I just had a conversation with my DS21, since I know that they will be averse to the idea of getting up early. In fact, I had done a decent job of making plans that limited the number of days we’d be at the parks for RD…but this BG scenario is very problematic. I REALLY hope they drop it by May.
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I know it’s still a bit far out to know for sure, but what time should we aim to be there for an 8am opening?
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Cake pops work well in my house too! We are going in October 2020 and as much as I like Star Wars, I think we will end up taking a pass on RotR this time. I just don’t see the line/wait situation improving enough by then … and my 2 y.o won’t be tall enough to ride further complicating the situation. Maybe we will try during our 2021 visit.
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Is the BG concept any worse than a 4-5 hour wait in line?
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We’ll do our best to get in a BG, but I’m not going to stress too much over it and run everyone into the ground on day 2 lol. We are going for 2 weeks so I’m hopeful we will get to ride at least once
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If I had to make my plan today for the end of January, I would still plan on arriving at 6:30 am if you want to ride RotR … But, you don’t have to make the plan today so the best thing you can do is mentally prepare everyone in your group for 6:30 am and then hope things get better over the next month.
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Maybe. What it means is you are forced to arrive super early (before opening) rather than being able to get in later and just get in a long line.
I think the BG concept was needed during this initial time period…but I hope once January hits, it can just go back to a normal “get in line and wait” concept.
Anyhow, we shall see how it goes!
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The good thing about the BG is that you can enjoy the park until is your time to show up
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Our plan for SW day was to not even show up until after lunch, then basically spend the afternoon in line…sleeping in so that we could stay until park close for the Star Wars Galactic Spectacular. But if we have to arrive at 6:30 in the morning, we will be leaving early, for sure. 
And, we can’t really plan as a result.
We’ll make it work, don’t get me wrong. But it might require we miss out on the fireworks entirely.
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ryan1 we are planning to be in bed by 8:00pm next Tuesday, we are driving from the Royal Pacific so is going to be extra 35 minutes I think.
Btw you got a 21 year old, that is impressive but more impressive is that is going with you in a trip. That gives me hope 
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My DS21 and DDIL are joining us for this trip (actually, he will be 22 by the time we go). My DS20 can’t come because of school/work. 
But DS18, DD16, and DS10 will all be there, so we will have 7 total.
This is also a joint Disney/Universal trip. 6 days at Disney, 3 days at Universal. Big trip.
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I’m so thankful to this community. If it weren’t for this thread I would be going in blind. I’m very curious if they continue to open around 6:30 on an 8:00 opening day or if it changes to 7:30 (fingers crossed on 7:30). Hopefully we have some liners there on those days before my Jan 6th HS morning.
Here’s an unrelated tip as a thank you. I haven’t tried it yet but I just found out if you are using a locker (or stroller/scooter) and are park hopping you can bring your same day receipt to the next park and not pay a 2nd time.
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Wow ryan1 you got a nice big family. I was bothered by us doubling the budget, but your normal budget most exceed our doubled one. Life is all about perspective
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This is an unusual trip year for us. Most expensive we’ve ever done. But there is a reason.
Usually, we do either Disney or Universal every 2 years. Always stay off site to save a lot of money. But our budget for this trip is more than DOUBLE our usual budget. (And, to be clear, my DS and DDIL are paying their own way…he makes plenty of money himself!)
Anyhow, we generally have a family trip that corresponds with a child’s graduation, and the child who is graduating helps to “design” the trip. Anyhow, my wife and I had been planning our 25th Anniversary trip for December 2020 for a while, but for reasons I won’t get into, we started kind of wishing to go back to Disney sooner.
We proposed the idea of going back to Disney for our DS18’s graduation, but he wasn’t terribly keen on the idea. My DD16, who graduates the following year, however, was totally into doing Disney. But he was interested in Universal and doing “The VOID” at DS. So, we toyed with the idea of combining our DS18 and DD16’s graduation trip into a single trip where we do Disney, Universal, and include The VOID. (We are technically doing our DD’s graduation trip just before her senior year, rather than during/after it, but she was okay with that.)
Then, when we were talking about it, my DS and DDIL decided they would like to join us as well, so I got us a 5 bedroom house.
So, we’ve been saving now for both this trip and our anniversary trip. Will be an almost 3-year savings. This is why we did a small vacation this year to Cedar Point, and plan to just do a small trip in 2021 as well to offset the costs!
(Next Disney trip? Probably not until 2023/2024.)
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Thanks for the details ryan1, you guys seem like a very close family. Great idea to create vacations as a way to celebrate graduations, I hope you don’t mind us stealing the idea.
Ours was going to be a 3 Days universal at the Royal Pacific that turned into a 5 days, that then was added a 4 days Clearwater Beach hotel, that then was added a day at SeaWorld and 2 at Busch Gardens, then one day at Hollywood Studios and now after hours at Animal Kingdom.
The lesson of this trip is, don’t try to save money on the flight by booking a longer stay, because then you have to spend way more money, to fill up those extra days with activities 
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Sorry guys we are polluting this conversation with our personal stories, when people are coming here just to check for updates on RoR
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I combed through TP Chat and Twitter and made a few updates to today’s timeline. Lots of data about arrival times and BGs. Some thoughts:
- The 7am published opening time did not affect the actual opening time that much - in fact, five minutes later than yesterday.
- However, crowds did show up earlier. By all accounts, much busier than we’ve seen the last few days (which is saying something)
- Arrival time seems to be much more important today than it was yesterday. It took a while to clear through the lines at the tapstiles, meaning people who showed up later but were still in line at opening (6:35am) got afternoon or evening BGs (60+).
- I saw some contradictions however - one Twitter user who claims to have showed up at 6:45 got the same BG as someone who showed up at 6:15am. Both got their BG at 7:03am. There could be some luck about getting in a faster tapstile line and logging into MDE as soon as you are in.
- I am in shock (but not that shocked) that they ran out of BGs at 7:15am, which is the earliest by far (yesterday was the earliest up to that point at 7:40am).
In short, I’m suggesting people arrive by 5:30am if you need a morning BG. Arrive by 6:30am to get any BG.
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One other thing - there has been a pattern of calling the last BG about 2 hours before park close. They probably want to ensure they flush everyone through in time in case there are shutdowns. Around that time they alert parties with higher BGs about FPP and PH tickets.
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My current plan (having had a reshuffle of my schedule after the evening EMH was announced) is to go on Tuesday morning and aim for a fairly early BG. After the ride, I’ve time to go back to my resort for a nap. I’ll be very interested to see how these 7am openings work out in the days before then. I’m willing to get there very early.
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This is not a good news to us at all, this opening the park earlier are going to force us to wake up even earlier
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