Rope Drop GE vs. Mid-Day Visit

[Poho14]

We're preparing our itinerary for our late-January visit (1/25-2/1) and we're trying to decide if we should rope drop at HS to ride Smuggler's Run and Rise of the Resistance or go mid-day and hope the wait times are a hour or less. Based on Josh's posts, it seems like the wait time for Smuggler's Run starts to go down around mid-day. We have two young kids and I think they'd do better waiting in line with all the things to look at, pre-show, etc. than waiting in a crowd for the park to open. Unfortunately, we have to select our FP+ before Rise of the Resistance opens, so we won't be able to rely on actually experiences before we finalize our FP+ picks. I know this is all speculative since Rise of the Resistance hasn't opened yet, but I appreciate any advice. BTW, does anyone have a sense as to when they'll open up FP+ for GE rides?

 

[BSS]

I would plan to ride RotR either at RD or at the very end of the night. I would expect waits for it to be similar to Flight of Passage and waiting a couple hours in the middle of the day with young kids doesn't sound like a lot of fun even if the queue is amazing.

 

[Anne]

I would plan to ride RotR either at RD or at the very end of the night. I would expect waits for it to be similar to Flight of Passage and waiting a couple hours in the middle of the day with young kids doesn't sound like a lot of fun even if the queue is amazing.

I think it differs from FoP in that there are no FP so peak waits maybe won't get as bad? Agree that waits will obviously still be better at front of line at park open or end of night. I don't think there is a great answer. It will probably be unpleasant whichever strategy you choose. I might go for right before close on a night with the earliest close you can find in hopes the kids can manage it. I agree, I do hate waiting with small kids at RD. One time we were standing right by the map stand outside MK and I thought grandpa was going to lose it if the kids touched another map ;-)

 

[BSS]

True, no FP should make it better than FOP. I would still anticipate waits of over an hour, but I suppose it is hard to say. We are in the same boat in that we had to book FP+ two weeks ago for our January trip, so no actual reports to go on.

 

[HeyHeather]

I think downtime or incomplete capacity could possibly factor in?

It took a while for Frozen to become reliable. Hope RoR doesn't have problems but if there are issues occurring frequently into January, then rope drop would be best. That leaves the rest of the day for back-up recovery options.