We head to DWD next Saturday for five weekdays in the parks (M-F). Last night I read about the rope drop, which everyone still recommends as a way to beat the crowds. In another recent post there was advice about parking your own car, and that the parking lots opened either 30 minutes or 60 prior to the park opening (rope drop). They warned not to line up any earlier as your vehicle may be turned around. I read that some people arrive for rope drop much earlier. I assume that these are WDW resort guests riding the monorail or other resort transportation. Is that a correct assumption? Other thoughts? Thanks, Craig
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Nice. We arrive tomorrow for 6 days. Most of us who are at rope drop are piling off of buses and monorails.
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Yes, resort guests start arriving prior to driving guests, as the skyliner and monorail run before parking is open. I don’t think it made a big difference in making rope drop. I believe they let you line up an hour before the park opens and start letting vehicles through 15 minutes later. At HS, we arrived just after 9 (about the 20th car in our row), and they opened the booths at 9:08. We were in the park before 9:30. Do make note which row you park in and approximately where in the row you parked. You’ll still join the masses, pushing their remote to find their car. While this is the first time we rented a car here, we’ve enjoyed it for the mask break and not having to wait for the next bus back to the resort.
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Epcot parking didn’t open until 10:30 am yesterday. We were in the line at 10:15. The parks are open when the parking lot opens.
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Our experience was that the parking lots open 50 min before park opening, but we could see ppl getting off skyliner while we were waiting to get in so resort guests might have a head start. But as an example, we were going through parking at HS at 9:10 and by 9:35 were in the park and inline for MMRR. and we walk s l o w
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Yes, HS was earlier. MK was about 8:15 today. It’s 8:27 and we are on the ferry.
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Thanks for the on the spot info. BTW - its obvious I did not think hard enough about my TP forum screen name.
I think, as a rule, they open up the parking lots 50min before a park opens
Hahaha…neither did I 
same screen name for everything. I am so not creative.