The early bird doesn’t get the worm at Walt Disney World. Instead, they get the extra magic of enjoying some of the most popular attractions to start their days. As a theme park tourist, you’re probably an expert in the concept of the rope drop. Just in case you aren’t, here’s a quick reminder.
Guests who want to participate in “rope dropping” a park will need to arrive a few minutes before a theme park opens. Once Disney acknowledges your valid admission ticket, you’re ready to enjoy the park. The moment they allow people to go through the gates, a mad sprint (or purposeful) walk occurs wherein you pick the attraction of your choice and head over there. You’re literally beating the crowd to the front of the line. This makes you the proverbial early bird, and your ride is the worm.
A lot of people believe that in the FastPass+ era, the rope drop is no longer effective. That’s simply not the case. I utilized it on several days during my most recent stay and am happy to pass along a few suggestions to maximize the process for you. Here are four rope drop strategies that still work at Walt Disney World.
1. Don’t waste time running to unpopular attractions
No matter how much you and your family might love Jungle Cruise, Spaceship Earth, or It’s a Small World, you’re missing the point if you employ rope drop for these sorts of attractions. Even on the busiest of days, the crowds for these rides is rarely more than half the length of much more popular ones such as Peter Pan’s Flight, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Soarin’, or Test Track. And that’s the key ingredient to making a rope drop work for you.
You’ll want to learn all the most popular rides at all four parks. Otherwise, you’re wasting possible sleep time rushing to get to a place where there won’t be any lines anyway. Yes, you could ride The Seas with Nemo & Friends several times consecutively, but there are times when the park is almost ready to close when you can do that anyway. It’s important to have a strategy.
2. FastPass+ tiering impacts your decision
This requires a bit of work on your part, because the answer changes from time to time. Currently, Soarin’ and Test Track are on the same tier of FastPass+ selection at Epcot. That’s due to the fact that they’re the premiere rides at the park. Disney wants to control the flow of traffic a bit by making guests choose between one or the other. People who want to ride both must wait in line for the one for which they don’t have a FastPass selection. If one of them ever changed, however, the rope drop strategy would change as well.
For example, the Norway Pavilion will add a Frozen attraction in 2016. When it does, the presumption is that one of the other two rides moves to a lower selection tier. There’s a presumption it will be Test Track, whose lines are generally shorter. Plus, it offers single-rider, which can provide quicker turnaround time for people who don’t need to enjoy Test Track with their families. It may be Soarin’, however, since Disney is adding an expansion that may lessen the wait time. Whichever one it is, the new rope drop replacement will be Frozen.
What’s important to understand is that the parks that use tiers, which is all of them but Magic Kingdom, require choices. The top tier reflects the overall popularity of each attraction. Before you enter the park, you’ll only get to choose a FastPass+ for one thing from the top tier. So, your rope drop strategy should reflect that either you want to ride that one thing from the top tier multiple times or you should head over to the one you didn’t pick.
For example, if your FastPass+ selection is for Soarin’, your rope drop sprint should be toward Test Track. Alternately, if you love Soarin’ and are indifferent to Test Track, employ a rope drop run to ride Soarin’ multiple times within the first hour of the park opening. Anecdotally, I entered the back of Epcot from my hotel room at Beach Club and arrived at Soarin’ at 9:06 AM. The wait in line was 10 minutes. When I exited the ride, it was 45 minutes. Every minute is critical to limiting your wait-time.
3. The Fantasyland dash at the Magic Kingdom
Each park has its own distinctive rope drop behavior. The most interesting one is at the most popular park. Anyone who has tried rope drop at Magic Kingdom lately understands that there are two directions people go when the park opens. The overwhelming majority of people head to Fantasyland. That’s where two of the most in-demand attractions at all of Walt Disney World reside. The first is the newest Magic Kingdom attraction, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, which oftentimes has wait-times in excess of 75 minutes. The other is Princess Fairytale Hall, where a slew of determined parents take their children to meet Anna and Elsa, the royal sisters of Frozen. If you fall down heading that way at rope drop, you’ll feel like you collapsed during the running of the bulls at Pamplona, only the bulls would show more compassion.
A determined rope drop trek to Fantasyland increases your odds of enjoying one or both attractions within an hour of the park opening. My family chose the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train side of this strategy one day, and the results were stunning. We had a FastPass+ selection, so we rode it twice within minutes of Magic Kingdom’s rope drop. By 9:20, the wait-time for the newest roller coaster was already 50 minutes and growing exponentially. Part of this was because the slower park arrivals were arriving. The larger component was that the people exiting the Anna and Elsa Meet and Greet headed over to Seven Dwarfs Mine Train afterward. Only 20 minutes of difference determined whether we rode it twice or had to wait the body of an hour in line. That’s what rope drop can do for you.
4. Other pro tips
Sometimes, a bit of knowledge is dangerous. For example, if you’ve visited Animal Kingdom much, you know that one of the longest lines is for Kali River Rapids. That may not be a ride for which you select a FastPass+. Based on the above, you may consider rushing to it at rope drop. That would be a mistake. There’s a common sense aspect to the situation. If you ride Kali River Rapids first, you’ll get wet. Then, you’ll have soggy clothing for the rest of your morning, and that’s not ideal. The same is true of Splash Mountain. Wet rides and rope drop don’t mix.
Another important tip is that if you’re all about rides rather than meet and greets, there’s one rope drop run to prioritize above all others. Until Disney opens a third track for Toy Story Midway Mania!, it’s the optimal choice. The wait-time for it is so out of proportion relative to the rest of Hollywood Studios that I recently rode Star Tours, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith, The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and it within 75 minutes of park opening. Three of the four had wait-times of less than 10 minutes a full hour after I entered Hollywood Studios. Conversely, I entered Toy Story Midway Mania! within eight minutes of park opening. By the time I exited, the wait-time was already over an hour. Like an Anchorman fight, it escalated quickly.
Oddly, the same isn’t true of the crown jewel of Animal Kingdom, Expedition Everest. For whatever reason, that park’s traffic doesn’t veer toward a single attraction. If you arrive when it opens, you can ride Expedition Everest several times consecutively on many days, assuming your heart can take the intensity of the Yeti. So, three of the four parks have specific rope drop destinations, while Animal Kingdom depends entirely on how you want to spend your time there. That’ll change when Pandora: The World of Avatar debuts. Its rides will immediately become your strongest priority at rope drop.
Finally, this may seem obvious, but I’m going to remind you just in case. If you want to employ the rope drop tips above, showing up within a couple of minutes of park opening won’t work. Remember that you have to be there quite a bit earlier than the stated opening. If you’re carrying a purse, backpack, or the like, you’ll have to pass a security check. Then, you’ll need to validate your ticket to enter the park. And all that occurs after you secure transportation, which can be its own adventure. We always plan to leave 45 minutes early. It’s better to have a few minutes of wait-time at the entry gate than to wind up in the park 15 minutes after it opens. That’s the equivalent of a full ride you’ll miss if you’re not ready enter the instant the rope drops.
