Help me sell rope drop for FOP to my husband

Staying off site
I have read enough on here to known it’s amazing
We will rope drop this and get there ridiculously early to queue during non park hours.
My husband will roll his eyes and probably do what I say as I am the planner but I need a post to show him with all your comments
Without giving too much away …those that have been lucky enough to ride it… particularly from rope drop. … sell it to my husband…a non theme park fan…to make it harder lol…
Over to you with thanks :slight_smile:

We usually stay off site. Okay, first, if you RD, you get GREAT parking! You’re within the first parking lot and can easily walk to the park… no trams, which means when you’re tired and ready to go home, just walk to your car… no waiting for trams.

There will always be lines in WDW, but the size of the lines increases as the day goes on. RD, get in a few high demand rides in the first hour and then do the mid-range rides, have lunch, do your afternoon fastpasses, while slowing down your pace, because, after all, you were up for RD and lines and crowds are worse in the afternoon. Do some shopping or tasting treats/drinks or find a long dark ride to relax in…

We usually go home for dinner and my DH is done by then, but once during a trip we’ll stay and have dinner somewhere in the World and take our time going home… to our own private pool and/or hot tub. But if you’re staying for fireworks, take it easy later in the day, either an afternoon break of some type or a relaxing dinner or a dessert party.

But seriously, people like to sleep in on their vacation, so there are the fewest people in WDW in the early mornings.

Also, since you’re off-site, avoid any park that has EMH in the morning, as your benefits of RD will be gone. The trick is to get there when the lines are forming, not after they’ve been formed for an hour.

If DH still need convincing, check out the ride wait time estimates and compare the morning hours to later in the day.

Bless you thanks
We will be getting up early most days to return to our villa 3/4ish most days. I then schedule to return to the park on another evening to ensure we get to see the fireworks or night time sites. There are no days when we arrive at rope drop and stay till the end.
This way we can relax in our pool after a long day and also balance Disney mania. …this is to keep the kids and husband happy. I would stay all day and night if I could lol

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HAPPY WIFE = HAPPY LIFE!!!

Just do it.

I have had the same “discussion” with my wife. I am an early morning person - she not so much.

Ultimately - why not go early. It is cooler and less crowded - which basically makes everyone just a bit happier.

To counter this - I suggest going late one day and shutting down the park. I LOVE WDW at night - it is just a lot more fun IMHO. My family as a whole though - doesn’t like to do that - so on occasion I am “the weird middle age guy all by himself”. I always want to have a sign that says “I’m really not alone - my family is just lame”.

Is line drop a life altering event - no. But hey give it a shot - it is only one day. Just one day and she will stop bugging you to do it.

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Pmsl happy wife. …

Maybe I am the weird middle age lady that really want’s to get there early also to avoid the heat and to experience something we will probably never experienced again …a work in progress
Thanks for the entertainment

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I will just guarantee him that the ride itself is worth the early start

He will wish he could do it again

I kind of feel everyone in the world should experience this ride at least once

I wish it could happen

It’s incredible

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Another idea would be to develop two touring plans for your days - one with RD and one without. Show him the results. I’m betting that you’ll see more and stand in fewer lines if you do RD. That said, people here have always commented that a good TP trumps all else.

I sold getting to AK an hour before RD by showing photos of the crowds before RD. Both EasyWDW and @JJT’s post (Trip Report: July/August 2017) helped. And then I said we need to be near the front of that crowd. I also shared wait times from touringplans that others submitted later in the day. (Hopefully I linked the forum post correctly.)

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Great I have read that report before but couldn’t find it anywhere so thank you x

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I told my parents to arrive at 7.45-8 to ride FOP. They didn’t listen, arrived at 8.30, and waited 3 hours. This meant they got very little done in the park that day. If they had arrived at 7.45, they would have been off FOP by 9.15 and able to take advantage of shorter lines elsewhere because everyone else was in line for FOP!

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I’m going to echo what missoverexcited said a bit.

If you are going to Rope Drop for FOP, you need to be there a minimum of an hour before opening on a none EMH day. and by be there I mean standing at the entrance 60 minutes before. On our last visit we had planned getting there at 8am to enjoy the other attractions at AK, we were late that day about 8:45 or so, we were walking back to KS and the line for FOP was stretched past Pizza Safari, ending before Creature Comforts.

Any chance you can get a fast pass? We got in line on a rainy day an hour before our 430 fast pass, because all were would be doing anyway is standing around pandora. The line posted said 80 minutes and we waited exactly an hour. Got off at about 430 and used our fast pass. Got to ride it twice. Felt SSOOO lucky.

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My DH really likes to see the value in Disney and make sure we are getting a good value for the huge price in tickets. Without FP for FoP, there are really 2 options: 1) arrive 90 min. before RD and spend 15 min. of park time riding and waiting. 2) Arrive whenever you like and spend 3 hours waiting in line. How would you prefer to spend your time during park hours?

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While the value for money is certainly important, that goes hand in hand with the value of our time itself.

While it is nice to sleep in a bit, I’d argue that “spending” some of my pre-park time to minimize how much park time I have to use for a ride is a good trade-off in this instance.

FoP is certainly on almost all of of our “must ride” lists, and while I would stand in line for it significantly longer than anything else in the parks, I would never knowingly wait anything like 3 hours for it (or anything else) - there are many other cool things I can do with that time.

So, for me I’d feel like I was insuring the value of my ticket price by getting there for RD and avoiding the 3 hour wait. If I could not do that for whatever reason, I’d plan to do other things in the park and look for a FPP at the 10:37AM and 3:37PM drops. If I didn’t get those, then as painful as it might be to miss it, I’d move on and just do the other things.

(BTW: My DD11 just read that over my shoulder and said to say she WOULD wait 3 hours.
However I would add she doesn’t have any idea what a 3 hour wait feels like. ;))

For the record, we all absolutely loved the ride. From the super positive reports I knew we’d want to ride it more than once, so I spent a lot of time trying to score FPPs beforehand, was eventually successful and still did the crazy RD to be able to ride twice.

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Thank you JJT this was just what I needed to read…or what i would like my husband to read lol

Thank I was just about to post this exact same post. My husband read these, and is still not convinced. We plan to have a pretty late night the night before our AK non EMH day. We have a FP for EE 9:10-10:10. Touring Plans says go to FoP after our Tusker House reservation at 10:45 am at 11:30 and have a 71 min wait. I would rather wait 90 min than have to get up at 5:30 to get to AK by 7am. We are staying at AoA. Do I really need to allow 90 min travel time like they say?

what are the 1037 337 drops???

I haven’t heard anyone mention them in the last week or so, so needs some checking to see if it is still happening, but: Disney was releasing batches of FoP FPP each day for later that day.

They were being released at those 10:37AM and 3:37PM times, and reports were they’d last in MDE for anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour before were all snatched up.