All I have read about racers says you must go there first, at Rope Drop…but the Plan that touringplans.com generates says to go after I complete several other things.
I'm really reticent to put it off for an hour and then find a huge line.
Anyone care to comment on why the plan would put RSR fourth or fifth in my list?
I would say 90-95% of the crowd goes exactly to RSR at rope drop which unless you are gung ho to race for first place to the line, puts you in an instant 20-30 min line when you could either A) Get a FP for it or B) Use the Single Rider line feature and instead head to other attractions, like Toy Story Midway Mania that don’t have a FP and will build a line that will stay steady all day.
At rope drop we almost always do Toy Story Midway Mania (TSMM) first. Depending on what park we plan to be in for the evening, we’ll have a runner grab RSR FPs that will be good for before noon while the rest head to TSMM (this is if we’ll be in DL that evening).
If we plan to be in DCA at nighttime, we’ll head straight to TSMM. Do it first, enjoy anything else back on the pier that we might want to do (Fun Wheel usually, sometimes carousel, if we had kids tall enough for Cali Screamin we would do that then too). After the pier, we’ll then take a look at what the RSR FPs time is to time it for a nighttime ride on RSR which is a totally awesome and worthwhile experience.
Here’s what we did today, as an example. It was EE but we were late, like 15 mins before RD. So we got straight in the RSR FP line; we were a few parties back, so 9:40 FP return. Then to TSMM where the wait was still 10 mins (yay!). By the time we were out, TSMM was 30 so we went back to RSR FP and scored 1:35pm FPs after a short wait. Then used first RSR FPs, then over to DL for ST FP, rinse, repeat.
It basically recommends to do RSR with a FP. At RD with no EE the “Gabe” (named after a fellow liner) is recommended, which is: TSMM 2X, Screamin’ 2X, Fun Wheel, then RSR FP. After that follow your TP.