People always ask me for my biggest tips and tricks for making the most of a Disney World vacation. Well, here’s the best tip and the easiest trick I have—get up early and be at the parks the moment they open—what Disney refers to as rope drop.
To be very clear, in order for this to be beneficial, you must already be in the park during rope drop—if you’re just arriving at the parks when they open or if you’re even just 10 minutes late, you will not reap the full benefits.
Yes, it means you have to get up early in the morning. But if you get to the parks at least a half hour before their scheduled opening time, it will make your entire day so much better.
Here are 5 reasons why...
If a park is scheduled to open at 9:00am, chances are that they'll actually start letting guests line up for rides 5-10 minutes before that--and if crowds are at particularly high capacity, sometimes even earlier! You can get bonus time at the parks, no official Early Entry necessary--and extra time at rope drop is worth twice as much as that same amount of time later in day, but more on that below!
Here's how you can take advantage of this. Nowadays, you can technically get inside all four theme parks before the published start time, though this doesn't mean that the parks are officially open--with long security bag check lines and larger crowds, Disney has stopped holding people at the gates. You won't have access to any attractions, but you will be inside the park and can stop at select food and merchandise locations while you wait---of course they're going to make sure you have an opportunity to spend your money before the day even officially starts ;) --and most importantly, you can be there, ready and waiting to be among the first people on your favorite attraction!
At Magic Kingdom, they even have a little welcome show in front of the castle with Mickey and some pals. It's cute, but sadly nothing as good as the old Welcome Show at the train station (anyone else still really bummed about this???), so unless you have little ones who want to wave to Mickey, you'd be better off getting a "spot" at the front of one of the pathways leading towards your top attraction instead!
It may seem obvious that early morning, even in the summer, is going to be cooler than mid-afternoon when the sun has been blazing for hours, but if you've never tried to run around a Disney park on a sunny summer afternoon, you may not understand just how drastic that difference can feel.
Florida heat and humidity will add to your exhaustion faster than anything else. By making sure that you're in the parks for rope drop, you are maximizing your time because even if you're not a morning person (don't worry, you can grab coffee from Starbucks or Joffrey's while you're waiting for rope drop), you will be able to do a lot more with your time than you would later in the day! Speaking of being able to do more...
You may look at photos of people filling every nook and cranny of the waiting areas before rope drop and think, how is this lower crowds? But you have to remember--rope drop is the only time of day where every single person in the park is headed in one direction--in. As soon as people start moving towards attractions, space opens up like you wouldn't believe.
My husband and I like to call the first hour of the day the "magic hour" because with very few exceptions you can walk on to whatever ride you'd like with just about no wait. This is where having a plan really comes in handy--you want to hit whatever is going to have the longest line later in the day first, and then continue to move to your other favorite popular rides before the rest of the guests have woken up and gotten themselves to the park.
If you're not sure which attractions you should prioritize, let me help you! As an Authorized Disney Vacation Planner with Key to the World Travel, my job is to plan personalized Disney vacations for FREE! It seriously costs you nothing extra. There's no catch! It's one of the reasons you should use a travel agent to help plan your next vacation!
Since the low crowd levels you experience at rope drop allow you to hit popular attractions without long waits, you don't have to use Genie+ for these rides, meaning you can save them for other attractions later in the day!
Or if you have Park Hopper tickets, you can save them for attractions at a totally different park!
The second option is one of my favorite ways to utilize Park Hopper tickets--let's say you go to rope drop at Magic Kingdom and hit headliners like Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Space Mountain, and Splash Mountain, all during the "magic hour"...you can then load up on Genie+ Lightning Lanes at the second park you want to visit (say Epcot?), ensuring that you won't have to wait in a long line for attractions like Test Track and Frozen Ever After! Basically, it will feel like you got double the Lightning Lanes for the day.
If you sleep in and don't make it to Magic Kingdom until mid-morning, you'll be waiting in super long lines for those same attractions, wishing you had Lightning Lanes for them!
Hitting the parks at rope drop adds incredible value to your time--you're able to do more in less time than any other time of day. You should be able to so much that you can take a mid-day break without missing out on anything!
And when you factor in the mid-day heat and the mid-day crowds that can make it tough to get much done anyway, it's pure *bliss* to spend a few hours at your resort. I'm partial to poolside naps, but you could also treat yourself to a long (And maybe boozy? You're on vacation!) lunch at a Disney Deluxe Resort restaurant--and if you aren't staying onsite at a Disney resort, this is a great option for you, as it probably won't be worth going all the way back to your off-site resort for a nap or pool time!
Speaking of staying on-site versus off-site, you should be aware that if you aren't staying at a Disney resort, you will not have access to Early Entry, so you would not be able to take advantage of a true rope drop--the resort guests will already have filled up all of the lines.
If you are staying onsite at a Disney resort, rope drop for morning Early Entry is especially awesome, because it's even less crowded than usual as not all guests can get into the parks!