We’re booked for 7 days in late August, staying at the Swan. I’m thinking at least 2 days we’ll go to HS in the morning and hop to EP later. I found data on what time boarding groups get called, but as I work on our touring plans for EP, I’m wondering what time we could expect to hop? (best case 2pm…but assuming we get a BG in the 7am lottery, what’s worst case?) How many boarding groups are in the 7am lottery? For the 2pm lottery, what time do those BGs start getting called?
To be clear:
You have to have a park reservation for HS to make a Boarding Group at 7 am
To hop to another park you have to go to the park you have a reservation for first or you cannot visit another park. (ETA: so in this case you would need an HS reservation to make a BG at 0700, and you would need to go to HS before you can visit another park)
I’m unclear as to whether you intend to make a BG at 0700 and visit another park, planning to hop to HS when your BG is called, but you can’t do it that way.
Also, the second BG opportunity is 1pm, not 2pm and you have to be in HS at that time to be able to make a BG so it still won’t work for you to hop TO HS from another park.
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I understand what she’s asking, but I don’t have an answer.
She is wondering if she gets a BG at the 7am drop, what is the latest that it might be called? She doesn’t want to cool her heels in HS waiting for her boarding group to be called. So, if at 7am she gets a BG and it isn’t called until 4pm she’ll be unhappy because it will have kept her from hopping.
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There is no guarantee what time the 7am BGs get called. It can be that they are still being called at 5pm, as was the case for a friend recently. She got the BG from her room, lazed around, got going about noon and pretty much killed time at DHS until she was called. The ride had gone down for about 2 hours mid morning.
Obviously if there are still a lot of BGs left to be called by 1pm they won’t release as many BGs then.
So planning to park hop after riding Rise may be problematic. I guess it depends which is more important. If you’ve never ridden Rise you might want to hang about. If you’ve ridden it before you might decide to skip it and hop to Epcot.
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Also, even if they allowed people to hop to DHS earlier the 1pm drop is currently only for those with a park reservation for DHS. That could change but frankly I don’t see it changing whilst park reservations are still needed.
Thanks. We have park reservations for HS and PH+ tickets. Planning to hang at HS until our BG is called, then hop to EP after that. Creating a plan(s) for EP and was wondering what’s at least a “typical” worst case scenario of when we would arrive at EP. Are the 7am lottery BGs typically called by 2pm, 4pm? Sounds like maybe there is no typical though.
Could they hop to another park and then hop back to HS just for ROTR, and then hop back to EP. I know that’s a lot of hopping, but is it possible?
I do not know if it has been confirmed but it has been reported that once you hop, you lose your APR priority. Hopping has never been blocked at any park but HS is the one park people seem concerned.
An interesting idea, but I don’t think we would do that. I think I will make a couple EP plans for various arrival times, and if BG is too late we will stay at HS and hopefully get through everything and then change our other APR to EP instead of hopping the second day. My contingency plans need contingency plans! LOL!
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Naturally! 
I was wondering this too. Like, if I get a BG at 7 am, is it likely to be called before a certain time, say 3pm? I guess no way to know and they just adjust the 1pm drop according to how the ride has gone that day.
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To answer the question directly, I think Disney’s goal is for all morning BGs to be called by maybe 2 or 3pm. But that isn’t always the case, so you should plan to be available till 4pm or even later if things go poorly (assuming RotR is your #1 priority for the day). Or be prepared to let your BG expire unused.
That said, if you DO get a 7am BG, there is a good chance it will be called by 12-1pm. The majority of them should be. And if you follow all of @bebe80’s instructions you should have a pretty good chance of getting a low number. No guarantee, however.
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Ok - so what about the opposite question? We’d prefer to have an evening BG. Should we wait until the 1pm drop to try to snag one?
And, I assume I can be out of the park at 1, as long as I’d been there earlier in the day?
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I think you have to be in the park for the 1pm drop, like you did before.
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Yes to get an evening BG you have to wait until the 1pm drop. BUT you have to start your day at HS and be in the park at 1pm for the drop. You could wait to arrive until close to 1pm but you obviously couldn’t hop before then.
Personally, if you are set on riding in the evening and don’t want to arrive till later, I would try for the 7am drop and then beg for forgiveness when you arrive in the evening if your window is past. There is no guarantee they will let you in, but there have been some reports of success when trying this. Especially if the ride happens to break down during your official return window. But breakdowns are less frequent these days so don’t bank on that.
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Since you have to be in the park by 1pm to get a later BG anyway, then there seems few reasons to want a later BG really.
We don’t know if you leave DHS you can get back in unless you just take a resort break.
If you park hop and then try to return to DHS you may find you can’t get back in to ride it.
Which leaves little benefit in having a later BG.
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Yep - that was my plan. A couple of hours in the morning, then a trip to DS for a few hours for lunch. Our reservation is at 12:30, so we definitely wouldn’t be in the park for the 1:00 drop. My son has a Savi’s reservation in the late afternoon, so it would be ideal to also ride RotR in the late afternoon.
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I’ve been wondering about ADRs on HS days. Thinking we’ll just avoid them and eat quick service since there’s no way to know what BG we might get. #firstworldproblems
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Well in that case, if you get an earlier BG than would work, the thing to do is go to Guest Relations in DHS and ask them if they can give you a later time.
If you have an ADR that clashes they have been good at accomodating people. So you could explain you have an ADR at Disney Springs and need to rest afterwards. I’m sure they will oblige.
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See my response above.
If you have an ADR then Guest Services / Relations will help you. No need to worry about clashes.
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