First post, and new to Touring Plans! I’m developing a HS tour plan and had some questions. We haven’t been to HS for several years and trying my best to create a plan through the site tools.
Cast: Family of 5, can ride everything.
Staying on site at Port Orleans Riverside
Will have G+ and will purchase ILL for Rise.
Sunday, Nov 20th (holiday level crowds)
Hours: 8:30-9:00 (Early entry 8:00)
-Rope drop wait times seem incredibly high when trying to make a tour plan and it’s really throwing a wrench into the day. Reading through the forums it seems the work around is to estimate your wait/ride time and create a “break” during that window, then let things flow from there. Or is there something else I should be doing?
For example it’s listing a 52 minute wait at Tower of Terror. That sounds crazy high, and recent datapoints/videos show that area is empty at park open. Right now I’m allowing 30 minutes total (wait and ride time), which would put us at RnR at 8:30. Reasonable or no?
-Consensus seems to recommend arriving a full hour ahead of early entry which would mean 7:00am. Which we can do, but would require Uber/Lyft. Any problem getting a ride that early in the morning from POR?
-That said, our rope drop plan is to head to Tower of Terror, RnR, then Runaway Railway. Considering most of the crowd will head towards Galaxy’s Edge or Slinky, seems like getting there at 7:00am would be overkill if we’re headed that direction. If we took Disney buses, we’d be leaving he resort at 7:00am. Would that still allow for a walk on wait at ToT or no?
The tour plan never assumes you are willing to commit to rope drop, so assumes you are near the back of the pack, which then makes sense with the times. So yes, I’d add a dummy step, and then optimise after the first couple of steps.
If you are onsite, the first buses run in time to get you there for EE. so typically 90 mins before that, but allow extra in case there are early. 
If you don’t want to rope drop, I’d look at the wait times on the touring plans website for a similar crowd level day, as this will give you the best idea of actual waits.
The other piece of advice for HS seems to be to have a plan B and C - the big attractions can be slow to open first thing, which can push crowds in unexpected ways.
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Welcome!!!
This is correct. It helps if you select a location for the break that is nearest to your starting point, but if that’s not possible a general break will work better than the default wait times at rope drop.
If you’re going directly there and it’s operating normally at open that should be quite sufficient.
You should not have a problem with Uber/Lyft for an 0700 arrival
You should still be okay to have a minimal wait
Once again welcome!
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Thanks to you both for your great replies!
Seems like by the time waits are posted on the tip board we’d already be at the first attraction. Or is there some other way to find out if the ride is closed? Just for giggles I went back and looked at the last three weeks… RnR was open at the beginning of early entry 71% of the time, with SDD 85% of the time. ToT and MMRR fell between those numbers. For whatever reason though the delayed starts were between Nov 3rd to 7th. Must have had the B teams working that day!
Oh we rope drop. We’ve been one of the first few rides on Flight of Passage! 
To clarify, the buses start running 90 minutes before standard opening or early entry? Meaning for an 8:00am EE, we can expect a pick up at 6:30 or 7:00?
Sad thing in my experience is that I’ve had a plan similar to yours, but first thing in the AM, I have never found TOT & RNRC to ever be up working at the same time. Just be prepared for that running back & forth across the park. It can still be done, but never in the order you expect.
Yeah it feels like a catch-22. If you go to Slinky first, you’re in the middle of a mad rush. And if ToT and RnR open on time, you’ll have long waits for both. But if you go straight to RnR and ToT first and one or both is down, then you have to recalibrate, and quickly. I’m banking on the fact that MMRR isn’t that far away.
We were just there at the end of October. Got to HS right around 30 mins before EE (people were already in lines for the rides, not held anywhere). We went straight to ToT - they announced a “delayed” opening. We got in line anyways - waited about 15 minutes before the line started moving, but then basically walked on. Then immediately went to RnR…which was still a walk on (like we didn’t even have to watch the pre-show walk-on!). I think as long as you don’t run into major delay you will be fine and can knock both out very quickly!
Also, just wanted to say that on the Uber app you can now “reserve” a ride ahead of time (I think from 30 mins ahead to like 30 days!). We had to leave for the airport at 5am and I was worried it would be tough to get one that early, but I saw on the app you could schedule so I did it and was “confirmed” the day before which helped alleviate my anxiety for sure!