I’m trying to figure out the best way to ride FOP. I’ve been checking the daily ride time list for weeks
The Touring Plans say to do this first, but when I look at the the park “ride now, wait to ride” list 30 minutes after opening it says “wait to ride”. It’s usually at 100 minutes.
Do we go there first like the touring plan says or do we wait like the daily time list says?
Yes you can’t wait until 30 minutes after opening.
You have to arrive at the park at least 1hr before posted open time; ropes have been dropping 30 minutes ahead of posted open and you’ll want to be at the front of that pack. If you do that your wait will be short and then you can still take advantage of low waits at other attractions in that first hour.
If you arrive at or after published open, you’re definitely going to have a wait time of 100 minutes or more. In that case you should wait to ride until the very end of the day, getting into the line just minutes before posted close time (so 6:55pm for a 7pm close). That will result in a lower wait closer to 75 minutes.
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You can see the previous (and all days’) wait times on the Touring Plans blog each day in the recap.
FoP wait times drop at the end of the day.
https://touringplans.com/animal-kingdom/wait-times/date/2021-07-24
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Look for the green dots, those are the actual waits. Everything else is predicted (TP) and posted. (WDW) 
These wait times make me wonder what you’re supposed to do from 10-4.
Snack and stay hydrated until everyone else leaves.
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We decided not to rope drop AK since it would mean getting on the bus at 6:30 am, slept in, and arrived around 11:15 am. (When we boarded the bus, people were coming back from AK!).
We did FOP last and waited 90 min (posted time 105), the longest I’ve ever waited for a ride at Disney (yes, I miss fastpass.). It is a largely indoor, air conditioned queue with a bathroom inside the queue. It’s interesting to look at too but we did break out heads up after 45 min. We still ended up coming back around 6 pm.
It was the best line situation we had all week but was still a long time.
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Yikes. 90 minutes would be terrible, especially for a ride based on a movie that my family will have to watch before the trip because we’ve entirely forgotten it.
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I’ve never even seen it. No interest.
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I know a place you can spend a couple of those hours. 
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We did the same thing. Even if we got on the bus at 6:30, we weren’t going to be able to keep pace with the rope dropping crowd with my parents and a scooter. We waited 90 minutes. They switched the posted 95 minute wait time to 120 minutes within minutes of joining the line.
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We all watched this year, first time for the kids (11 & 14 yo). They loved it, it’s a great movie.
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I only ever saw it because of Pandora. I watched it on repeat the weekend Pandora opened.
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I’ve caught bits of it, enough to know it’s not for me.
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Following up. Looking at actual recorded waits the past month, here is a good estimate of the time you enter the queue and the expected wait time with an 8am opening:
7:40 20 minutes
7:50 40
8:00 60
8:20 90
8:40 110
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Well I can understand that Disney was looking around for a well known IP involving fantastic beasts… and it’s not like they had a classic beloved and legendary collection of children’s tales handy…
y’know one that would involve a literal army of talking animals, fauns, a swashbuckling mouse, a talking lion, a witch turning people into stone, and 
maybe some type of large closet
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The Christian theme is too overt for them to do that.
I’d like it though.
Thank you
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Your welcome!
And just to be clear and repeat what was said before. If you decide to arrive early to beat the long wait, plan on getting to AK around 7:00 so you can be within the first group of rope droppers and be on and off in less than 30 minutes. If you decide that is too early for you and your party, you can enter right before park close but you will still have a 60+ minute wait unfortunately.
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