In short: yes. Even on a CL8 day at the MK in March, we did SO MUCH before the real crowds arrived. See link to trip report for the nitty-gritty of what we did:
It’s not like it’s ever been a secret. It’s really that most people on vacation aren’t willing to wake up that early and then go stand outside the park for that long (which I personally find silly because they are willing to stand in the queue for twice that long, but to each his/her own, I guess).
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We arrived 30 mins after rope drop in mid June last year and had only a 25 min wait for mine train.
Rope drop for life.
Re: investing time in a long initial wait…it’s that the waits compound over the course of the day. So yeah, you’re outside the park 45 minutes+…waiting…but that 45 minutes pays off bc you aren’t waiting 45 minutes multiple times during the day.
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Don’t RD the headliners. While everyone else heads to the headliner during RD, you go and hit everything else that no one is riding. Then, after you get off those rides, the RD crowd for the headerliner will drop somewhat. Get in line THEN. Even though your wait for the headliner will be lower, your wait for the other rides was nothing, and you’ll ultimately save a lot of time!
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There is often a dip about 30 minutes in for the headliners.
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This is why you shouldn’t RD the headliner, but STILL take advantage of RD. But you can basically show up AT RD rather than having to get there to be in the front of the herd…I mean crowd…and race to the headliner. Instead, take your time and do the non-headliners you otherwise pass on the way to the headliner with zero wait. 
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This is our plan, granted we choose RnRc FP and avoiding TS Land altogether, hopefully RD RnRc, ToT then reride with FP later in the day. AK plan EE RD with reride later and FoP FP.
Yes, 100%!! My suggestion for anyone on the fence that hasn’t already done it - make a personalized touring plan for rope dropping and a touring plan for not rope dropping and see where the differences are. To show that you are in the park already at rope drop, add a break in at the hour the park opens for 1 minute. (For MK add the Welcome Show). It may not be that much different, it may be. I find that rope dropping has helped with most things in life, lol. I show up early for lots of stuff. Heck I went to register for summer camp at 6am and the sign up started at 8am and I was still there until 10am because I was far back in the line when I arrived. Apparently my rope drop strategies didn’t work that day. I think the word is out on that one. LOL
Plus if you go in the summer it’s hotter than 10 hells during the middle of the day so rope drop works for us! You can be applying sunscreen, checking your plans, getting pumped for the day, etc while you are waiting at the tapstiles. Chat up the person beside you while you wait, I personally have met some really interesting people at rope drop.
It’s is becoming more popular but I think the masses still think it’s ok to roll up to the gate at opening time and end up wasting time at security, tapstiles, etc.
You can sleep when you are dead. But I would much rather wait for the rope to drop then to wait hours in an actual queue esp if it’s an outside queue.
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How does rope drop work with morning emh? Do they still allow guests in before official emh opening?
In my experience, yes
This is a good question. I hope someone knows the answer!
Yes. EMH can open early. 4th of July week 2018.
Not recalling what day/date our HS morning was tho it had EMH of 7 am.
The plan this whole trip was simple: arrive 45 - 60 minutes before park opening.
For HS that was 6 am.
We were at the CBR bus stop abt 5:30 (in the dark), arrived HS tapstiles about 6:05 to find the park was open.
The mob was being led to Toy Story Land for SDD. We went right, to Tower of Terror. Then to Toy Story Mania about 4 times (got tired of the long walk to get in the ride vehicles) and headed for Star Tours, stopping for a Mickey ice cream bar along the way. Not yet 8 am.
Walked into Star Tours at least three times.
First week of July.
Eta: our walking speed was decidedly relaxed due to my having broken my arm less than 3 months before the trip.
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This is what we did, and it worked fantastically well, provided you can get those FP. For example, at MK we RD POC, BTMRR, Splash, then FP for HM, IASM, Teacups, FP for 7DMT, FP for Space and then picked up 4th FP for Buzz & JC. Then we left for our afternoon break. We were tired!
Genius. I just did this, and now it shows me at my first attraction at RD instead of 15 mins after! Genius.
YAY!!! It works the best at MK but usually helps with the others also. And then there’s always FOP at AK where you never know what time you are going to be let in. When we went and rode Navi at rope drop, we ended up waiting for another rope drop at Safari basically because they let us in so early and we were on and off Navi so quick! That was an 8am regular opening though.
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If you’re RDing RnR, remember to keep all the way to the right. Most people at RD will be going to SDD and will not want to let you move around them to get to the turn off for RnR.
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Actually, that’s the one park that I didn’t need it. Both our MK days we have PPO breakfasts (one at Crystal Palace for RDing Adventureland and one at BOG for RDing Fantasyland). I actually used it on the other three parks and it worked like a charm!
TY, we have to hit Jedi Training signup then over to RnR, hopefully it won’t put us too far behind. But from trends I’ve seen wait stay low for awhile.
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