5 Smart Rope Drop Strategies for Disneyland

I love visiting Disneyland, but hate standing in line. As a result, I've spent the better part of the last decade thinking through and testing strategies to optimize my days to dodge the crowds when visiting the Happiest Place on Earth.

If you are planning to visit the two theme parks at the Disneyland Resort (Disneyland and Disney California Adventure), you can get the most done with the shortest lines first thing in the morning - a time of day Disney fans usually refer to as "rope drop." Yes, it can be painful waking up early on vacation, but sacrificing a few extra minutes of sleep can save you many hours in line throughout the course of a theme park day.

All rides will have a short line right after park opening. But in the minutes that follow, the crowds disperse and lines develop on very different timelines at each attraction. Some rides will still have almost no wait at all for an hour or two, while literally seconds count at others. It's essential to know the order in which you should visit each attraction to minimize your overall morning wait.

After hundreds of days at Disneyland, I've developed and tested a whole lot of rope drop strategies. There are several efficient pathways guests can take depending on their interests. This post covers 5 rope options in Disneyland park that you can follow to optimize your morning.

And if you are headed across the esplanade to DCA, be sure to check out my companion piece with all the strategies for rope drop at Disney California Adventure.

(Trips With Tykes uses affiliate links which means I may earn a small commission if you purchase through links in this post. See our full disclosure policy linked in the menu at the bottom of this site.)

What (and Where) is Rope Drop at Disneyland?

First things first - what exactly is rope drop at Disneyland and how do you do it? Disneyland normally opens its park gates about 30 minutes before official park opening time. Guests are free to enter the park but are stopped by a rope at a central place in the park before they encounter most ride entrances.

Within Disneyland park, the rope is located in the hub - by the Walt Disney and Mickey Partners statue right in front of the castle. Technically there are really two ropes these days, as the crowd splits around that hub. Guests headed for Tomorrowland or Fantasyland stand on the right facing the castle.

Guests headed for Frontierland, Adventureland, or Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge stand on the left facing the castle just past Jolly Holiday.

At exactly park opening time, Disney cast members count down and then drop this rope. Guests then hustle (very) quickly towards their favorite attractions to beat the crowds.

How Does Early Entry Affect Rope Drop?

Rope drop happens daily in each park, but guests who are staying at one of Disney's three on-property hotels get an additional early morning benefit. One park at the Disneyland Resort opens 30 minutes early each day for guests staying at these three on-property Disney hotels (Grand Californian, Disneyland Hotel, and Pixar Place Hotel).

Related: Grand Californian vs. Disneyland Hotel: Which is Right for Your Family?

This perk is known as Early Entry. Guests with Early Entry privileges bypass the regular rope drop barriers and are held (and released) at an Early Entry rope of their own.

Early Entry is available in Disneyland park on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays (it's in DCA on the other days). Only some of the lands and a select number of attractions are open in each park.

If you are entering a park for rope drop on a day that Early Entry is offered to on-property guests (and you don't have Early Entry), that means that a few thousand other guests are going to have a jump on you. There are a few rides that you will want to skip during rope drop because Early Entry will have had too big of an effect on their queues.

But a few thousand guests isn't necessarily game changing across the board. Because only parts of the park are open during Early Entry, there are some parts of the park where Early Entry really has no effect on the lines for regular rope droppers at all. And there are some rides that have a big enough capacity (or are of lower priority to Early Entry guests) such that rope droppers will still encounter short waits for them when it is their turn to enter the parks.

Generally speaking though, I recommend making your Disneyland theme park park reservation for the park that isn't offering Early Entry if you don't have it yourself. This means all guests will be on the same level playing field at regular rope drop time. But sometimes that isn't possible, so all my strategies below note the differences that matter if you find yourself rope dropping behind the Early Entry crowds.

(Note: For guests who have Early Entry privileges, your morning may look like some of the strategies I'm going to set out below. But not fully! Look out for another post coming soon with my best morning strategies specifically for Early Entry guests.)

What About Lightning Lane?

Disneyland offers cut-the-line (or at least cut-some-of-the-line) options for some rides called Lightning Lane Multi Pass and Lightning Lane Single Pass. These options were formerly known as Disney Genie+ and Individual Lightning Lane, and they function exactly the same despite the name change.

I'm a big fan of Lightning Lanes for guests who want to ride more throughout the day, but they aren't smart to use first thing in the morning. Why? That's when the regular lines are short!

You should be using the first hour or so of the morning riding attractions that don't offer Lightning Lane at all. Or you should be riding attractions that do offer Lightning Lane that you may want to ride multiple times (ride once via short standby lines in the morning and then later in the day with a Lightning Lane when lines are longer).

The rope drop strategies I recommend below do not use Lightning Lanes at all. But if you choose to purchase either Lightning Lane product, you should be able easily to slot one or two Lightning Lane rides into your morning. Ideally, just don't use Lightning Lanes right away. I usually redeem my first Lightning Lane about 1-2 hours after park opening time, after I've ridden anywhere from 2-5 other attractions first.

Related: Advanced Strategies & Tips to Maximize Lightning Lane on a Disneyland Trip

Rope Drop Strategies for Disneyland Park

Now for the strategies! How can you best spend the first couple hours of your day in Walt's original Disneyland park? Here are five different rope drop approaches that will minimize your wait in early morning standby lines.

Strategy 1: Fantasyland Mad Dash

Best for: Families with younger kids, classic Disneyland fans

The approach I personally use most at rope drop, both with and without my kids, is to make a beeline for Fantasyland. Objectively speaking, this strategy is the one that is going to get you the most rides in the shortest period of time. If you are really aiming to have a jam-packed fully optimized day riding as many attractions as humanly possible in one or both parks, starting in Fantasyland is the way to do it. (Starting here is the key to how I regularly ride 10 attractions at Disneyland before 10:00am - post coming soon on that too!)

The rides in Fantasyland are generally quite short without pre-shows that take up time. That means you can bounce from one ride to another very speedily before crowds build. None of these rides offer Lightning Lane access, so you don't have a lot of other options to experience them with short waits, except maybe riding late at night.

You can expect to experience 3-6 Fantasyland attractions within the first hour of park opening depending on crowds and how fast your party moves. I recommend the following order of ride priority (with one important caveat noted below). There's no need to do every attraction on this list - skip the ones that don't interest you and move to the next on the priority list. You probably won't be able to do them ALL before lines build, but I regularly get through 50-75% of this list on my Fantasyland mornings.

1. Peter Pan's Flight***
2. Alice in Wonderland
3. Dumbo the Flying Elephant
4. Snow White's Enchanted Wish
5. Mr. Toad's Wild Ride
6. Casey Jr. Circus Train
7. Everything else: Pinocchio's Daring Journey, Mad Tea Party, King Arthur Carrousel, Storybook Land Canal Boats, it's a small world

***Peter Pan can be a very risky first choice. To experience it with a 0-15 minute wait, you must be at the very front of the rope drop crowds on a non-Early Entry Day and walk very speedily straight to the attraction (no time to park a stroller!). I often skip it because it is so competitive. Definitely do not do it if you are entering at regular rope drop on a day that has Early Entry. The Early Entry guests will already have clogged the line too substantially.

One variation of this strategy is to ride 2-4 of your favorite Fantasyland attractions and then head back to Toontown to ride Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway. It's far enough back in the park that the line takes awhile to build now that it is no longer brand new.

Strategy 2: Space Race

Best for: Families who want to experience a variety of classic attractions and moderate thrills

Space Mountain is a perennially popular thrill ride in Disneyland park and many guests (rightly) want to start their morning there. From there, it's easy to then hit many of the nearby attractions in Tomorrowland with short waits without doing a lot of criss-crossing the park.

A futuristic-focused Tomorrowland rope drop strategy should proceed as follows:

1. Space Mountain***
2. Astro Orbitor
3. Star Tours
4. Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters
5. Autopia
6. Finding Nemo Submarines

***Space Mountain is open for Early Entry, so this rope drop strategy is most optimal on non-Early Entry days. That said, the ride's capacity is large enough that you can still start with Space Mountain even on Early Entry days as long as you are at the front of the regular rope drop crowds. The line usually is still less than 15 minutes long for regular rope drop guests who make a beeline to it.

Strategy 3: Climb Every Mountain

Best for: Thrill ride lovers, fast moving adult & teen groups

For thrill ride lovers, there is another rope drop variation that starts with Space Mountain you may want to consider. This strategy takes you on all four of Disneyland's "mountains" without much of a wait or needing to pay for Lightning Lane.

This strategy involves a lot more walking than other strategies. But for more mobile guests, it returns a lot of bang without the bucks! Tackle the rides in this order:

1. Space Mountain (with the same Early Entry minor caveat as above)
2. Matterhorn Bobsleds
3. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
4. Tiana's Bayou Adventure

If you are really looking to move even more speedily, both Space Mountain and Matterhorn offer single rider lines, but often those aren't reliably open so early in the morning. You're more likely to find it at Matterhorn when you hit that second.

Note that Tiana's is the wild card on this strategy right now because it is so new and line strategy is changing rapidly. This post is being published in the winter months when most guests don't want to ride a water ride that can drench them first thing in the morning. As the warmer months arrive, however, crowd patterns and demand for Tiana's may shift, so watch this space for updates!

Of course, thrill ride lovers are likely going to want to add Indiana Jones Adventure to their ride line up as well. Unfortunately, it's not really possible to do both Space Mountain and Indiana Jones with short waits via standby lines (at least without Early Entry privileges). If you want short waits for both, you'll need to either use the Single Rider line for Space Mountain (when it's available) or make a Lightning Lane Multi Pass purchase. I recommend rope dropping one of these rides and making your first Lightning Lane reservation of the day for the other one.

Strategy 4: Adventure Awaits

Best for: Families who want to experience a variety of classic and adventurous attractions.

Speaking of Indiana Jones, it is another favorite thrill ride that a lot of guests start with each morning, especially as an alternative to Space Mountain. If you are headed to the left side of the park into Adventureland, Frontierland, and New Orleans Square, there are a lot of medium thrills and really classic Disneyland favorites you can march through with minimal waits.

Best of all: this strategy works equally well on both Early Entry and non-Early Entry days. Why? Because the lands on this side of the park aren't open for Early Entry! That means on-property and off-property guests are on the same footing for experiencing short lines every day of the week.

Plan to visit the left-side-of-the-park attractions in this order:

1. Indiana Jones Adventure
2. Big Thunder Mountain
3. Haunted Mansion
4. Tiana's Bayou Adventure***
5. Pirates of the Caribbean
6. Jungle Cruise

***If you don't want to get splashed in the morning and/or can use Lightning Lane Multi Pass for Tiana's later in the day when it warms up, I recommend skipping Tiana's and going straight for Pirates and Jungle Cruise.

Strategy 5: Rise of the Resistance or Bust

Best for: Star Wars Superfans, first-timers to Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge

So far, these strategies haven't taken us to Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge, the newest land in Disneyland park. That land is home to what is still arguably the most in-demand ride in the park: Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. The ride is so popular that Disney sells it as a paid Lightning Lane Single Pass attraction at $20-28 per person. Naturally, a lot of guests want to rope drop Rise of the Resistance to experience a short wait and avoid this extra cost.

That's possible, but only with the right preparation and the understanding that utilizing this strategy comes with some major tradeoffs. Rise of the Resistance is a long ride, with multiple pre-shows. And it's way back in the very back of the park. Even if you are at the very front of the rope drop crowds and can keep up with the speediest competition walking all the way there, you'll be lucky to be done with it in less than 30-60 minutes. By then, a lot of other standby lines in the park will have built up substantially.

Also be aware that Rise of the Resistance isn't open for Early Entry, but on mornings where Early Entry is offered, guests who have it have an advantage. They are able to queue up at the back gate from Fantasyland into Frontierland, which will put them a few steps ahead of regular guests coming from the hub. As a result, I'd really only attempt this strategy on non-Early Entry days.

I personally don't love this strategy even on non-Early Entry days because it means you are trading 3-6 rides for a single, admittedly epic, one. I'd rather do 6 rides in Fantasyland - none of which have another way to cut the line - and pay for Rise of the Resistance. But if you are set on this strategy (or have more than one morning to rope drop Disneyland park), here's how to do it.

1. Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance***
2. Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run

After finishing Galaxy's Edge, I recommend heading back into Bayou Country and beyond to do attractions like Tiana's, Haunted Mansion, Pirates, or Jungle Cruise. Alternatively, you can usually still catch a short wait at Big Thunder Mountain heading the other way out of the land.

Final Thoughts

As you can see, there are a lot of different ways to have an efficient morning at Disneyland park if you know the order in which to tackle the attractions!

Ready to Park Hop to DCA? If you are planning to spend a day at DCA too, be sure to check out my companion strategies for rope dropping Disney California Adventure.