Disney just released its official park hours for my Epcot day. Instead of opening at 9am (as Touring Plans predicted), they’re opening at 10am. My first thought was disappointment, because that’s 1 less hour to fit everything in, but maybe it’s an opportunity instead.
Should I try to get a reservation at Topolino’s? How early would that have to be to still be able to rope drop? Does the Skyliner even start running early enough to accommodate the early breakfast reservation I’d need to get us there from Pop?
Or should we just take advantage of not having to get up before dawn to rope drop, and just grab a more economial breakfast of Mickey waffles at our resort?
When I went last year Epcot opened at 11, but that did work out great for sleeping in a bit and having breakfast at Topolino, literally the highlight of my youngest son’s trip. We also stayed at Pop. When you disembark at CB, instead of having to wait in the long Epcot Skyliner line, just show them your Topolino rez on your app and They’ll bump you to the front of the line so you can make it on time. Topolino opens at 7:30, Rope Drop with Early entry would be 9:30 if it’s a 10:00 official open, so I think if you had a 7:30 reservation you could still take your time and enjoy the breakfast and make rope drop, but I am not sure what time the sky liner starts running. If HS opens at 9 then early entry is 8:30, the skyliner likely wont start running at 7 am to get you there by 7:30. You may have to either Uber/Lyft or miss rope drop.
It will probably change to earlier. My Epcot day in 2 weeks was 10 am until very recently and they changed it to 8:30. I assume it’s because crowds have been larger than expected. I tried to plan during what used to be a lower crowd time! Oh well.
I can only guess July will be even busier so they will do the same for you. I’m currently trying to decide whether to keep my Topolinos 7:30 res and forgo early entry, or cancel it.
The opening hours for DHS and AK during my trip also moved to earlier, so I’ve had to redo all my TPs. If rope drop at Epcot is essential I would not schedule any 7:30 ADR you aren’t willing to dump later if they change opening time.
Those days are one of the rarest and most unique days at EPCOT, days when a festival is not occurring. Maybe they need the extra downtime during the daytime to remove the flower displays and for preparation for the next festival.
I hope @haleyc is right and they change the hours again as the date approaches, but I also hope that it isn’t one of their busiest days! I purposely chose dates after July 4th in hopes of more moderate crowds.
In the meantime, I’m reserving a Topolino’s breakfeast just in case.
We actually enjoyed the 11am opening a lot during our September Remi trip last year… we were staying at beach club so we packed up the room checked out and still made rope drop!
They are constantly changing hours. Just today, I got notification of Epcot, DHS & AK opening earlier for my trip in 17 days. MK open later. 7 am early entry for AK, which means 6:30 arrival …I don’t think I have done that early since January 2020 during the super early DHS openings.
I had the same dilemma for our EPCOT and AK mornings - our trip is about 3 weeks out, expecting hours to be extended tomorrow (5/2).
Your plan sounds good and should be easy to modify “if” (when) things change.
We had a 7:30 Top’s breakfast on our last trip (Dec 19) - amazing food, great character interactions and fantastic service. IMO, the best character meal.
For many reasons (FL humidity, GoG crowds, 8:30 opening hours extended through 5/21 so far - plus our teen’s early meal veto), we decided on last seating for breakfast (A&C: 1055, Trat: 1125).
“The plan” is we’ll RD with an optional kiddo (lol), then “brunch” together with a relaxing midday out of the parks, then back to parks together until close.
