Our last WDW trip was in 2015. This will be our 7th trip. We have 7 day hoppers.
We currently only have 2 rope drops planned!! Our first full day and our last day.
But we are going to a park every night. I think we will like sleeping late and relaxing at our rental house.
Anyone else skip the rope drops??
Yes! We used to go to EMH or rope drop every day, the last 2 years I have started adding in some sleep in days (I have teens). We just left this morning and with 10 park days including Universal (where we had early entry and express passes) and WDW, we managed early EMH for only 2 days. Volcano Bay 9am and MK 8am. We did make regular rope drop (9am) twice, and only because we had early breakfast reservations. The other 6 days we slept in. It is a struggle for us to wake early, we are night owls and also from the west coast so the time change makes it hard to go to sleep and get up early. Next year I may plan zero ADRs or FPP before 11am.
I will be traveling with 6 “kids”-17 to 23 and certainty don’t feel like fighting to get us all out the door. I think we will all appreciate the down time. Our house has a pool and a hot tub!!
I am going for my first trip in May. Like @Wahoohokie, I am coming from the west coast and would like to skip rope drop, but because the park hours are so short (all the parks are closing at 9 each night), I will not get enough park time as it is. If they had late hours during our visit, I would totally skip RD.
I am unhappy with the early closings too…We are going to Epcot evening EMH…a first! and the HS after hours party.
Our first and only WDW visit (in 2011) we had 10 days over President’s weekend. The crowds were manageable, and we used the old paper fastpass system with success. Never got to the parks before 11:30am. It was a fantastic family vacation! We live in CA so the time change is brutal, and our family of four (2 kids 6&9 at the time) are late sleepers. We always think of vacation as family time first and that includes good sleep. Next month, I’ll be visiting the park for a 2nd time with my now adult DD, and our earliest FFP is 11:35. My DD would have just finished her sophomore year at university and I know she’ll want to stay up late and chill in the mornings. We also made most of our ADR after 8:30pm as parks close. I second the complaint about parks closing early in May!
Yes!
Welcome to the Light Side 
To me a vacation is not having to get up early, so I don’t.
Actually, I’m usually still the first one up, so maybe that’s not totally true. But that’s usually around 7:30 / 8am. I get up, make a cup of tea, have a shower, get dressed. Then I see who else is awake, make coffee as required (DH) and start breakfast for whoever is awake.
A big effort on our part gets us out of the room by 9am. Usually nearer to 9:30 or even 10am.
Our plans this trip are pretty laid back…5 of our mornings are “free” and folks can do what they want!! Water park, Disney Springs, sleep, go to a park.
And then our FPP are all for night!! Which is our favorite time to go!!!
I have a 3 and a 5 year old who never sleep past 6, so rope drop is actually a leisurely morning for us.
We usually rope drop two days at most. Everyone is happier if we are well rested.
This exactly.
Yea! Haha same here it was a normal day for us… but I can see with older kids how sleeping in would be nice!
We thought we would need it, but we did not RD due to getting same days FPs to the headliners we were missing. Worked out fine–no RDs the entire trip. We have three littles who all need assistance getting ready so it was easier on me and allowed us to stay until park close a couple of times. This was not our first trip so we also did not feel pressured to do everything.
The LIGHT SIDE. I love it. I have 1 RD planned for our October trip for me and DH…anything else and he would REVOLT
Next time we will absolutely skip rope drop and spend the days at the pool nights at the park! This last time RD crushed my 10 year old!!! RD was fine when she was 5 but the lack of sleep was not great for her. We did 2 RD’s back to back and the next day she was ready for bed at 6pm! DAH here we come!
There is a picture of me asleep on Spaceship Earth one year from doing too many RD and late nights!! I am looking forward to slowing down this trip!!
Just returned from a trip (a short one) and we did not RD any of the days. And we had a great time. I realized that you can still have an enjoyable time without RD. It really may change how we tour in the future.
yea - that one gets me too - dark in there - makes me fall asleep all the time
They haven’t published their final park hours yet. I’m expecting those to lengthen a bit. Maybe not as late as last year but I’d be very surprised if they kept those 9 pm closings at all the parks. I think Friday or shortly thereafter we might see some updates for May.
I don’t intend to fight with my young adult kids this time around. We only have 2 RD days (at the beginning of the trip) and several late starts, including one with no scheduled park time. Since we’ll be at the BWI, I can take my early bird self over to two different parks while they snooze!
Oh I hope you are right! Either way, this will be a huge adjustment. We normally RD every morning for EE at DLR and then head back to the hotel for a quick rest and then close the parks down. We always are within a 10 minute walk to our hotel, so it is not the ordeal that it seems like it would be at WDW to go back and forth to the hotel.