So the original (best laid) plan was to rope drop and do fast passes in the morning and then take an afternoon break each day. That way we would have energy for evening rides and fireworks, and get out of the midday sun.
Buuuut,
On our DHS and AK days, I was able to snag SDD and FOP FPPs. Unfortunately, they are right in the middle of our break time (3ish to 4ish).
We definitely want to do both of these rides, and they are the two that I was dreading the most when it came to rope drop. Experienced parents, would it be better to try to rope drop these rides and then modify fast pass to something else, or better to stick out the afternoon and maybe miss fireworks?
I have a feeling I’ll have to play it by ear and DS8’s endurance, but I’d like to hear opinions.
It depends on how big a deal fireworks is to your family. Our family has always used the time during fireworks to ride attractions. We don’t do parades either accept when the kids were young and couldn’t ride many rides. If your heart is set on RDs, I’d use that early morning times for other attractions, use your FPPs for SDD and FOP, and then play if by ear on whether to stay for fireworks because some 8 year olds can hang out to quite late and others can’t depending on the day and the weather.
Wher are you staying? How long do you have at WDW?
Suggestions, depending on answers to above:
Take a break earlier, say 11am, come back around 2pm
Make one of the days a late start, swim first, book FPs for later and skip rope drop
Plan for all day, schedule a TS meal for the middle of the day, plus shows for later afternoon (and directly after lunch for a longer break). At DHS you have Indy, BatB, Frozen, Mermaid to choose from. At AK you have Nemo and Lion King.
Absolutely do not rope drop them. Change plans for those days and be there for the fast passes. I don’t know if you’re there at a busy time but going by the liner chat this last month many of us have been having really horrible RD experiences if you’re going for the major rides, not worth it in any way.
We moved to only RDing the secondary rides which are all lovely and empty while the maddening crowd rush off to SDD, FoP and SDMT. It worked wonderfully.
From what I’ve read, I would not drop those FPPs–I would plan those days around them. And it will depend on your son, but the earlier suggestions of sleeping in a little or planning an earlier break or TS during lunch for a little pause in the day are great ideas for making those 3-4pm time frames work. I understand your concern, though–my kids (and me!) count on that afternoon break…but I think you would really regret giving up your FPs, especially if RD is a nightmare or you end up not able to ride those awesome rides. I missed out on FOP last trip and my older kids waited over 90 minutes to ride it, so for me personally, if I had a FP for FOP, I wouldn’t want to give up a guaranteed ride!
I agree with @apronstring25 and others. I would work around the FPPs available. I think either option RD til afternoon FPP & call it a day OR afternoon start til Fireworks will work equally well for you. You might be able to push through longer than you think as well but I think it’s good to start with a plan that you know will be doable and play it by ear from there. Are these days back to back? If not, I probably wouldn’t worry as much about pushing it.
How about getting one as late in the day as possible - so you can get a break and then come back and enjoy the evening? Has anyone done that. I was thinking of that strategy. Instead of snagging a mid-day - trying to get end of the day.
I’m alternating all different strategies for each day
-Both of my MK days have big breaks in the middle because fireworks at MK are important. MK days will be rope drop, big break, stay later in the evening.
-AK day: sleep in, arrive around 10 AM, leave the park around 6 or 7 PM. Fast passes were important for AK so we let those guide us.
-HS day: super early morning, leave the park by 4:00
Look at what days you really want to see the fireworks or show and assume you’ll be out later that evening. The next morning, “sleep in” a little if you can. FOP and SDD are also important to us, so we aren’t taking a break those day, but we are arriving late OR leaving early that day.
These are some great ideas! Thanks everyone. Everything I’ve read made the idea of rope dropping those rides sound miserable, so I was wondering how to handle it.
There is a part of me that wants to move our other fast passes to the evenings and just make a later day out of it, but the Scrooge McDuck in my heart hates giving up the emh.
We’re staying at Pop, and we have park hoppers, so we can be flexible about it.
Success story: the day we would have had to rope drop FOP it shut down. We had decided the night before not to RD. lucky us! whew! Then we ended up with FOP at the same day drop time.
I was hoping to park hop to a different park in the evenings to avoid the worst of the EMH crowds, so we were watching night shows at a different park we started in.
Maybe for our HS day we can take an earlier break, come back for our FP, then take a boat ride to finish the day at Epcot.
That would be harder for AK though, since it is farther away. Maybe we’ll get lucky with same day FP drops.
Was there a sticky somewhere for FP drop times? I seem to remember reading it somewhere…
We didn’t see any night time shows at either HS or AK. So it really depends on what you want to accomplish. MK was the only park where we were able to take a break around 2:00 and then head back to the park around 6:00 for night-time activities. The other parks we pushed through the day until we got everything done that we wanted to get done, but didn’t stay for night time entertainment. It also depends where you are staying. I would probably keep those late afternoon FP’s and skip the night shows. Rope dropping those rides will still be 60+ minute wait.
We love us some fireworks and late night spectaculars so if it were us, I’d keep the FP’s and use FP4Me.com or the same day drops to get them to a better time slot. I’d also ask at the resort concierge. Sometimes they can help. If I didn’t get a better FP, I’d sleep in a little and then roll to the park after an early morning swim, then stay through closing.
With both of those, you can RD secondary attractions, enjoy the park, and then take advantage of down time at Deluxe Resorts. On your AK day, you can take a bus to AKL, explore - there are many places for downtime and a nap. On your HS days, take a boat to Yacht/Beach/Boardwalk/Swan/Dolphin and again, explore a little, get a snack and a nap spot. Then head back in time for those ADR’s (try to move them even later!) and enjoy your evening.