The ride wait times at Disney can get crazy long especially if you are traveling during a busy time of year like Spring break, summertime or the winter holidays. If your family is like mine, you don’t want to spend your days in the park waiting in line just to go on a ride that’s a minute or two long. Now if your budget allows for it you can always pay for the Lighting lanes to decrease the wait time but that is not always an option due to the $ price tag that comes along with that convenience. For us we would rather spend the extra money on souvenirs and sit-down meals.

One way to experience rides with lower wait times is by getting to parks right as they open, this is what you will hear referred to as “rope dropping” because there is usually a rope at the entrance into the park that the staff will lower to let guest in as the park opens for the day. Now if you are staying at a Disney resort there are also days that allow for early park entrance which means you can get into the park before general admission.

Now the main reason to rope drop a park is to go on your must do rides or as many rides as possible without having to waste all day in line. These are the top 3 rides we always go straight to at each park because they are the rides that consistently have the longest waits throughout the day.

Magic Kingdom

• Seven dwarfs mine train
• Tron
• Peter Pans flight

Epcot

• Remy’s Ratatouille adventure
• Test Track
• Soarin’ around the world

*Currently Test Track under refurbishment so our next top pick is the Frozen Ever after

Animal Kingdom

• Avatar flight of passage
• Expedition Everest
• Kilimanjaro safaris

Hollywood Studios

• Mickey and Minnie’s runaway railway
• Star Wars: rise of the resistance
• Slinky dog dash coaster

Now a lot of these rides do have height restrictions so if you have little ones in our group you can do the rider swap or take advantage of the low wait times on any of the open rides in the parks. Keep in mind that not all the rides may be open with the early park admission times, you can check in the My Disney experience app that a ride is open before making your way over.