YawningDodo
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Sep 16, 2014
I did FoP at rope drop on a Saturday in January (I keep wanting to say "last month," but it isn't anymore!). I only had one day to spend in the parks, didn't plan to be around AK in the evening, and wasn't able to get a FP+ for it at any time in the lead-up or during my actual stay, so...rope drop it was! I was staying on-site and went during an EMH morning, so I may have been dealing with a smaller crowd than you will (though considering it was a Saturday and all of the parks were packed all day...Idk, maybe, maybe not). I'd still ideally aim to be at the gate an hour before the park opens, but on my own trip I only managed to be there half an hour before opening and all was not lost!
For an 8:00 EMH opening, I arrived at the bus stop at my resort at 6:30. The bus didn't show up until 7:04
and my photo of arriving at the front gate of the park is timestamped 7:25 (that includes time spent walking from the bus, going through bag check, etc). They let us into the park by 7:33, and I hit the queue proper at 7:50 (at which time it was listed at a 75 minute wait in MDE). I reached the preshow/pre-loading area (where they divide you into groups/rooms) at 8:17, annnnd...don't have a specific off-the-ride time because my next photo is at the entrance to Africa at 8:53 (but that was after I'd wandered the FoP gift shop, so I'd been off the ride for a little bit by then).
I actually really loved N'avi River Journey (dare I say -- maybe more than FoP!), but I'm a sucker for a "look at all this cool stuff!" boat ride type of thing. That ride has the best animatronic I've ever seen on Disney property, too, so if you're the kind of person who likes to nerd out over special effects, it's a super cool ride. If you like being allowed to slowly drift through a visually rich environment and stare at all kinds of interesting stuff, it's great. If you want a strong storyline or a bunch of excitement...then yeah, it's going to be pretty boring for you. I want to be clear that I'm not disagreeing with you or saying you were somehow wrong not to enjoy it, just that whether it's worth more than a ten minute wait really depends heavily on one's personal tastes.
Anyway, two thoughts about NRJ: first, it's much easier to get FP+ for it than for FoP (just keep refreshing and something will come up!). Second, arriving at the front of the rope drop crowd means you have a better chance of going straight from FoP to NRJ before NRJ accumulates a long standby line (I didn't get there early enough for that; by the time I was off FoP, NRJ was quite crowded, so it was fortunate I had a FP+ for it a little later that morning).
Agreed about the queue. I was actually disappointed when I got shunted off into a newly opened section of the line partway through my ropedrop wait and was rushed right through one end of the lab without getting to look at any of the neat stuff in there. So if you go at ropedrop you at least have a chance of seeing the cool standby line without an insane wait, but you may still miss things.
For an 8:00 EMH opening, I arrived at the bus stop at my resort at 6:30. The bus didn't show up until 7:04
and my photo of arriving at the front gate of the park is timestamped 7:25 (that includes time spent walking from the bus, going through bag check, etc). They let us into the park by 7:33, and I hit the queue proper at 7:50 (at which time it was listed at a 75 minute wait in MDE). I reached the preshow/pre-loading area (where they divide you into groups/rooms) at 8:17, annnnd...don't have a specific off-the-ride time because my next photo is at the entrance to Africa at 8:53 (but that was after I'd wandered the FoP gift shop, so I'd been off the ride for a little bit by then). I actually really loved N'avi River Journey (dare I say -- maybe more than FoP!), but I'm a sucker for a "look at all this cool stuff!" boat ride type of thing. That ride has the best animatronic I've ever seen on Disney property, too, so if you're the kind of person who likes to nerd out over special effects, it's a super cool ride. If you like being allowed to slowly drift through a visually rich environment and stare at all kinds of interesting stuff, it's great. If you want a strong storyline or a bunch of excitement...then yeah, it's going to be pretty boring for you. I want to be clear that I'm not disagreeing with you or saying you were somehow wrong not to enjoy it, just that whether it's worth more than a ten minute wait really depends heavily on one's personal tastes.
Anyway, two thoughts about NRJ: first, it's much easier to get FP+ for it than for FoP (just keep refreshing and something will come up!). Second, arriving at the front of the rope drop crowd means you have a better chance of going straight from FoP to NRJ before NRJ accumulates a long standby line (I didn't get there early enough for that; by the time I was off FoP, NRJ was quite crowded, so it was fortunate I had a FP+ for it a little later that morning).
Agreed about the queue. I was actually disappointed when I got shunted off into a newly opened section of the line partway through my ropedrop wait and was rushed right through one end of the lab without getting to look at any of the neat stuff in there. So if you go at ropedrop you at least have a chance of seeing the cool standby line without an insane wait, but you may still miss things.
