This week was a continuation of the last couple episodes which are about the strategy when you DON’T rope drop a park. This time we cover both HS and AK in one episode.
Remember: When answering these polls, assume you are not hopping from another park where you rope dropped.
How often do you rope drop Hollywood Studios?
Always
Usually
Sometimes
Rarely
Never
Other
0voters
How often do you rope drop Animal Kingdom?
Always
Usually
Sometimes
Rarely
Never
Other
0voters
Which of these options best describes your typical strategy when you DON’T rope drop?
Skip whatever I would have rope dropped
Use LL to experience the ride I would have rope dropped
Stay late to experience the ride I would have rope dropped
Just suck it up and wait in a long standby line
I wasn’t planning to ride rides with long lines anyway
Other
0voters
On a day when Animal Kingdom has 7:30am Early Entry, what time do you typically aim to enter the park?
It’s a tricky question… I’m am a habitual RD person. I don’t remember the last time I didn’t get to the gate 30 - 60 minutes before RD! If I’m not at RD I’m probably very sick or someone in my party is delaying me!
In addition to the usual polls on whether you rope dropped, I decided to shake things up a bit.
I asked what your non-rope-drop strategy is. For me, I usually have LL, so if I don’t rope drop, I just have to work in the attraction I would have rope dropped at some other time. At HS this can be tricky, but not impossible. At AK it’s pretty easy to do.
I asked what time you typically show up for a day at AK. 7:30am is so early! I think I’ve truly rope dropped AK maybe 2 times in the past 30 years (holy crap I can’t believe I can actually say that ). But if I arrive around 8-8:30am I usually have no trouble riding everything. It will be interesting to see what happens when Tropical Americas opens!
For me, I like to go to the areas that aren’t the “must-do” RD rides. If I’m at AK for RD, I’m going to Everest… (or Dino! in the past)
I’m going to do 1/3 of the park while most people are still in queue for FoP! Plus, I’ll probably repeat ride these attractions before the crowds arrive. (I’ll just pay $20 to ride FoP later if I don’t want to wait! )
We rope dropped AK for 7:30 am our last trip, since we wanted to get a jump start on the day before the heat became unbearable. It wasn’t to save time in lines. We did manage to get on the second ride vehicle for the Safari, but since that didn’t open until 8 am, we still ended up waiting about 15 minutes. (We didn’t realize it didn’t open for early entry until we were already there.)
The other ride we might rope drop at AK would be Navi River Journey. Rope dropping FoP is an amateur move. (You save more time if you RD Navi and then do FoP versus the opposite.) But last trip we didn’t ride either ride in Pandora.
HS, there isn’t a strong incentive to rope drop anything. I rope dropped RnRC, but the line was already huge by the time it opened and TP predicted a 3 minute wait when the actual wait was about 40. And yes, I was at park gates when the park opened. Just a mad dash of people.
Time before we rope dropped HS, went to SWGE, but both rides were down for like an hour at park open, as was RnRC. Basically, reason to rope drop HS isn’t to avoid lines, but to get a jump on the day to avoid the heat.
Me too! The quirky thing about me is that my stomach is usually unsettled in the mornings so I have found 7:30am rope drops to be too early to enjoy anything. If I arrive after 8am or so it makes such a big difference, and then I can ride EE twice in a row without feeling queasy!
I was at AK by 6:30AM last November 5th to be exact!
When we were off property this last summer and did 4P1D we waited til 7AM to arrive knowing we had to wait.
I think that for the most part I am very much over the rope dropping thing. I know I am fortunate to visit often and that has helped me to begin to treat it all like a vacation vs a trip. Very few alarms. No more driving myself into the ground and exhausting myself. I’ve become more selective about what I do each day and really aim to be slower and more leisurely about it.
As we’ve aged, our touring is different. We did rope drop MK one year to do the Jingle Cruise without LL. Otherwise we’re not compelled here.
Hollywood Studios used to be rope drop for certain because of Tower of Terror. We’ve arrived at HS before 6:30 am (in 2019, very early September). The official early opening was 6:30 but cast members were leading guests in before that time. My sister got to be person #3 on Tower of Terror. At the CBR bus stop we were the only ones waiting on the dark for the bus. With Pixar Place and Galaxy’s Edge there’s almost no reason to rope drop any more.
We no longer rope drop Epcot either. Someone in our group gets with many of the attractions here.
Animal Kingdom remains a must rope drop. We continue to leave our room about 6:30 am for the bus stop. Even if the temp is 42 degrees F.
This is how DW and I toured WDW before we had kids. We slept in, worked out most days, ate great meals and experienced a handful of our favorite attractions no matter the wait times. Each WDW visit was a vacation.
With the kids, WDW visits have become intense TPs to maximize attractions. Now each WDW visit is a trip (tons of amazing fun, but DW and I need a vacation afterward )
Here’s a story from our last trip: AK is the park we know the least, as it opened after we were regular visitors. On this trip, we only had one day per park so had to make the most of it, as the last time we’d visited was 10 years ago. Also, we were still jet-lagged. So of course we rope dropped.
Exactly as this says, we aimed for the Navi River Journey and then moving to FOP. Well, after a quick-ish queue for the NRJ, we were so excited as this one was totally new for everyone in our group and had heard great things. We got on the boat, enjoyed all the twinkly lights and whatever and then… the BIG MOMENT, here she comes… the amazing AA figure we’d spent the last 10 years reading about… this is SO EXCITING…
It was broken. Just lying there in the “off” position, no screen or B-mode, nothing.
I can’t tell you how much that ruined the entire rest of our day at AK. Sure, we got on FOP and loved it, in spite of the huge queue. Yes, we ate amazing food and made wonderful memories. But we also harbour a lot of resentment towards the ENTIRE park, just for this one thing. We felt like we wasted our time, like we were cheated, and this was the classic “once in a lifetime” thing for us. We were so meh about the park that we did what we wanted, enjoyed it, but then left early as we fancied going back to EPCOT instead, where we felt loved.
Sure, we may return to WDW in another 5 or 6 years and yeah, we may go back to AK but I tell you now. I still feel like our entire day was soured by this one thing.
That’s disappointing. But, I’ve seen it in full operation, and never quite understood the love. Sure, for an animatronic, the motions are very cool and fluid. But it still looks like an animatronic and unnatural. So…take solace in that, maybe? I’m not saying it isn’t worth seeing, only that I think the hype around that one animatronic is too much.
So I normally rope drop everything, but sometimes I split AK and HS. In this case I’ll RD AK, use LLs for HS. I don’t do EE (too high for me), Kali (no notes), or Navi (most boring ride in the parks). The only delay is if we do FotLK, but otherwise we can knock out everything and then head over to HS. If we don’t want to use LLs, we’ll RD EPCOT after AK.
You may be right… I’ll try not to hate an entire park just for that one thing that went 101, just that once
Although I’d say that in the case of the Navi River thing: that one animatronic IS the ride. The rest is just twinkly lights, as far as I remember. Or what I could see through my rage after we’d discovered the broken robot.
I think that can be a first impression. But if you suspend your Earth-bound mind, and actually imagine you are riding through a river in Pandora, there are so many little details to pay attention to. Each time I ride it, I appreciate it more. I’m not saying it is by any means a favorite. But definitely more than just an animatronic and twinkly lights.
). But if I arrive around 8-8:30am I usually have no trouble riding everything. It will be interesting to see what happens when Tropical Americas opens!
with many of the attractions here.
)
I’m not saying it isn’t worth seeing, only that I think the hype around that one animatronic is too much.