Do not expect to Rope Drop riding a Disney Bus

[mm52200]

What do you mean there is no set time the parks are opening????

They don’t let guests up to the touchpoints until the park is ready to open, to avoid crowds forming. So as soon as they get the go ahead they let guests up to the touchpoints and proceed directly into the park

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Two things:

1. Don’t expect to get anywhere in time using transport
2. Don’t do rope drops

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Drove to MK this morning, in the first “hour” of park opening (more like hour 40 min):
-SDMTx2
-Peter Pan
-Haunted Mansion
-BTMRRx2
-Splash

Also I definitely beat the buses, only was behind the contemporary walkers.

I bet all that stuff was way different than the previous 316 times you had rode each one, eh?

 

[ada0801]

If we drive to the MK, are we able to get from the TTC to MK before the busses? I wouldn’t think the ferry or monorail would run that early would they?

 

[MrsPrice96]

Drove to MK this morning, in the first “hour” of park opening (more like hour 40 min):
-SDMTx2
-Peter Pan
-Haunted Mansion
-BTMRRx2
-Splash

Also I definitely beat the buses, only was behind the contemporary walkers.

What time did you arrive a park?

 

[NelleBelle]

What do you mean there is no set time the parks are opening????

As others have already mentioned, there is a set "official" opening time and then there is the opening of the parks before that opening time that varies from day to day that the parks have started doing. People are now trying to get to the parks for "rope drop" so they can get into the parks when they start allowing people in prior to official opening.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

As others have already mentioned, there is a set "official" opening time and then there is the opening of the parks before that opening time that varies from day to day that the parks have started doing. People are now trying to get to the parks for "rope drop" so they can get into the parks when they start allowing people in prior to official opening.

Kinda why the elimination of EMH is crap, huh?

 

[Touchdown]

What time did you arrive a park?

Got to the MK parking plaza 7:50ish, let in at 8, monorail to front gate, hit Main St 8:20ish.

 

[Touchdown]

I bet all that stuff was way different than the previous 316 times you had rode each one, eh?

If I do all that quickly that leaves time for things like the Tiki Room, Country Bears and Philharmagic later in the morning, and allows me to hop to Epcot in the afternoon and have a nice meal and leisurely do that park. Makes for a nice day. Don’t know why your against rope drops, I’m against long waits and don’t want to be in >30 min line to ride rides I enjoy.

With no FP and early closings there is no other time the big E tickets will have a <15 min wait.

Also, it’s my last day so time to ride till I drop, I go back to the cold tomorrow.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

If I do all that quickly that leaves time for things like the Tiki Room, Country Bears and Philharmagic later in the morning, and allows me to hop to Epcot in the afternoon and have a nice meal and leisurely do that park. Makes for a nice day. Don’t know why your against rope drops, I’m against long waits and don’t want to be in >30 min line to ride rides I enjoy.

With no FP and early closings there is no other time the big E tickets will have a <15 min wait.

I’m against a lot of effort for old.

I’m still with you on ambience and food though...no doubt.

 

[Touchdown]

Final day tally:
-SDMTx2
-Pan
-Haunted Mansion
-BTMRRx2
-Splashx2
-Pirates
-Tiki Room
-Country Bears
-Philharmagic
-Pooh
-Mermaid
-Haunted Mansion
-Splash

Drive back to Yacht Club, grab a drink, change masks, catch the boat to Epcot

-Gateway to Mexico, checking out art booths and food
-Three Cabellos
-Le Celier Dinner
-Imagination
-Soarinx2
-Nemo
-Spaceship Earth
-Mission Space
-Test Track
-Frozenx3 (in 30 min)

So a little over 13 hours, 27 rides, longest wait was 25 min (last Splash ride and Test Track.) a fantastic day all around.

 

[doctornick]

The park has an official opening time, but depending on crowds forming at turnstiles, if the park is show ready they’ll start letting people in to avoid crowding out front. However as guests started hearing this was a thing they started trying to find ways to get to the park “first”. So to combat that transportation is being used to try to keep people away from park entry until closer to opening time. So now to combat that, guests are coming up with other ways to try to get to the park without using Disney transport, usually involving trying ways to sneak into the contemporary to gain access to the walking path.

OK, so it sounds COVID related due to an attempt to avoid crowding. At the very least, it would be ideal to hold back people who are arriving by car or other means until buses arrive, but that just pushes the crowding point to a different spot.

In the pre COVID era, they started running buses about an hour and a half before a park's opening IIRC.

 

[Touchdown]

OK, so it sounds COVID related due to an attempt to avoid crowding. At the very least, it would be ideal to hold back people who are arriving by car or other means until buses arrive, but that just pushes the crowding point to a different spot.

In the pre COVID era, they started running buses about an hour and a half before a park's opening IIRC.

Exactly, I acknowledge I understand why they are doing it, but it still stinks. I think EMH is a way to “fix” this issue but until it takes effect, park warriors need to know.

 

[Dad 2 M & M]

Kinda why the elimination of EMH is crap, huh?

The new morning program is/will be useless with the moving rope drop...pardon me if that was your point

 

[UNCgolf]

Drove to MK this morning, in the first “hour” of park opening (more like hour 40 min):
-SDMTx2
-Peter Pan
-Haunted Mansion
-BTMRRx2
-Splash

Also I definitely beat the buses, only was behind the contemporary walkers.

Was the MK just empty today?

I accidentally opened the Disney app around 11:30 while trying to open something else, but it opened to the MK map with wait times so I took a quick look. They were all exceptionally low. Peter Pan was 30 minutes, Haunted Mansion was 10 minutes, Splash Mountain was 20. The longest wait time in the whole park was 40 minutes for the carousel.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

The new morning program is/will be useless with the moving rope drop...pardon me if that was your point

It was...but I like to hear myself again

Was the MK just empty today?

I accidentally opened the Disney app around 11:30 while trying to open something else, but it opened to the MK map with wait times so I took a quick look. They were all exceptionally low. Peter Pan was 30 minutes, Haunted Mansion was 10 minutes, Splash Mountain was 20. The longest wait time in the whole park was 40 minutes for the carousel.

Not to advocate the current state...but I’d take a 45 minute moving line over the 2019 “fastpass” queue.

Many of us old farts remember how long lines weren’t all that awful...because the genius of Disney was there distribution and throughput.

But hey...I’m sure everyone wants months out; prebooked logjams, right?

 

[UNCgolf]

Not to advocate the current state...but I’d take a 45 minute moving line over the 2019 “fastpass” queue.

Many of us old farts remember how long lines weren’t all that awful...because the genius of Disney was there distribution and throughput.

But hey...I’m sure everyone wants months out; prebooked logjams, right?

While I agree with you, there are some issues with going back to standby only.

First of all, most of what has been added to Disney in the past couple of decades do not have the hourly capacity of the people eaters they built at EPCOT and for some of the MK (Pirates, Haunted Mansion, Small World). Secondly, the number of people in the parks on a daily basis are much higher than they were back in the 90s. Since Disney hasn't increased capacity enough (between lack of new rides in general and lower capacity on many of the ones that have been built), wait lines are going to be much longer.

It won't be the way it was back in the 90s glory days unless Disney somehow lowers attendance or goes on a major building spree to add significant capacity.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

While I agree with you, there are some issues with going back to standby only.

First of all, most of what has been added to Disney in the past couple of decades do not have the hourly capacity of the people eaters they built at EPCOT and for some of the MK (Pirates, Haunted Mansion, Small World). Secondly, the number of people in the parks on a daily basis are much higher than they were back in the 90s. Since Disney hasn't increased capacity enough (between lack of new rides in general and lower capacity on many of the ones that have been built), wait lines are going to be much longer.

It won't be the way it was back in the 90s glory days unless Disney somehow lowers attendance or goes on a major building spree to add significant capacity.

I don’t disagree with any of what you say...I believe I have preached the exact same things on numerous occasions...

Dare to dream, though.

The fact they gave up on building capacity in 1999 is sad in many ways

 

[LittleMerman]

I was at Magic Kingdom last Friday and the bus was running early enough for rope drop. We stayed at Art of Animation and arrived to the park about 5 min before they were letting people in which was 45-50 min before the posted time. We were probably 5th in our line. It was awesome! We were in line for Mine Train before it was even running and waited only about 25 min. Small World and Haunted Mansion were walk-ons (Peter Pan was down for the first half of the day). We were in line for Big Thunder around when the posted opening time.

 

[Touchdown]

Thanks to some morning thunderstorms, that ended around 7:30 and the super bowl MK was dead.