe, me, it will be warm enough to waterslide at 9 AM!!

I definitely recommend an early start to the water parks. We did them both on our last trip (late August, same timing this year) and they got quite crowded later in the day. FWIW, I found TL more relaxing and a little less crazy busy. This trip we are planning on visiting TL but not BB. The wave pool at TL is not to be missed!

Yes, we will be at BB August 29, and TL Aug 31.

Very excited about the waterslides!

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

Let's see, which ones are important.

10-30 minutes before opening is fine for the mk. The reason is the opening crowd will be well dispersed. Those with kids will be heading to FL and the rides that develop long lines but don't use fastpass. Those without will be headed to one of the two areas where the mountains are. And still others will go where they graze. We had to get wheelchairs and thus the opening crowds always ended up going by us in the process as they didn't open the wheelchair rental till opening or later. we still got to Dumbo with only a one cycle wait and got through FL pretty quickly.

EP's admission process took the longest when we were there. 20-50 minutes prior on that one. Especially with Soarin taking the brunt of the early crowds.

AK is also a 20-40 minute prior park. Everest and the safari take the early brunt there.

MGM is about a 10-30 minutes prior park as well.


But note that these times assume YOU have all ticket media in hand and ready to go. Don't show up 15 minutes early to MK still having to buy tickets.

 

[newholidayx2]

We put aside one morning for each park opening - then it doesnt matter the rest of vacation (we then do what we can do w/out worry)
We usually always get Crystal Palace 805 AR so we can be in the park early.
We tried a Donald's early AR from WL but the bus was very late!