My best friend and I are going to WDW in May of 2019. We have an 8 day park hopper ticket and were wondering if it was worth it to rope drop every morning (except 1 for a breakfast reservation at 'Ohana) or if we should sleep in and just do fast passes for shorter wait times most of the days. It is my fourth trip but her first trip.
I keep going back and forth and want to make a plan for fast passes and dining reservations. Suggestions? Experience stories? Anything is appreciated.
Thanks!
Definitely rope drop most mornings. Or you can do pre-park opening breakfasts that will give you a head-start on the rope droppers. My favorite PPO breakfast is at Be Our Guest in Magic Kingdom. Just last week we did a PPO breakfast at Garden Grill (Epcot). The breakfast was good, and we walked onto Soaring before the park even opened. If you are planning on doing fireworks or the later shows at night, you might want to plan a later morning on the day following.
Good suggestions! We were planning on doing a PPO Garden Grill for one of our breakfasts, but we are doing a BOG dinner reservation a different night. I was trying to figure out if it would be less exhausting doing RD and taking a break in the middle of the day (naps if needed) and heading back in the evening or just sleeping in some mornings and fighting the crowds those days. We are doing that 'Ohana breakfast the morning after we do an absolutely packed Universal Studios Orlando day because we will only be at U Studios one day for both parks.
If it was me, I would ask my friend if she would be OK with getting up early enough to rope drop every day! There’s no point in making plans that involve rope dropping if she’ll get fed up and rebel, it’ll make for a very stressful time.
We never rope drop, and just book FPs starting around an hour after park opening. Go with whatever suits your friend. It’s meant to be a vacation.
** @Nicky_S … We did several rope drops years ago and were able to talk to Cast Members during the wait and learned some interesting things about the park. HOWEVER we did one last year and were mauled and run over by the throngs behind us doing what ever it took to get ahead the group. No more rope drops for us. I’d rather get in less attractions then go through that again!
That’s good to know, too. The last time I went, there wasn’t anything new that had just opened so I feel like the masses weren’t as crazy as they are now for like Pandora and Toy Story Land.
I only rope drop a few days during the trip. I feel like I still get what I want accomplished. I’d rather sleep in and feel rested and my family thanks me for it.
We like to RD each park one day per trip. Usually do 8 days of parks. That way, we can do a lot in the morning, have our FPP, do lesser rides in the afternoon, have dinner and then head back to resort and leave 2nd day for repeats or stuff we miss with a later start. RD is the best --even though we were nearly trampled (a party of all adults) making it to SDD last week!!!
We had PPO breakfasts 6 out of 7 mornings on our trip in June. Didn’t realize one of the MK mornings was also EMM, and they let the breakfast group and the EMM group in at the same time. Even though the crowd was nothing compared to rope drop, I was still run over by a crazed dad with a stroller!
