Yep, we've never rope dropped....

[Delirium]

Unless you're like me and my family. Rope drop all the way through to the kiss goodnight, no mid-day breaks, every single day we're there. Wouldn't do Disney any other way. Though I find RD far, far from crowded or stressful and still prefer the early morning to the late night as far as what I'm able to get done.

We are very similar when it comes to MK. We always do at least one rope drop to close day at MK every trip. And, we usually rope drop MK another day during the trip as well, though we usually hop somewhere else on the second MK day. We also make it a point to rope drop AK and HS once per trip, but rarely rope drop Epcot.

On an 8 park day trip, we will rope drop something like 4-5 times, but close a park down every single night. We hop a lot, and usually have 2-3 afternoons by the pool. But, the bottom line is that we take advantage of both early mornings AND late nights.

 

[MomOTwins]

I'll have to disagree with you here. We find the early mornings to be way too crowded and stressful. Fortunately, the rope droppers will eventually tire and head out, leaving the parks wide open in the evenings.

Here's an example from a recent visit to MK from 8 pm to midnight. 16 rides in 4 hours without any FPs. I can give you several more examples from the other parks if you're interested.

Big Thunder 3x
Splash Mtn 2x
Space Mtn 2x
Mine Train
Pirates
Jungle Cruise
Haunted Mansion
Pooh
Peter Pan
Speedway
Barnstormer 2x

We also watched the fireworks and had a couple of Dole Whips.

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Not once have we been to WDW when any park closed at midnight—most trips were closures at 8 or 9. When that is the case, the lines are looooong in the evenings except during the fireworks.

 

[SMRT-1]

I'd have to throw my vote in the rope drop column. On our last trip, my wife and I got to MK at ~8:15 am for a 9:00 am park open. We had FP+ for 7DMT, Pan, and Space Mt., so we started in Adventureland and were able to do all of the following before heading to Be Our Guest to check in 10 minutes early for our 11:15 am lunch ADR.

• Jungle Cruise
• Pirates
• Big Thunder
• Splash Mt.
• Haunted Mansion x2
• Small World
• Little Mermaid
• Carousel
• Philharmagic

We also rope-dropped DHS, and rode Tower of Terror 7 times in a row before there was any noticeable wait at all.

 

[TigerlilyAJ]

Not once have we been to WDW when any park closed at midnight—most trips were closures at 8 or 9. When that is the case, the lines are looooong in the evenings except during the fireworks.

Yep, that's what I thought when I read that post. That must be a summer thing, staying open to midnight? Because it's never been like that for us. When parks close at 9pm, as they will at our upcoming January trip, plenty of people, including families, are still out all evening.
So, OP, park closing times need to figure in your RD decision. That might include spending on the "magical extra" of buying separate evening time at After Hours events.

 

[Babe the Blue Ox]

Not once have we been to WDW when any park closed at midnight—most trips were closures at 8 or 9. When that is the case, the lines are looooong in the evenings except during the fireworks.

We like to go early in June when the longer hours are in effect but the summer crowds haven’t set in yet. Lately, you’ll still see an occasional midnight closing but most nights are 11 pm.

One thing to keep in mind is that the posted wait times are intentionally exaggerated at night to discourage late riders. They also have processes in place to make lines appear longer than they really are.

I can’t count the number of times we’ve found a 60+ minute posted wait with an actual wait of 15 minutes or less.

 

[Delirium]

There are significant benefits for rope dropping MK, HS, and AK (non-Pandora). Epcot is not worth it. The attractions are too spread out, and you waste too much time walking back and forth to gain any benefit. We usually FP two different days at Epcot. But, if you only have one day, FP Frozen, get in line for Test Track 5 minutes before park close, and do Soarin standby when you are in that part of the park.

 

[Babe the Blue Ox]

Unless you're like me and my family. Rope drop all the way through to the kiss goodnight, no mid-day breaks, every single day we're there. Wouldn't do Disney any other way. Though I find RD far, far from crowded or stressful and still prefer the early morning to the late night as far as what I'm able to get done.

We’d never make it open to close. I generally make our first FP for 9:30 so we don’t have to be there until 10:45, well after the crowds entering the parks dies down.

We’ve gotten pretty good at using the refresh method and can usually snag about 10-12 FPs per day. By night time, the lines are short enough that FPs aren’t necessary and we just hit the headliners over and over again. You just have to understand the crowd patterns and know what to do in which order.

 

[Klayfish]

That's simply wrong. Rope drop may not be what it used to be because of the Internet (so everyone knows about the benefits of rope drop), but you accomplish way more in the first two hours of park open without fastpass than at any other time.

Sorry, no. If you know how to use MDE and refresh, rope drop is 100% useless from a "productivity" standpoint. We show up at 10am and can do the exact same attractions, in the same amount, as a rope dropper. It's not theory, it's fact...we've been there and done that many, many times. Without any real effort, we can go through 10 FP+ in 3-4 hours, plus rides we do that don't need FP+, time for lunch, etc... If you like to do rope drop, that's great. It's not a bad thing. But to imply that it's better, necessary or more productive than other methods is just factually inaccurate.

But it's all good anyway. With the number of people who believe rope drop is the best way to do things, and mid-day breaks are necessary, it makes for surprisingly lighter crowds by mid to late afternoon in many parks.

 

[Babe the Blue Ox]

We also rope-dropped DHS, and rode Tower of Terror 7 times in a row before there was any noticeable wait at all.

That’s pretty good. It’s been a few years, but we once did Tower 13 times in 2 hours while waiting for a 2nd performance of Fantasmic. I don’t think I’d do it again though.

More recently, we got 4 rides on Space Mtn during the last 35 minutes of operation. That one took a little running. It’s a long way back to the entrance.

 

[Babe the Blue Ox]

This is an oldie but goodie, first posted in 2009 when TSM was the hottest attraction on property:


Here's my favorite Rope Drop story:

I had a co-worker recently telling me about her trip to Disney World. They seemed to be pretty good planners and tried to maximize their time the best they could.

She was very excited to tell me about her experience riding Midway Mania without a Fast Pass. The got up really early, got to the gates about 45 minutes before they opened and waited in a pretty large crowd. Then they hurried as fast as they could to the ride and the wait was *only* 15 minutes. By the time they got off the line was almost an hour long. There were people all over the place.

I rode the same ride 4 times in about an hour late at night and didn't have to deal with the crowds.

 

[SMRT-1]

Sure, if you're there on days when a park is open until 11:00 or midnight, then the time before close is a great time to do stuff, since the bulk of people leave after the fireworks. However, if you're there when the close is at 8 or 9, you don't see the same drop in crowds near closing that you do with a later closing time. Regardless of park close, though, some of the popular headliners have low wait times right before close, and it's much less stressful to just get in line then than deal with the rope drop rush to those same headliners.

 

[escriven75]

I'd have to throw my vote in the rope drop column. On our last trip, my wife and I got to MK at ~8:15 am for a 9:00 am park open. We had FP+ for 7DMT, Pan, and Space Mt., so we started in Adventureland and were able to do all of the following before heading to Be Our Guest to check in 10 minutes early for our 11:15 am lunch ADR.

• Jungle Cruise
• Pirates
• Big Thunder
• Splash Mt.
• Haunted Mansion x2
• Small World
• Little Mermaid
• Carousel
• Philharmagic

We also rope-dropped DHS, and rode Tower of Terror 7 times in a row before there was any noticeable wait at all.

7 Tower of Terrors? That's amazing....we are totally on board for that!!

 

[escriven75]

Yep, that's what I thought when I read that post. That must be a summer thing, staying open to midnight? Because it's never been like that for us. When parks close at 9pm, as they will at our upcoming January trip, plenty of people, including families, are still out all evening.
So, OP, park closing times need to figure in your RD decision. That might include spending on the "magical extra" of buying separate evening time at After Hours events.

I also remember past trips where there were extra evening hours at MK that went untill 1am, it was a LONG day, but awesome. Its been a while since they've had that, since they have separate ticket events in the evenings now. All the more reason for us to squeeze more out of our morning hours right!!

 

[escriven75]

We like to go early in June when the longer hours are in effect but the summer crowds haven’t set in yet. Lately, you’ll still see an occasional midnight closing but most nights are 11 pm.

One thing to keep in mind is that the posted wait times are intentionally exaggerated at night to discourage late riders. They also have processes in place to make lines appear longer than they really are.

I can’t count the number of times we’ve found a 60+ minute posted wait with an actual wait of 15 minutes or less.

I agree. They admitted that to us last year when we hopped in the Flight of Passage line about 5 minutes prior to park close. We'd not been able to get a fast pass and this was our last chance. The posted wait was something ridiculous like 150 minutes and I bet we waited no more than 40. When we were standing at the bottom of that ramp to go up to the rooms, I mentioned to the CM that it went way faster than we thought it would and she nicely admitted "ya we do that hoping that some people won't bother"

 

[escriven75]

Sorry, no. If you know how to use MDE and refresh, rope drop is 100% useless from a "productivity" standpoint. We show up at 10am and can do the exact same attractions, in the same amount, as a rope dropper. It's not theory, it's fact...we've been there and done that many, many times. Without any real effort, we can go through 10 FP+ in 3-4 hours, plus rides we do that don't need FP+, time for lunch, etc... If you like to do rope drop, that's great. It's not a bad thing. But to imply that it's better, necessary or more productive than other methods is just factually inaccurate.

But it's all good anyway. With the number of people who believe rope drop is the best way to do things, and mid-day breaks are necessary, it makes for surprisingly lighter crowds by mid to late afternoon in many parks.

Let's not start arguing.....its Disney, its supposed to be fun and magical! I just wanted advice from rope droppers not advice on whether or not we SHOULD rope drop. We're definitely going to get up and attem and seize the morning no matter what. I'm just having a fun conversation about it to get me (and others I'm sure) through months of waiting until our next trip!

 

[SMRT-1]

7 Tower of Terrors? That's amazing....we are totally on board for that!!

Yep. It's my wife's favorite ride. We got in 2 more rides that night, and rope dropped 6 times another day, for a total of 15 for the trip.

 

[SMRT-1]

we once did Tower 13 times in 2 hours

Nice. I think the only reason I was able to get my wife to stop at 7 was that we had FP+ for Rock'n'Roller Coaster. By the way, I don't recommend following up 7 straight rides on Tower with RnRC.

 

[Feberin]

I think a lot of this depends on your group. If you have little kids who typically are up early but get tired early too rope drop is an easy choice. If you can stay out later and actually rest in the morning than maybe that's a better strategy.

 

[disneygirlsng]

We’d never make it open to close. I generally make our first FP for 9:30 so we don’t have to be there until 10:45, well after the crowds entering the parks dies down.

We’ve gotten pretty good at using the refresh method and can usually snag about 10-12 FPs per day. By night time, the lines are short enough that FPs aren’t necessary and we just hit the headliners over and over again. You just have to understand the crowd patterns and know what to do in which order.

Yea, we're generally able to get somewhere between 10-15 FPs each day. My record as a solo was 19 in one day last year, not including 3 rides on RnR and 3 rides on TOT in the first hour without FP that morning, that was a great day!
We're generally able to get at least 3-4 rides done in the first 1-1.5 hours of park open, usually more, but after that I don't ride anything without a FP.

 

[glamdring269]

Rope drop is always available. Parks open late are not. Anecdotes involving 2 data points don’t really provide proof of anything.

With that said I would prefer for people to continue to avoid rope dropping. It’s terrible.