We all know a Disneyland Paris trip isn’t cheap, and naturally people want to maximise their time in the two theme parks as much as possible. One way to do this is to have a solid plan for the parks at ‘rope drop’. But what does this actually mean, and how do you make the most of it? We explain all in this blog!

What is ‘rope drop’ at Disneyland Paris?

The term ‘rope drop’ is commonly used theme park speak for being at a theme park for when it opens to the public.

It’s called rope drop because often areas of a theme park would be blocked off to the public with a rope – when opening time hit, the rope was literally dropped to allow people past! Nowadays you might not even encounter a rope, and if you do it’s unlikely to be dropped, rather taken away carefully to the side! (We don’t want anyone tripping I guess.)

The advantage of being in a theme park as it opens is that it means you can be among the first to experience an attraction in a day, so you’ll be able to get on the ride far more quickly than you may do later in the day when the crowds and queues build up. Also, because quite a few people don’t want to get up early on holiday, the first hour or two the park is open can in theory be a good time to hit up a number of the rides – giving you a massive head start on the folks who decided to have a lie in!

Double the rope drops, double the fun?

Technically, rope drop is the time the theme park opens to the general public – and Disneyland Paris certainly has that! (Generally it’s 9.30am but times can shift seasonally so do check before your trip.) However, Disneyland Paris adds to the confusion by having another earlier rope drop for select guests!

This is because of Extra Magic Hour. This perk, offered to guests of the Disney owned hotels, Les Villages Nature guests and the highest tier of annual pass holders, allows these folks to access the park an hour before other guests to experience select attractions. So if the regular park opening time is at 9.30am, then Extra Magic Hour starts at 8.30am. Because it’s a more select group that has access to Extra Magic Hour, this earlier rope drop time tends to be a lot quieter than the general opening an hour later. But it can still be extremely competitive, with guests making a beeline for those Disneyland Paris attractions that build up the highest waits before the rest of the crowds enter the park!

Extra Magic Hour can be a blessing or a curse, depending on your perspective. If you’re a guest that has this access, it can be a great way to hit popular rides before everyone else gets in the park and the queues build. But if you’re not eligible for Extra Magic Hour (or just don’t want to get up an hour earlier!) it does mean that for some attractions long lines would have already built up before you even get into the park! Which can be irritating. But, by being there at the main rope drop time you still have a head start on other guests who wanted more of a lie in, and you’re still going to be in a great position to ride attractions that weren’t offered as part of Extra Magic Hour – because not all of them are!

Can I wing rope drop at Disneyland Paris?

If you want to just work out on the day a plan for your rope drop at either of the Disneyland Paris parks, you of course can – no one is forcing you to make a game plan if you’d rather not. However, not having a plan will mean that while you’re trying to decide where to head, the more organised guests will be bustling past you to head into ride lines, meaning you’ll wait longer when you get there!

As a result, we’d suggest you have at least of plan of a couple of attractions you would like to hit up first thing in the morning, and the order you would like to visit them in. To decide that, keep an eye on the queue times for the attractions you’re most interested in on the Disneyland Paris app for a few days before your trip. Whichever ride is building up the longest wait on those days, head there first!

I will also recommend that you have a back up plan and the ability to pivot if need be. Many of the Disneyland Paris attractions involve a lot of technology, and if you’ve ever had to reboot your computer in annoyance when it decides to have a funny five minutes, you’ll know that technology sometimes goes wrong. Disneyland Paris will always try their hardest to have attractions ready for the time they’re supposed to open, but sometimes they experience technical problems and don’t! If this is the case be prepared to pivot to another attraction, and preferably without waiting too long – otherwise you’ll be wasting that time of lower crowds waiting for a ride, when you could be visiting others in that time. If a ride is down at park opening and isn’t showing signs of life within the first five minutes or so, queues will often form by those waiting for it to open and it can be tempting to get in line. However unless that attraction is the be all and end all of your trip, I wouldn’t recommend this – again you’ll just be wasting time that you could be spending getting on other attractions with shorter waits, and there’s no guarantee how quickly a ride will come online – it could be 5 minutes, it could also be well over an hour!

So I’d recommend going in to rope drop (or Extra Magic Hour if you’re eligible for that!) with a plan of at least two rides and the order you’d like to visit them in, and a back up third in case something happens to one of the other two!

Are all Disneyland Paris attractions available at rope drop?

In a short answer – no. For Extra Magic Hour only select rides are available anyway, and even at general rope drop there are typically some rides that have later opening times.

In Disneyland Park examples of this typically include the Disneyland Railroad, and the Molly Brown riverboat over at Thunder Mesa Riverboat Landing. For both of these attractions they often open about an hour after the general park opening time, sometimes even later (in the case of the Disneyland Railroad, its opening time is often dependent on when the parade is running). Over in Disney Adventure World, Cars Road Trip often seems to like a lie in too! Of course attraction opening times can vary so do check the Disneyland Paris app for details of when you’re going.

It probably also goes without saying that the shows with scheduled times don’t typically kick off at rope drop. They normally start at around 11am, sometimes later! (Again, times can vary so check the app – theatres and signage around the show venues also typically display the show times that day).

Character meet and greets also often don’t kick off until a bit after park opening. Having said that if a character meet and greet is one that you’re really keen on then heading straight there to get in line at rope drop can mean a far shorter wait when the character comes out! Also note that occasionally characters will start meeting in Extra Magic Hour – who and where very much depends though. For the characters you need to get a virtual queue for, the first queue time drop is typically at 9.45am (with another at 2pm) that you need to apply for via the Disneyland Paris app. Rope dropping these is therefore not really an option, however it should be noted that you need to be scanned into the theme park to get a spot in the queue, so it may be worth rope dropping just to ensure you’re in the park at the right time! Meeting Anna and Elsa, over in World of Frozen in Disney Adventure World, has an extra virtual queue time drop at 8.45am, which is only accessible to those guests with Extra Magic Hour – so that’s a perk!

What attractions should you rope drop?

This isn’t a simple question to answer! Firstly of course it will depend very much on the tastes of your group and the attractions that you can or would like to experience. Also it depends on whether you have Extra Magic Hour or not. And it’ll depend on what attractions are part of Extra Magic Hour – whether or not you can experience it!

The reason for this is that there are some attractions that can quickly build up queues of an hour or more by the time Extra Magic Hour ends, so if you don’t have access to that you might find limited benefit in rope dropping it. We’ve got a YouTube video coming out soon on Extra Magic Hour with some tips on where to head first – but attractions that quickly build up queues in this time if they’re open are Big Thunder Mountain and Peter Pan’s Flight in Disneyland Park, and Crush’s Coaster and Frozen Ever After in Disney Adventure World. (Crush’s Coaster in particular is the worst culprit for this, partly because it’s such a slow loading ride!) If you have Extra Magic Hour then these are worth heading to, if not… you might want a different plan.

I should say that for Big Thunder and Peter Pan’s Flight, queues will probably still be a bit shorter at the beginning of the general park day than they will be in the middle of the day, as there’s still less guests around than otherwise. So if these are must dos for you then it still might be worth hopping in line here. Otherwise for these rides, and for Crush’s Coaster and Frozen Ever After, then you might actually want to wait until the evening to get in line providing you don’t mind the longer park day (or are planning a middle day of the rest to be re-energised for the evening!) Crush will probably still have a long line, even later in the day, but the others often see queue times drop into the evening. A word of warning though with Peter Pan’s Flight – chunks of Fantasyland close earlier than the rest of the park in preparation for the nighttime show. While Peter Pan’s Flight does stay open, it does mean accessing it is going to be a lot more tricky – your best bet would be heading to it via Adventureland as opposed to through Fantasyland. Also keep an eye on Big Thunder – it’s not always open in Extra Magic Hour, and if it isn’t then heading here at rope drop is a great plan!

So what other attractions are worth rope dropping? Here are our top picks in roughly the order we’d prioritise them (based on how likely they are to get longer queues).

Disneyland Park

• Dumbo the Flying Elephant
• Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast
• Hyperspace Mountain
• Pirates of the Caribbean
• Phantom Manor
• Snow White’s Adventures and / or Pinocchio’s Daring Journey

Of course Disneyland Park has a lot more amazing attractions than we’ve listed here, these are just the ones that tend to get the longer lines later on (they often see queue times drop towards the evening though). Star Tours can be another good priority as it tends to get longer lines in the middle of the day – it can be a lot of quieter in the evening. Also if you have littles, Autopia and Orbitron can build up lines too – we don’t think they’re worth prioritising too much though!

Disney’s Adventure World

• Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure
• Spiderman WEB Slingers
• Tower of Terror
• Avengers Flight Force
• RC Racer

Again, there’s a lot more great attractions but these are the ones that tend to get the longer lines!

For both parks feel free to disregard attractions that aren’t appealing to you as part of your rope drop strategy. As we’re not fans of Crush’s Coaster we wouldn’t factor that into our plans, or Avengers Flight Force. And we won’t be rushing to Hyperspace Mountain either! But we recognise that a lot of other people love these, hence we’ve included them here.

Is it worth doing rope drop?

If you’re eligible for Extra Magic Hour we’d say it’s worth doing rope drop for that at least once for each park during your stay if you can. If you don’t have Extra Magic Hour though we’d still say yes, but with some caveats.

Not having Extra Magic Hour does inevitably mean there will already be some long lines as you get into the theme parks at the most popular rides, so if can feel that the main rope drop is less worth it. But we still think it is! As noted above, it can still get you on some attractions with shorter waits. But being in the parks at rope drop has some other great advantages. It means you can grab a breakfast while others are rushing past, enjoying a more leisurely morning with less queues. It means you’ll be able to walk areas of the park with a lot less people in them than will build up later (Adventureland in particular seems to be very empty first thing!). This can be great for some memorable filming or photos! (We’ve used morning time to film a lot as it means getting into spaces with a lot less people around). If you’re interested in the walkthrough attractions, you can hit up these with very few people there allowing for a more leisurely visit where you can really take in the details. You can also get ahead of the crowd for the characters – whether physical line or virtual queues.

So yes, we do think it’s worth it, even without Extra Magic Hour – you may just need to accept that you’ll inevitably hit a longer line for some of the attractions, or need a different strategy to ride them!

What if I can’t rope drop?

Not everyone want’s to get up early on vacation, or can. Maybe if you’re managing particular medical conditions getting to the park at opening just isn’t an option for you. Maybe you had a late night before, watching one of the nighttime shows or getting your line-dancing on in Billy Bob’s in Disney Village, and just need a lie in. Or maybe it’s a travel day so you just can’t get to the park for opening! (This is typically us on our arrival day). This will mean you can’t do rope drop, but that doesn’t have to derail your park day. You might just have to think a bit differently that’s all!

Inevitably when you get into the theme parks, queues would have built up at many of the attractions. But, a later start might mean you can stay later in the parks, in which case you might be able to catch some of those attractions later on in the evening. But in the middle of the day there will still be attractions with shorter waits, shows, entertainment and more that can be experienced. Or maybe a meal or a shopping trip. Or parking on a bench with a snack and people watching (it might sound dull but it can be quite fun). Or just wander around the parks taking in the vibes, seeing the lie of the land, and spotting all those details that Disney have crammed in to bring these parks to life.

As an alternative if you wanted to still visit a lot of attractions without rope dropping but don’t want long waits, you could pay for Premier Access. We’ve got a whole blog on Premier Access here, but essentially it’s where you can pay for access to shorter line rides for some of the attractions across both parks. If you can’t rope drop and have very limited time at Disneyland Paris (and can afford it!) then the Premier Access Ultimate will allow you in to expedited queues at times to suit you across all the attractions that offer the service in both parks. Otherwise if there’s just set attractions you’d like a shorter line for, then you could by the Premier Access One for that ride if it’s offered, giving you an hour time slot to return and experience that attraction with a shorter wait. Note that Premier Access slots can sell out, particularly for the most popular rides and at busier times of year, so I wouldn’t wait too long if you want to do this – particularly for very popular rides like Crush’s Coaster, Frozen Ever After, Big Thunder Mountain and Peter Pan’s Flight. Also note that Premier Access offers shorter waits, not instant access – it’ll be a lot quicker than waiting in the standby line, but it’s unlikely to be instant!

I’ll also mention that if you’re eligible for the Priority Pass for the differently-abled, you will have access to expedited queue lines as part of this. It can be particularly handy for this group, where people may struggle to be in the parks for rope drop due to medical conditions, neurodiversity and more. Learn more about Priority Pass in our blog here.

So while we would recommend rope drop (especially on shorter trips to maximise time, or at busier times of year) – we don’t think it’s the be all and end all of having a good Disneyland Paris day!

Hopefully this has given a good overview of rope drop at Disneyland Paris, and can help you plan your strategy for your next Disneyland Paris visit! Which attraction would you visit first? Let us know in the comments, and while down there please do subscribe to our blog! You’ll get future blogs directly into your inbox, as well as a free copy of our Magically Different Guide to Disneyland Paris Attraction Accessibility (typically £3). We share tips and tricks over on our YouTube channel too, and we’d love to see you there! And if you’d like to support our work please consider leaving us a tip, or shopping our Amazon Storefront. Thank you!