No need to rope drop. It just means you arrive when most of the crowds are building. What is important is to then plan to stay late instead. Crowds lighten back up starting around dinner. Sometimes after dinner lines can be almost as good as early lines. Also, usually same day FPP options are easier in evenings.
So embrace the late start. Close out the parks each night. As someone else said, the one right way to do Disney is the one that works for your family!
We didnât RD on our June trip either. If my sons stay out late, itâs just too much to get them up early and we wanted to see fireworks a few nights. That said, before I did our TPs we sat down and made a list of each personâs top 5 things to do in each park. I guaranteed I would work #1 and #2 into the TP and the rest was just guidance. It generally worked well, except for the rides that got bumped for the rain.
Can you do any of the after hours stuff instead of full park days? Thatâs our new strategy because my kiddo wants no part of RD anymore!!! (Thereâs only 2 of us so no more RD for me either until I go solo)
Thank you so much everyone!
Leaving my family behind in the mornings is not an option, so itâs good to hear that people can arrive later and still have a great trip. I would love to take a trip with just my sister someday, she would be an enthusiastic rope dropper.
It looks like the next step is to get to work on those TPâs! With only 289 days left, there really isnât any time to spare 
Iâd like to try this sometime. We did an EMM and things did not go well for us, but I think an after hours event might be great.
I canât wait to hear how it goes!!!
Yeah. I remembered that when I make jokes in text sometimes people donât laugh and they get upset and think Iâm a jerk. In my defense itâs hard to resist a pun.
Count De Monet - Sir, the peasants are revolting!
King Louis - You said it. They stink on ice.
I am curious why it has to be all or nothing. All RD or no RD? Whatâs done is done on your last trip (5 straight RDâs) but even weaving in one RD seems reasonable if that is your wishâŚwould your family not indulge you one day, while giving each of them their day? Vacations are for everyone and each person should be heard. Or, maybe pay for after hours so you can take advantage of low crowds.
I have an 8 day trip in works and am only doing RD or EMM 3 of those days as I know if I did any more my family too would revolt. And those days follow very early bedtimes from the night before. Last trip we did 3 of 5 days and my crew was beat!
As for late arrivals, still consider making a TP⌠for example we arrive at Epcot at 11 on two different days, and If you plan your TP properly you can get done with first 3 FPS by a same day drop time giving you a chance of other tier 1 rides. We still plan to get a lot done but we are splitting up and mostly doing FW and WS on different days.
Good luck!
We will definitely still make TPâs, I think they would be even more important with a later arrival time, We may do one PPO breakfast at Garden Grill, or one late night event. It all depends on what events open in that time frame, we only have 3 park days this trip.
Is they donât want to RD, would they stay until park close?
My DD is not quite ready for park close, so RD it is for us! Even though she crumbles, both her and DH appreciate RDâing when they FEEL how much more crowded the park gets by 10am.
With FPPs and adequate expectations, I could still have a great time not RDâing.
This is what we are going for 
I would read the late day touring plans that Easy WDW does and see if that style of touring would fit your family. You can still do your FP in the morning when you arrive if you want, and then prioritize your evening carefully to do the rides youâd normally do at RD.
It isnât too late to get club level & club level FP, if itâs still available. That worked for us, although we did RD MK one day at the beginning of the trip.
Alternatively, you could book DAH events, perhaps skipping the park ticket that day to defray costs.
However, depending on how many people there are, CLFP might be the least expensive of these two options, plus not everything is open during DAH.
Club level is a dream of mine, but club level with the extra fast passes would increase the cost of our package by almost 50% and this is supposed to be our quick little trip that holds us over until 2022. It is tempting to think about though⌠Thatâs the problem with Disney, there is always one more thing you could add on to make your trip even better, itâs hard to draw a line and stop. If we come into any extra money, this will definitely be on my list to try
Ainât this the story of my (Disney) life!!
I thought of you as I read this!
THIS!!!
I have to keep reminding myself this trip is NOT our family vacation for the year. Our whole family is doing a cruise and mini road trip in August. This upcoming WDW trip is supposed to be a mother-daughter-see-WDW-at-Christmas-time trip. I need to stop adding things (though Iâm still behind you @kerrilux_625778.)
In my experience, you can get a lot done without RDing as long as you donât get distracted. For my family, dining reservations and park hoppers were the big distractions.
My family consists of all adults: my parents, my partner and myself and my young adult sister. I have been on Disney trips with each one of them individually and we can arrive at park opening. My partner and I RDed 2x at Disneyland Resort. My sister and my mother RDed at MK and were the first guests of the day on Peter Plan. However, with all 5 of us together, we cannot make it to the park at opening time. Ironically, my parents and sister are all morning people. They are all up in the morning before 7 am, but canât get out the door before 9 am. Additionally, my sister and mother donât stay up late. My sister in particular is done by 10 pm (unless she is having lots of fun; then she can last until midnight).
For our June 2017 trip, I anticipated that we would not be RDing. I avoided parks with early EMH even though we were staying onsite. I started all Touring Plans at 9:30 am or later. Most of our FPs started at 10 am. We had 7 day base tickets (no hopping ). We did 1 table service meal per day (occasionally 2). I also anticipated that we would tour inefficiently and set our walk time to relaxed even though we have a lot of fast walkers in the group. We only stayed until park close once. We did everything we wanted to do over our 7 days. Everyone had a good time.
For our May 2019 trip, we did have hoppers and we agreed to RD. This was supposed to be a 5 day trip, but ended up being 8 days for some of us due to accommodating different schedules. We also had a lot of dining (2-3 table service meals per day). Well, of course, we didnât make RD⌠We were constantly hopping to get to our next dining reservation. In the span of 8 days, we did fewer attractions than in 7 days.
Our Disney trip started out as just a quick drive down the coast since we all just happened to be back east anywayâŚ
The Disney vortex has a way of sucking you in if you put even the tiniest toe in the water.