Is rope drop dead as a strategy if you do Universal AND Disney thanks to G+

Travelling from UK for two and three week vacation with tickets for Uni and Disney that overlap

So a typical days plan for us would be rope drop disney park, take a mid day break then go back in until close. Id have got three FP+ lined up for 9-10,10-11,11-12 and then basically be able to use FP most of the morning. Evening would be more relaxed with a couple FP via keep refreshing and a ride before closing.

OR on other days we would be at universal all day.

I now think that rope dropping at Disney will not be best choice, instead I plan to rope drop Universal every day and then start buiding up G+ for a disney park before taking a break and then hitting say HS at 3pm with all my G+ lined up.

Any thoughts?

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It wouldn’t be my choice but I guess it will work based on the HS testing. I don’t think I’d do it for the other parks. But I probably wouldn’t buy Genie for the other parks and I’m not convinced I’ll buy it for HS either.

Where are you staying?

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Hilton Grand Vacations Seaworld,

so not on property this holiday so already a bit behind in terms of RD but planning to purchase ILL for a couple headliners(RotR, Remy).
It just feels like in future staying at a Uni hotel instead to get Fastpass there all morning then stack G+ at Disney for afternoon visits seems optimal.

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I think if you’re going to get G+ you aren’t really at much of a disadvantage vs on-site guests. Yes you miss out on the 30 minute early entry, but I think churning G+s from park open on will be better than stacking. The only exception might be HS because of the fairly limited attractions and the fact most are headliners with considerable waits starting not long after park open.

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Im kind of wavering but I think during busy holiday periods your better off arriving late.
Lets say at 9am I go to book my ILL odds are that going to be in the afternoon, i can then line up G+ around that for when we arrive at that park.

We may be unusual in that we will spend our time roughly 50/50 between universal and Disney so it seems to make sense to RD Universal resorts and then arrive at Disney with Multiple G+ and ILL all lined up?

also Im going to find it easier to get the headline G+ rides for later times(I assume)

I think the fact your trip is so long you’ll be able to accomplish everything regardless of the method you choose. You can always pivot away from stacking if it doesn’t work out the first few days.

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When you have a park res for EC you can try to get a BG for Remy at 0700 from anywhere and again at 1:00 once inside the park. I would do that instead of buying for Remy. BGs also give you more flexibility for a return time if you happen to miss the one that pops up b/c of an ADR etc.

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Ah yes good point thanks!

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Thats true and im not ‘worried’ am just a bt of a planner and much like sat nav removed all of our car journey arguments( we just do what it says)
going to Orlando with a well discussed plan we then ‘just follow’ makes the holiday super relaxing and low stress for us.

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You’re a planner? Never heard of them.

Aside from the expense the worst part about G+ is the lack of ability to plan. I like structure. I do not like the stress of we’ll see what’s available when we get there.

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and I would totally buy ILL for RotR if the lines were consistently too long. The ride is a 20+ min experience and worth it, but I’d have trouble justifying the extra cost for anything else. I know TP ran some ‘experiments’ and a TP really works. I agree w/ @missoverexcited about picking a park, your favorite, to purchase Genie+; HS or/and MK would be most likely. At DL we would only buy MP if the park was really crowded. It’s fairly easy to watch wait times and jump into a line when one is low or reasonable. And w/ your length of vacation you’ll have more days to play the odds of getting short lines. Have fun!

You can’t really like up G+. You are given next available time only as a choice. ILL you can choose from available times. So, the rides you want for G+ might not have availability that far out in the day until later in the day. Just depends.

agreed and I think arriving late gives me more planning time so that perhaps appeals and is sucking me in… also a lot of this break will be super busy 28th Dec to 10th Jan…

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Oh interesting, so at 7am I might not have ANY options for 2pm or later?

Correct. It depends on how many other people have booked a G+ for that ride up to that point. In MK, with so many rides, the upcoming timeslots are likely very soon. At the other parks they might be further into the day. There is no way to know for sure ahead of time.

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ah ok so i could be fairly confident say on a HS day that I could get SDD at say 7:15 for a post 2pm slot…
but at MK earliest late option could be Peter Pan at 12:30…

Yes. That is entirely possible. It isn’t easy to plan around them. In fact, the system was set up so as to avoid the need to plan. Of course, learning the nuances of the system will help.

Personally, at this point we just plan to do without G+ at all…but our trip is a year out, so we have time to see how it plays out, and see if Disney tweaks things, as they are likely to do

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Well, you could stack afternoons. If you made park reservations for somewhere else, and you have park hoppers. When that is the case, the times they offer you are 2pm earliest. The idea being that you’ll be at the park reservation park in the morning, and park hop at 2pm. Then after stacking a few, you could switch your reservation to your afternoon park and avoid having to tap into the other park.

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Oh thats a great suggestion! so yes set park booking for a park I dont want so all that days G+ reservations would start from 2pm.

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It would be a variation on the strategy of using standby-only in the first park, while stacking G+ for the afternoon in another. Idea being that afternoon wait times are longer

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