Pretty sure I posted this a while back, but didn’t get any responses. Trying one more time - we fly out tomorrow!
11/4 in the parks - 1 day only park hopping - starting at DCA.
Kids are 8 and 10 and love the “bigger” rides. DCA is the focus and will try for WEB at 7 am. We know to arrive an hour before park opening.
Where do we start and what should we expect???
That’s a big question!! There really hasn’t been any issues getting WEB BGs. I haven’t seen or heard of them running out after the first week. What you REALLY need to focus on is get to RSR as fast as you can! That’s the most popular attraction at DCA. It will have an hour + wait most of the day.
Starting at DCA and love “bigger” rides…
#1 - RSR - It’s loved by everyone. It takes Test Track to the next level!!
#2 - You have to do GotG:MB… it’s really is a different ride than ToT at DHS…
#3 - Incredicoaster - multiple launches and really fast
After those three it’s really up to you what you are interested in / have time to do at DCA. I’d stay at DCA until about 11am - 12pm, go have lunch, then hop to DLR.
I hope that helps… if you need specifics please ask…
Sorry no one helped you before!!
Sorry no one helped you before! Admittedly I have not been to the park in 4 years, but when we were Cali residents we went weekly. And my kids are all about the “big“ rides too. Now that we are planning for a trip in December I’ve been getting back into the swing of researching strategies. Here is my recommendation to you.
Plan to rope drop. Super important for only 1 day
At noon try for the Rise of the Resistance queue. You cannot hold both at the same time, so if your web slinger‘s return time is after 12 o’clock, you will not be able to get a virtual queue for rise of the resistance. Hence why it is so important to get that web slinger‘s immediately at 7 o’clock, so you are in one of the first boarding groups.
If you have time go back to DCA (park closes at 9 so you might!). RSR and GotG are completely different rides at night. I would do them again if your family is up for it. The lines will be loooong but it’s worth it IMO. Have an amazing time!!
Try to do Radiator Springs Racers first if you are toward the front of the rope drop pack (which you should be if you arrive 1 hour early). Other priorities:
Grizzly River Run will be popular only if it’s hot (so afternoon). If you hit a long line, try Single Rider. Incredicoaster will get busier in the early evening but should be a short line most other times.
Most of the other rides should be doable throughout the day.
RSR is another ride where Single Rider is a good backup option if the line is over an hour and you don’t mind splitting up.
When you hop to DL:
If you have been to WDW or know the rides there, skip the ones you’ve already ridden except:
Also make sure to hit:
If you have time (non thrill rides)
It really won’t matter what time you do these because the lines will already be long when you hop and may or may not get shorter close to park close.
Have a great time!
Ok everyone!!! THANK YOU!!! Still packing and then setting the alarm for 4 am EST!!! Can’t wait to be there!!!
So excited for you!! Glad you got some input. Have the best day EVER!
Sorry I tried to go back and find your first response too as I’ve been catching up on my forum-ing and haven’t made it back quite back to there.
You’ve got a great list of priorities above so you have some great options and most definitely be on top of that boarding group right at 7am for Webslingers since you’ll want an early BG.
I’ll add a note of caution with doing Racers first, you really do need to be early, be ready to be mobile so you get to the ride ahead of the crowd and don’t end up on the back-end of a 45 min wait. You’ll also want to plan for the 7am drop so that you are somewhere you can stop to the side (i.e. being at the bag check in security would be not an ideal space) AND where you have a good signal (so either arrive to security 15 or so min before 7am to be all the way through security in the plaza between the parks before 7am OR do your BG from your hotel (outside if your signal is better outside) and then start heading to the park right at 7am to still be pretty early.
If the rope they setup for the Grizzly Peak part of the park is closer to the front of the Little Mermaid building (the blue line that touches the green one in the below) then you can use the green line as the path to try to make it ahead of where the majority of the crowd will come from down the main walkway (the red path). However, lately, it seems like the rope drop for that central walkway is way closer to Carlsand (like near Avengers Campus instead of back by the Carthay Circle) than it used to be so it might not be advantageous anymore. But if you’re early, near the front of the main rope and prepared to move quickly then you should still be ok. If the line to get enter the ride is stretching back to where the red and green lines meet when you get to the area, turn around and do another ride first and come back for Racers.
If that competitiveness for the ride sounds stressful then skip Racers first, do Guardians first then either pier for those rides (Swinging Wheel and Incredicoaster for sure) or to Grizzly Peak for Soarin’ and Grizzly River Run. Then you can come back to Racers at anytime it fits and/or go through the single rider.
Just saw this article. Man it is going to mess up your whole strategy, I’m so sorry! Just wanted to give you a heads up so you can plan accordingly
I suspect that standby line won’t be super long. In some cases, maybe not even as long as the virtual queue return wait. We’ll see I guess.
Web Slinger news might lessen the rope drop push to RSR.
Aw shitfuckers.
Yesterday we did our blitzkrieg and what others have said is all great advice. Radiator Springs was the hands down favorite and the theming is so good that the line isn’t horrible (and it was never as long as the posted wait). The ease of park hopping was awesome and meant that we could hit our top rides in each park and then go back for second tier or to redo. The security bubble includes both parks AND Downtown Disney.
I will add DL seemed much more crowded in the afternoon and it sapped some of our energy but at night it was great.
Don’t despair! My first take on Webslingers was that they would only keep a virtual queue for the initial popularity and that once they got to their first lull in crowds after its opening they would drop the BG’s. I was surprised they didn’t move away from BG’s in the early Sept lull in crowds, but it looks like they’ve picked the early November time instead. It’ll still work in any plans and I definitely agree that it will help pull more evenly distribute the initial rush at Racers with it being available to rope drop. So I’m taking that as a win!
I’m more interested to know what this means for timing of Genie+ on west coast.
I can’t find the info that says how long before G+ did BG go away for ROTR. I think it was about 2 weeks before G+ went live? Or was it a little longer than that - 3 weeks? No BG at 50th, right? So that would be 3 weeks. And then that would be perfect for me for DLR
Yes the implications of Genie+ with this news are definitely very intriguing. I haven’t seen any news drop yet on any of the socials that I follow but I’m expecting them for at least part of the Christmas season if not from the start that second week of Nov as I would be surprised if they waited to launch during busier weeks (i.e. not within a week of Thanksgiving or after Dec 17).
That’s what we’ve been saying too as we wait and countdown. Would not be near either of the major holidays, so would be 1-2 weeks before Thanksgiving (with us in the crosshairs), or immediately after.
Even if you’re in the crosshairs you’ll be 500 steps ahead with what you know about Genie from the threads here. We were there the day MaxPass was launched (and obviously it was a lot different because free FP still existed) but the only difficulty we saw was that every entrance to every FP line was backed up with people not quite sure of the process. Other than that, it was BAU using FP/Maxpass. (And we did not purchase any of it because we were and still sorta are anti-upcharge).
It was pulled just over a week before the 50th weekend I believe on a Thursday. 
Hi Everyone!!!
Thank you for all the responses - I kept a close eye on them and we had the BEST DAY AT DCA!!! Once we park hopped to DL, it was SO PACKED and we only lasted about 4 hours until heading back to DCA. Hands down my kids favorite park and after 6 previous trips to WDW, kids proclaimed DLR to be “better!” We accomplished everything at DCA that we wanted to as well as some highlights at DL. We also use DAS for our son, so I figured out a good time to apply for that - that was stressing me out.
***The breaking news of WEB ending virtual annoyed me, but was also happy bc then I knew we could try for RISE at 12 without any conflicts.
Quick re-cap if anyone is interested:
Springhill Suites - wow - we travel a ton and was super impressed by the Kids Suite room we were upgraded to, breakfast, cleanliness, and ease of the walk to DLR - great choice for us.
6:00 am wake up for adults, 6:15 for kids, down for breakfast by 6:45 (already late). Breakfast was so “good” that we enjoyed it and headed to the park at 7:15. Right through security and FIRST IN LINE at the tapstile. We watched the HUGE family of the day do the countdown and scanned in and held at rope until 8:01!!! Quick walking to RSR and got right on. We didn’t race a car, and kids were bummed. But enjoyed.
Then straight to Pixar Pier - multiple rides on Incredicoaster, applied for DAS at a kiosk - only ones there (chose WEB), TSMM, Goofy’s Sky School
Soarin
Avengers Campus - son was part of Black Panther Show, Pics with Spidey, Family Pic at entrance sign
WEB - kids really enjoyed, to me, it was just ok
Guardians - couldn’t find kiosk to get next DAS return, and CM was so nice and let us through
Drinks at Hollywood Land - I had picked out the PB spiked seltzer with PB Whiskey - surprisingly really good! While hubby mobile ordered those, I took kids on Monster’s Inc.
While we enjoyed the drinks, we saw many characters coming out of the building where the Marvel plane is (sorry, blanking on the name of that plane)
12:00 - got RISE BG
Lamplight Lounge lunch - fave meal of the day (booked Indy through DAS before lunch)
Then time to hop!!!
Entered DL at 1:15 - took pics at Castle. We have a Castle Pic at WDW in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and now DL 2021. Same family set up and I absolutely love seeing the kids growth (3/5 at first trip, now 8/10)
Trip went a bit downhill - hopping into a crowded park after the low wait times at DCA was tough on all of us.
Snow White - this was my wish list ride, annoyingly long wait, i enjoyed it though, not sure anyone else did (in line, RISE was called)
RISE (kids have been once in HS, and just weren’t as into it - did enjoy, just excitement had worn off), didn’t spend any extra time in Galaxy’s Edge
Indy - ride broke down, huge let down b/c this is the ride I thought they’d love the most
Grabbed DAS for Splash
HM - ride broke down while we were almost on - 25 min extra wait. BUT - this was my favorite of the day. I was so super impressed how many details of Nightmare there were. Amazing.
Splash - kids got SOAKED! So much so that they just had to go back to the hotel to change. I had grabbed DAS for Pirates since I didn’t go on Splash with them, but they were miserable. We all started walking back to the hotel and as we were walking, we realized that they didn’t want to go on Pirates when they got back (man, I was not happy b/c I wanted to do Pirates so badly - but they wanted Space Mountain). I decided to go back to the park and change DAS to Space. Hubby took kids, I just SAT on main street after standing in line forever at City Hall for DAS (kiosks are much quicker). Kid were back in just about an hour.
Space - I usually don’t ride coasters due to motion sickness, but my 8 year old wanted to go, so I sucked it up. We both hated it! Felt ill 
Matterhorn for son and hubby while daughter and I grabbed DAS for WEB and then tried for Pinocchio - that broke down completely.
Hopped back to DCA and we were all much happier. Kids wrote WEB while I grabbed DAS for RSR. After WEB we all sat for some dinner which we enjoyed - Lucky Fortune.
Closed out the night with RSR. But, we were put into a different line to wait for a single rider and me sitting next to a stranger threw my son and he had trouble concentrating on the ride. We did get to race someone this time, so that was good.
It was 9:00 at this time, so we left DCA and didn’t even contemplate spending the last hour at DL. Walked home quickly and passed out!
We did accomplish a huge amount. I feel that if we had a second day and STARTED at DL, we would have a different feel for that park.
But as I mentioned up top, kids proclaimed DLR to be better than WDW so I take that as a great sign that they had a super fun day! I’m obsessed with our pictures!
