Who sleeps in instead of doing Rope Drop?

[SallySkelington]

I have yet to make rope drop. Vacation = Sleep.

 

[JoeA]

What is this mythical "rope drop" you speak of? We usually get to the gate around 10:00 and have never witnessed it so it can't be real!

I guess we'd rather have a little sleep and chill in the mornings. And coming from the mountain zone...the time change doesn't feel particularly "magical"!, especially the first few days.

 

[Team Bunch]

I am planning to do 1 rope drop at mk and at ak. If we wake up in time to do rope drop the other days we will do it but I don't think it's worth sleep deprived kids. Last time we went we tried to do rope drop every day and forced naps every day, did not work!

 

[MataHari22]

I am a night owl, and I would totally skip doing rope drop of I didn't travel with a morning person. I would sleep in and close the parks instead. That is what I like about FP+, if you want to go late, you still have those 3 FP. The way I do it now, is I rope drop some days, and sleep in others. I try and alternate so a late night doesn't come up against a very early morning, though sometimes that has happened.

 

[klo1335]

Unfortunately, my children do not understand what "sleeping in" is. 6am is a normal wake up time in our house. Even if they stay up super late. They are just programed to waked up. Drives me nuts...but works well at WDW.

 

[Mainemama]

Sounds like you have a balanced plan. One other tip to avoid family exhaustion... Rest day! I picked this up from the DIS. After two years of hitting parks and reaching meltdowns on day 3, we had a rest day (day 3, or mid trip) and found it was actually our favorite day! Now we will always repeat! We sleep in, do a fun ADR outside of the parks, swim if it is warm enough, fish or do something else low key if it is not. Some or all of our family hit Epcot around 6-7 just to walk shop, maybe eat. But no rides, no rush. It perks us back up for the second half of the trip.

 

[Jeannie in NJ]

We have never done rope drop but we close the parks every night. Dh likes to sleep in, he never makes it anywhere for breakfast but dd and I like to be at the parks by 10.30or 11 so now we just go ourselves and dh meets us later. Last time when we stayed club level, every single morning dd and I would make up a tray of breakfast food from the club and leave it in the room for dh, before dd and I would leave for the parks or dh would had not had any breakfast.

 

[lborne]

With or without kids, we get there at RD and then plan to go back to the room mid-day for a nap - (or extra magic hours when its just the wife and I). You can do so much those first few hours with little wait times. On days when it is not busy, the park can almost seem eerily empty. Then around 2, we leave and avoid the hottest part of the day and return around 5.

 

[GaSleepingBeautyFan]

I used to do rope drop when all of the parks had opening shows.

When the family was there with me, we never made a rope drop except for once to make the TSMM stampede when it was first opened.

Now that most of the parks don't have opening shows and I go solo most of the time, I seldom make rope drop. Usually I arrive by 10am though. I've found if I start my FP+ at 10:30am, I don't feel rushed and have a better day because of it.
I did make rope drop at MK on my trip 2 weeks ago - I was so proud of myself for getting up early enough to see it.

 

[gunderda]

If I didn't have a 8:15 ADR for BOG I would really care less about rope drop. I am NOT a morning person so I'm hoping that's the only morning I have to get up ridiculously early lol

 

[jesusluvsu2005]

We've never made rope drop and are still exhausted at the end! LOL We always say, we need a vacation from our vacation!

 

[joannamet]

Exhaustion takes some of the fun out of a vacation. We get out early but if we miss rope drop we don't sweat it. And on longer trips we ALWAYS have a resort day when we sleep in and stay out of the crowds.

 

[Nancyg56]

We used to miss Rope Drop a lot when my DGD was little because she was a night owl. Now we mix it up, get to RD when it makes sense to us, and skip it if we have a late night planned. I do not like to go home exhausted, and won't do that to my family either, it just is not fun for us.

 

[Ava]

Last year I had a few too many early mornings planned at the beginning of the trip (8:00 ADRs or rope drops) and no rest day in the middle, and we were all really tired by the end of the week. This year we're taking a slightly longer trip, so I'm able to plan a sleep-in day after the late nights. On day 3 we're just going to hang out at the resort and then go to the early show of HDDR, and on day 6 we'll sleep in then go to Blizzard Beach for a few hours. I also don't plan to be in a park for more than 3 or 4 hours at a time - rope drop, tour through lunch time, nap/swim at the hotel, then back to a park for the evening. We'll have less park time, but I think everyone will be happier especially since we're going at the end of August when it's very hot.

 

[Ladyfish77]

I'm a RD kind of gal. DH is an "I'm on vacation" kind of guy. Kids were flexible when younger. I had to take deep cleansing breaths to not get irritated that DH was being so slow. We've made RD a time or two, but not often. Now that kids are grown, I figure I'm going to find someone or no one and just go when I want and meet up with everyone when they show up!

 

[eliza61]

We tried rope drop the first few years we started going and the results were disastrous. My kids have never liked getting up early at the world and usually by 1pm the entire family was tired and cranky.
I laugh when people say "you can sleep in at home". WHEN??? when we are at home, I am up 5 days a week at 4:15 am to be at work by 6 am. then on Saturday I'm up early doing chores and Sunday it's usually for church. vacation is the only time we can sleep in

7 am is the absolute earliest anyone would dare wake me up.

 

[Quellman]

My version of rope drop includes me sitting on the Balcony at BLT and watching 'Disney Wake Up' in the morning. I'll get to the parks whenever. With FP+ we can schedule the few musts. It isn't like we won't be back. Of course we don't travel during Summer or over Christmas.

 

[nat8199]

Ha ha ha... sleeping in. I haven't slept in since my daughter was born 5.5 years ago. I am lucky my kids now sleep until 6am. I cannot wait for the day that I would even have the option of considering sleeping in instead of going to RD. By 9 am at home (and Disney) my kids will have eaten breakfast twice.

 

[avic77]

Coming from the Central time zone, when it was 4 of us in standard hotel room, to make RD we would have to get up earlier (body time) than we did at home, and it wasn't worth it to us. After we bought DVC and kids got older and could get themselves ready we often arrived at RD or shortly thereafter. Now that it's just DH and me, we often get up early enough, but we don't rush - we'd rather sit on the balcony and drink our coffee slowly. That's why we like FP+ - we can be sure that we'll ride our favorites, and all else is lagniappe!

I think you may be from my area since you used lagniappe

 

[DaniMoon]

Three of us are early risers and my poor son is not. He's also not a night owl. If he's not in bed before 10, the next day isn't pretty no matter how late he sleeps. So we make him get up for RD and we make sure we are back in the room for him to go to bed around 9-9:30. We did two later nights last trip spread out and it was fine. Hoping to at least get Fantasmic in this time, we are going in November, so it should be early enough.

The best advice is to know what works for your family and make that work for the trip.