Good afternoon everyone, I have been to WDW a few times but we are making our first family trip to California this April so DCA and DL are brand new to me. We have park hopper passes for three days, the plan is to start at DCA on day 1, and DL days 2 and 3. We are staying at the Disneyland hotel and will utilize early entry as well as Genie+. I have attached a touring plan I came up with here, currently Touring Plans has the day as a “5” for crowd level so I am not sure how realistic some of the wait times here are. Broad strokes my thought was that we rope drop Soarin during early entry, then go to Avengers and try and knockout Mission Breakout and Webslingers. Then either do Incredicoaster or Cars Land/Radiator Springs. I am willing to purchase an ILL for Radiator Springs if needed. Any comments or criticisms are welcome as this park is brand new to me. Thank you!
I don’t have any advice but am in the same boat as you with our first three-day family trip to DLR this June so I’m very interested in seeing others’ comments and reactions on your plan!
I’ve read in the chat that a few Liners recommended rope dropping Pixar Pier, to zig where others zag, but am pleasantly surprised to see in your plan that the wait times there are likely to be short even about an hour after park open, so it may be worth rope dropping 1-2 headliners before heading there? We don’t have EE unfortunately (unless we can snag a last minute DVC rental), but decided to spring for park hoppers for more flexibility (still not entirely convinced whether that was worth the price/is needed for a three-day trip?)
Do you have Monsters Inc in your plan twice on purpose or is this a mistake?
I would highly recommend NOT rope dropping Soarin’. Even if it shows a low wait time, they only have one theater open in the mornings and if you miss the first showing you are stuck on the ride for 30+ minutes (time that could be spent avoiding lines on other rides). Trust me, I am speaking from experience. I would recommend Avengers Campus or Racers (together if you are towards the front of the rope drop line, or single rider) as better options.
Also, if you are using G+, use it for Toy Story first thing as that ride usually breaks down in the morning and it could turn into a MEP (Golden Ticket). Same thing for Indy on the DL side.
This is my experience as well. And the times I have been lucky to be up front it’s almost as if they intentionally meter the flow of guests and ONLY fill the center section of the ride, even if they have enough people in line to fill all three.
We alternate between starting at Avengers Campus (my older kids LOVE Mission Breakout & all of us love Webslingers too) or Pixar Pier with Toy Story Midway Mania, Incredicoaster (you can do each of these 2-3x with little to no wait), then the Pixar Fun Wheel (which is one you ABSOLUTELY want to do early because the wait is miserably long & painfully slow). If we’re going at a good pace, we’ll also fit in Emotional Whirlwind before it gets to a 15 min wait and also make sure to do Jessie’s Critter Carousel while we’re back there. And then if we’re really on a good pace, we can hit Goofy’s before it’s a 30 min wait, but that’s like if all my kids are ready to go & all ate enough of a snack breakfast at the hotel to keep them going for 2 hours at the work (which is usually not the case).
My family , staying at Disneyland Hotel, with early entry, went to Webslingers first. Then we walked to Radiator Springs Racers to be in line before rops drop at 8:00.
Our experience has been that at 8 a.m., Toy Story and Incredicoaster have been down, frequently. One morning at 8:00, Radiator Springs, Toy Story, and Toy Story were all down.
I would definitely start with RSR or GotG or WebSlingers even over Soarin’. That’s nut it put it first!
EE crowds often spend all of EE queueing for RSR, so at RD on EE days, it’s often already at least 30 min, if it opens. Make sure to check the ILL RT by 7:30. If the RT isn’t at 8am or very close, that usually means it won’t open with RD. Because it goes down a lot, I recommend purchasing the ILL or, if all your group is at least 7, do SR. I second getting a TSMM G+ as soon as you scan in for an 8 am RT in hopes of a golden ticket. You can always modify it to something else, if it opens and you RD it. I usually always RD Pixar Pier. If you RD something else, keep the TSMM, even if you need to modify it to time you want, but it’s best to get it first. It goes out the fastest and has no drops.
I also want to make sure you know TP wait times for DLR are NOT reliable. They are generally grossly underestimated. Don’t trust the TP you’ve created for how long it will take for each ride.
With G+ on a crowd level 5 day, you’re going to do great. I honestly wouldn’t worry too much about a touring plan.
Just don’t RD Soarin. Start in either Avengers or Pixar Pier, whichever one you think you might want to do twice (use LL the second time). I like to knock out the two small Radiator Springs rides next, since they aren’t on G+. Luigi can have a long slow wait later. It also goes down a lot in my experience.
Thanks everyone for the advice! It is very helpful. I figured the times were not totally accurate, we will do what we can do! I updated the linked plan based on everyone’s thoughts. Thanks again!
Looked over your Touring Plan and for everything from Toy Story Midway Mania down, I would triple or quadruple most of your non-LL waits. Toy Story will likely be 45-50 min. by 9:20am with an 8am opening. You may get lucky with a 35-40 min wait. And if it had a super operationally perfect morning AND it’s lower crowds your best case is a 25-30 min. wait. If it had a crappy start & was down and has LL’s to catch up on that it still distributed, you’re looking at 60-75 min with that being the lowest time all day.
Jessie’s Critter Carousel should still be under 10 min though, so that’s one you don’t have to worry about tripling. But Pixar Non-Swinging, Emotional Whirlwind and Jumpin’ Jellyfish are are all ones that even at the times the plan thinks you’re doing them are much much underestimated and will be compounded by the time you do actually get there if you follow the plan. For the wheel & Emotional Whirlwind, they have a max capacity too so once their lines start getting to 20-30 min. they stay there all day and midday on busy days can bulge up to 45 min.
Also, Jumpin’ Jellyfish usually only runs one side until about ~11am everyday and the worst time to ride it is that 30 min before they do as the line can get really backed up with only one side loading until then. So that 4 min. wait at 10:34am really had me chuckling. That’s usually when I’ve got my family wrangled after sitting down to eat breakfast and we’re usually in that exact corner around that time and Jumpin’ Jellyfish is never less than a 20 min. wait then.
The good news about all of that though is their all smaller attractions that are ok to skip on to catch-up & come back to as time allows since their waits will be steady the rest of the day once they reach the 20-30 min. mark.