So I know in a few of the Patreon chats I got a little flack for my creative Rope Dropping - so I thought I would start a discussion here -
What have you Rope Dropped that most people don't and WHY?
For me - I LOVE Its a Small World - but I don't like to wait for it - so at MK - often I rope drop Small World - I used to try and rope drop 7 dwarves but 3/4 times last year it didn't open with early entry or we still waited > 60 min just to ride that ride "early" - I find I can get Small World, Pooh, Mermaid, Buzz and People Mover all done in less than an hour vs just one ride that typically I can get at 45 min later at night.
At MK, we are always so put off by the 7DMT stampede that we don't even try for that and instead proceed to Pan. If we can get through Pan quickly enough, we'll squeeze in a ride on Small World before lining up behind Memento Mori for general rope drop and either rushing over to BTMRR or just walking on to HM.
I think the really good ones are where you're still doing what I would describe as a "top tier ride" but they're not the very top tier. Often you can get a few turns on them with little wait.
Animal Kingdom: Not going to Pandora and going the opposite direction, you could potentially do Everest or Dinosaur a few times repeatedly with little wait.
Hollywood Studios: Not going for Rise or Slinky, but going for Tower of Terror and Rock n Rollercoaster instead.
Epcot: Soarin or maybe Test Track when it comes back.
Magic Kingdom: Space Mountain.
The problem with "It's a Small World" is that it takes 15 minutes to ride, so in my opinion it's not the best use of time when you're trying to take advantage of times when line-ups are at there shortest. I agree that 7 Dwarfs is not a good use of rope drop or early entry. I far prefer to just pay for the lightning lane than to get up super early and be in a massive crowd of people vying for 7 Dwarfs. At Animal Kingdom we went to Dinosaur and then to Expedition Everest during early entry, and got to Adventurer's Outpost a couple minutes before it opened. It seemed everyone was going to Pandora, and we took Rob's advice and had very little competition on the other side of the park. We had lightning lanes for Na'Vi and Flight of Passage for the end of the day. At MK, we had success doing Peter Pan and Winnie the Pooh during early entry, but that's all we got done even though we were there very very early (part of the challenge was that 7 Dwarfs was down so all those people swarmed Peter Pan and Winnie the Pooh). But the next time we did MK we didn't bother with early entry. A few minutes after opening did Jungle Cruise, Pirates, and Haunted Mansion, all were walk-ons. At Epcot we were entering via the International Gateway but Remy was down (the whole day!), so we did Soarin'. That was a good choice because it's not the most popular early entry ride, and even though it's an easy lightning lane to get the lightning lane queue seems to always be long (15+ minutes). Similar to my reasoning on 7 Dwarfs I didn't want to spend my entire morning trying to save some time on Frozen, and instead had it as a lightning lane. BUT, and here is where I am going against the grain, by the end of my trip I was very much of the opinion that trying to do popular rides during early entry is not good use of time, period! I'd much prefer to do them as lightning lanes. I used early entry only to get to our first lightning lane at the earliest possible moment. With a good lightning lane strategy you can get everything done without lining up, so what's the point of waking up at the crack of dawn and lining up to get into another line up? I still think it's worth going early, because by 11am it can get just way too busy to be fun, but just not super early. We found that being at a park for our first lightning lane, we could take a 5-hour resort break in the middle of the day, and still get every attraction done with lightning lanes. This is for all the parks, and if you're willing to skip some of the shows you can do one park in the morning, and another in the evening.
Flack? I don’t remember any flack. 😂 I love that idea! Especially because I LOVE it’s a small world as well! (There are so few of us it seems lol). I’m always trying to zag when everyone else is zigging. I’ll do Tower of Terror and Everest while everyone else is going for the bigger rides.