Looking pretty dismal. The ride has had lots of down time this afternoon. Stuck at 67 for hours. And still stuck. I don’t think they’ll even get to any backup BGs. Lots of disappointed people today.
This morning the lines went from DL to DCA and back. Kind of long looping snakes lines. Almost impossible to know where a line ended. I’ve never seen anything like it.
Oh I hope things turn around soon! In any case, I’m curious to see what the crowd level was today. That sounds busier than any day since RotR opened, unless people have just failed to mention the snaking lines. I’ve never see that myself.
I wonder if it is also because they didn’t open the gates as early?
I’ve been watching the BG indicator and it’s been stuck at 81 for a while. I wonder if they stopped it there because they just wanted to get through all the initial BGs (82+ in Backup) It may still be operating and they just don’t want to risk more people being evacuated and needing compensation if they call more boarding groups? In any case, might be worth checking at the queue to see what the deal is.
So I’m guessing you didn’t get on last night? I was kind of devastated on your behalf! Yesterday was like the worst day of operations so far. It was only a CL 4 but I think that number is skewed since a lot of crowds have been showing up earlier then leaving if they don’t get a BG.
I hope you can make it back for another trip earlier than planned!
Speaking of crowds, how accurate has the crowd calendar been? We will be there Thurs-Sat this week and the calendar shows some very slow days. Are smaller crowds likely? Is there a different thread for this question?
In general it isn’t that busy at Disneyland this time of year. Plan on weekends being busy, but weekdays should be fine. And the morning rush to get a boarding group will be awful regardless, but crowds have been leaving if they don’t get one. Here’s the last week’s actual crowd levels (first column is all parks, second is DL, third is DCA):
That was very helpful. Thank you.
We did not. And let me just say that in the scheme of things, I know this is not a real life problem. Being in the park when the news came out about Kobe Bryant, really put it in perspective. However, we were pretty crushed not to get on the ride! I told my girls we were on an emotional roller coaster, which was not the ride we wanted! LOL I’m actually amazed they were able to get through the regular boarding groups (up to 81). They didn’t board any of the back-up groups. At 8:00 ish the ride was down again and still only up to something like group 79(?). People who got into the park several minutes before we did had group 87 and they went home disappointed as well.
I think a lot of folks bailed from DL and went to DCA. The lines getting into DCA around 10:00 AM looked like what you’d see for park opening! And we were part of that rush. I think the Lunar New Year stuff was also a big draw (and it’s totally cool and worth it).
I also heard they didn’t start scanning people into the park until 7:40 AM which seems later than they had been doing - especially opening weekend. That would also account for the long lines in the esplanade. Honestly, the sheer numbers of people and the chaos were overwhelming. I think if we had burrowed into the center a little more we might have gotten in sooner, but not sure how much sooner. We did hop lines a couple of times and shaved off minutes. The real issue was the parking back-up.
Speaking of which … words of wisdom … if you are turning left off of Ball Road onto Disneyland Drive and into the parking garage, stay in the right-most left turn lane. We were in the far left turn lane and our lane is maybe the only lane entering the garage that does not splinter into two or more lanes as it enters. Cars to the right of us and cars to the left were going so much faster and we realized after we got into the garage that it was because their lane and had become two or even three lanes. We were not in a place to change lanes and in any case every lane was backed up by 6:30 way outside the garage. Add to that, we had a cashier in our lane that was not a parking garage regular and quite chatty. I usually appreciate friendly CM’s, but I just wanted to park. This 40 minute delay at the parking garage is really what cost us. I thought we’d be at the esplanade by 7:00 and we hadn’t even parked.
So now I’m already thinking … when can we go back? LOL Thanks for all of your data crunching and stats gathering and advice. (Actually the procurement process of the BG went very smoothly. We probably had our BG within seconds of scanning in.)
Oh, this story is so disheartening! We are going to be there Wed-Sat this week, long planned, and I am wondering what time we need to get in line in the morning to get into the park and have a shot. Parking won’t be an issue, since we’re in a hotel across the street. Does anybody have a sense of the “safe” time to be in line? 90min early? 2 hours?
I think if you arrive at security an hour early you should be fine. Try for a boarding group each day and if the first day doesn’t work out, arrive earlier the next.
The main reason I wouldn’t recommend arriving earlier than that is because even if you’re in the park, it’s still a crapshoot and the more time you’ve invested, the more disappointed you will be if you don’t get one.
That said, I haven’t seen anyone say they arrived at least one hour early to the main gate and didn’t make it in by park opening (arriving at a parking structure is a different story and can complicate things).
Don’t be disheartened! Even with all of our troubles we got boarding group 105 which on most days would have gotten us on the ride. It just happened to coincide with the worst day of operations to date. Unfortunately we only had one day in the parks because we were trying to take advantage of my annual pass before it expired (today!) and both of my daughters needed to be back at school Monday (well one missed Monday and is back today). If you have several days, I’m sure you’ll get to ride more than once. The truth is that we could have been in the park by 8:00 and still gotten a backup boarding group. It is very random. I also don’t think you’ll have the crowds on the weekdays. Good luck and let us know how it goes!
Day 11 Timeline 1/27/20
Link to OP
Red line is 1/27/20. Yellow is presumed downtime.
Yesterday was a great day for RotR at Disneyland! Only one instance of measurable downtime (about 40 minutes) and they got up to BG 122! Let’s hope for another day like that.
Way to keep perspective about it all @Julianne_fki. So sorry you didn’t make it on the ride. I’ve had my best laid plans ruined by parking too. Wishing you the best of luck for your next trip. 
Hey, is this forum open to the public or is it just for subscribers? I wanted to post the link to the RotR How To in my DL Meetup group cuz they’re attempting RotR on Saturday.
This forum is fully accessible with a free Touring Plans subscription (posting, bookmarking). You can read no LaCava topics without a subscription.
Got it. Thanks!
Well, here we are! We got in line 65 minutes before park opening and are about 20 people back from the turnstiles. Security was quick and easy. It’s 45 before park opening now, and the lines are about halfway to DCA behind us.
