Tom Morrow
Well-Known Member
This was a few pages back, but I wanted to add my two cents as someone who hates mornings but is very familiar with typical WDW crowd flow. Traditionally, it was true that getting to the park at rope drop guaranteed you at least an hour of walk-ons or minimal lines, outside of peak times. However, because of modern crowd tendencies, the fact that the parks are just much more crowded on average these days, and Fastpass+ ensuring guests have Fastpasses scheduled right at the official park open (thereby artificially inflating the lines earlier than the legacy system) this is more or less no longer the case. These days, rope-dropping a park essentially gets you one quick boarding on a high demand attraction, and maybe a second one if you're lucky.
If you don't plan on spending the entire day at the park, and you have a choice between morning and night, night is typically a better option in my opinion. If you arrive at rope drop and stay until late afternoon, you only experience the park getting busier and busier. If you arrive, say, after noon, you'll arrive at the busiest time - but that's okay because hopefully you scheduled Fastpasses at this time - and you'll experience the park crowds gradually decreasing rather than increasing.
The final few hours of the park's operation are crucial to powering through multiple attractions. Though you may or may not be experiencing walk-ons, the lines are typically significantly shorter than late morning through late afternoon making it possible to hit multiple major attractions. As a local AP I almost never go to the parks until late afternoon or early evening, and I basically always get on everything I want to ride.
Not to mention that in addition to decreasing crowds, the atmosphere in the parks is better at night because of all the lighting Disney uses, not to mention it's typically cooler out. I ride Flight of Passage every time I visit DAK with a short wait simply by getting in line right before park closing. This is because once Fastpass users are no longer trickling in. Same technique applies to every high demand attraction that Fastpasses are hard to get for - Frozen, 7DMT, Slinky Dog.
