This is stressful. Too much to take in

Disneyland
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I’ve been to DLR so many times, but never have I been so stressed!

No more fast pass…wait times are stressing me out!
I didn’t get any dining reservations.
I now have to stress over virtual queues and possibly not getting to ride both resistance and web slingers (the only rides I’ve never been on to boot).
What is this about Disney+ getting in earlier?
What is the genie+ and all this going to happen soon?

This feels like a whole new world to me and I’m not ready lol.

Going Dec 3 (DL) Dec 4 (park hopper starting at DCA)

Who can convince me it’s not as stressful as it sounds lol!

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No help here. But a :heart: because I hear your stress!

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As of today, yes. No option for anything but standby except for ROTR which maintains VQ

But that could change at a moments notice… and probably will.

Good luck!

I’ll be heading over there in 4 days and will not-quite-live report. So I’ll share a lot of insights and experiences. And lots of others have done the same recently. Check out the DLR category.

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Yeah I was told that they got rid of the fast pass system and now everyone just has standby. But I heard that without fast pass it’s even better because lines go faster. But looking at wait times that doesn’t really seem accurate.

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It is definitely different and I find myself really wishing it was like it used to be. BUT you can still make the best of it and if you’re anything like me, 2 stressful days in Disney are by far and away better than any, even non-stressful day at home/work. And here are some tips/notes on some of the things you’ve mentioned, but if you have any other questions/stressors that we can answer, ask away!

For Wait Times

We are going next weekend and my strategy is to split up the headliners we want to do between rope drop and end of the day, get there as early as we can to tackle 3 or so headliners, move to doing smaller rides after those headliners and then taking it easy doing more walkthrough things/shows/eating/shopping that we all enjoy as well. Midday break if we need it, then come back for the later parade, and find tolerable waits until fireworks and then hit rides hard again after fireworks (especially in DCA) to hopefully cash in on some lower waits in the last 1-2 hours.

If your party can split up you can take advantage of single rider lines and then that means most anything with a single rider line can be done middle of the day.

For Dining Reservations

The app has a mobile Walk-Up list for a lot of locations. It’s not for the most popular restaurants, but it is a good feature that gives you flexibility day of. I would plan early in the day to look for availability. For quick/counter service, if you want to eat at peak mealtimes, look to put in a mobile order ahead of time (you can look at the mobile order times from home and just about get through the whole process from home). The only thing you can’t do from home is mark “I’m here prepare my order” (we mobile ordered from home a suprise treat for a family member who was visiting and she had to show them the mobile order number from the screenshot we sent so they could process it because were home & too far away to get the system to accept our ). So you can get yourself familiar with the timings that things go and plan out a meal or two that way.

For Virtual Queues

As of today, only Rise requires a boarding group to ride. Starting around Nov. 4 Webslingers dropped the requirement for boarding groups and has been a standby line ever since. They do state they plan to use boarding groups for it “as needed each day” but also, they will open it to standby on days that they distribute and call back all groups (I am envisioning that Boarding Groups will only be reserved for the busiest of busiest days like Christmas, New Years). This could change minute by minute with the introduction of Genie+ so I would check any Disneyland sources you follow closely and here might have some intel as well and how Genie+ will work with groups that have a boarding group. So I wouldn’t stress about one boarding group precluding you from the other at all.

Speaking of Genie+…

We still don’t know what day this will drop but my personal opinion is that it will be this week ahead of the busy Thanksgiving holiday crowd that will start coming over the weekend before (my family included). If it doesn’t drop this week, I would expect it the week after Thanksgiving. If you knew used and understood how to work MaxPass, Genie+ is somewhat similar so that might be in your favor. And if you didn’t know how to use MaxPass, I would focus on the fact that, if in your budget and you are not opposed to paying for it, using it will help give you some more certainty about securing a place on the most popular rides -Rise, Webslingers, and I think it was Racers in Carsland- will each be an individual separate cost you pay a la carte for “Lightning Lane” access to one time on the ride and those are called Individual Lightning Lane Selections (or ILLS). Then Genie+ will be like a FastPass/MaxPass for all the rest of the FastPass rides with somewhat similar rules for MaxPass, but there are several great threads in the WDW that explain how it’s been implemented in WDW and Disneyland will have a few small differences (like hopping starts at 1pm instead of 2pm), but is expected to be largely the same.

Disney+ early entry

I believe this was just for the Disney+ day on Fri Nov 12th, but I never actually read anything from an official source on it, so I could be totally wrong on that count.

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It depends on how your touring style was back when there was FastPass. We never waited in lines longer than 25-30 minutes unless it was a super exclusive character or event and we maximized our free FP usage so we definitely miss it, and most days we like to show up as close to rope drop (or earlier) as we can possibly stand to so got a lot of good touring with low waits that way (but we are also night owls and can easily burn that candle especially at Disneyland).

If you were already tolerably waiting in some standby lines and weren’t necessarily there early enough to take advantage of the shorter lines near opening, then it’s a better system because the lines do move a lot more. So instead of you standing still for large chunks of time watching the FastPass lines get in quickly, you’re the one getting in quicker. But the lines are still long (as you can see from the wait times).

Soon though, Genie+ will allow you to skip those longer lines. It won’t be free, but with the cost it should really make it a near front-of-the-line pass.

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You can do this! Just manage your expectations. Worst case scenario you do fewer rides waiting standby than you might have been able to do using Fastpass before. Best case, you will find it less stressful not to worry about those things and can just go with the flow. I think the pandemic has taught us all a bit about patience and waiting, and having those skills in Disney is vital right now. Just try to enjoy smelling the roses.

If Genie+ / LL launches before you arrive, do some research if that helps you feel less stressed. Or just don’t bother if you’d rather not worry about it. You can have a fun time at Disney without maximizing every nanosecond! It all depends on your preferred style and what you want to accomplish.

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You can now ride Webslingers without a boarding group, but be prepared to wait.

It’s important to get to the park early because the first two hours of the day, you’ll get so many rides in with low waits. I wouldn’t necessarily rope drop RSR or WS on your DCA start day unless you are right at the head of the pack. You can get so much of everything else done and just plan on either waiting in line or using SR for RSR at some point.

Take time to catch the shows in Avengers Campus during busier times of the day. They are worth it and no lines! If you time it right, you can go from one to the other all in a row. We did that last Monday but we missed the start of Avengers Assemble. Then hit Warriors of Wakanda, Spiderman, and finished with Dr. Strange.

Prioritize the rides that are most important. You won’t be able to do everything (probably) in two days, but you can do everything that is on your priority list pretty easily.

It’s still magical and fun! I put together a touring plan for both of our days (actually four - one for each park for each day as we were hopping) and mainly used it as a check-off list. It helped me remember the things we really wanted to do. (Plus, I love crossing stuff off of a list. I can’t be the only Liner with this fetish!)

I wouldn’t worry about ADR’s. You can try walk-up lists each day, but also the QS is pretty amazing! Someone was just posting that Smokejumper’s Grill has the monte cristo sandwich so if you were wanting that at Blue Bayou, you can still get it. And for a fraction of the cost!

I did post somewhat of a trip report in the La Cava section if that would interest you. It starts with Winchester House of Mystery!

https://forum.touringplans.com/t/winchester-house-half-moon-bay-disneyland/81958

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EEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!

The new Genie+ is replacing the old MaxPass. In my opinion, DLR folks will have a MUCH easier time adjusting to it then the WDW folks are.

While there is no official date that I’m aware of, it’s projected to be happening soon. Any news on if CL’s are back to pre pandemic levels or are they still capping attendance? I haven’t heard of any insane lines from anyone who went recently. Even then, TP’s are still available and for some still more accurate than the free Genie version.

Dec 3rd and 4th will be stressful as those are generally the busiest days, but with the new pass system and park ressies, I still don’t think it’ll be near as bad as before pandemic times. It’s still in that sweet spot in between holiday breaks. I think you’ll be fine! Also…The Epcot food booths should be a great alternative to a sit down anywhere.

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I can reply to you on this because you know I am not attacking you. But when people say this, I often translate it to “lower your expectations.” And that’s not fair. If they increase the price every year, I shouldn’t expect LESS…

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That’s a fair way to look at it. But I do think for some people, they will enjoy it more by not stressing about how much value they’re getting. It totally depends on the personality. It’s why some people can spend a week on a beach and be just as fulfilled as someone who does commando style theme park (or museum, historical site, city landmark, etc.) touring.

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Stressing about it will not make it better - so I completely agree with that. We cancelled our 2014 trip when they were launching FPP. I couldn’t handle the “what if” factors. And I couldn’t answer DH’s questions post trip if they were, “Why did it cost X and we didn’t get to A, B, C, D…”

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It says on the Disney park blog that Genie+ is supposed to drop this Fall. Now of course Winter doesn’t technically start till what Dec 21 or something like that? I’m also hoping Genie+ drops soon because I got stuck in some long lines in October and I’m also going Dec 8 and 9. What I learned was the line for Space Mountain might say 40 min but if you’re in that 40 min line and it breaks you get to wait 70 min. Similar thing happened at Radiator Springs Racers which I also got stuck in a 70 min line during an afterhours party so even more frustrating. Both times we were deep into the line to walk away and there was no single rider option available. I was really frustrated with no fastpass honestly because I feel like if you have a fastpass for something like space you’ll never wait close to 40 min so the ride is a lot less likely to break down while you’re already investing wait time if you’re only waiting 10 min in that fastpass line. I usually rope drop Peter Pan but without fastpass we rope dropped headliners and did Peter Pan later morning with a stated wait time of 40 minutes and actual wait time of 65 min. I had to cut out multiple attractions due to longer than expected wait times and didn’t get to see some of the new things like the marvel shows consequently. So my advice is to adjust your expectations up front so if you get to do more your happy instead of disappointed if you don’t get it all done. Also standing versus walking is harder on my feet personally so extra important to wear good shoes for the longer lines.

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So, so true! I had to roll my feet every night last week when I was there. I forgot to bring Epsom Salt.

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I totally understand the anxieties! I had them before my trip, too. I was wondering what would happen if Genie dropped at the beginning of my trip… But if Genie drops right when you show up, everyone will be in a similar situation. I imagine it would work very similar to WDW, which there is a lot of information about.

The signages for Lightening Lanes are up all over the parks. I saw them last week.

I only had one dining reservation over 3 days. I felt that there was plenty to eat in the parks and I felt weird sitting down to eat by myself. I did walk over to Downtown Disney between park hopping to eat lunch at Black Tap. I felt that mobile ordering was very available, even around meal times. You can stand in line, also.

I also felt that I got a lot done over 3 days. I could have done more but I chose not to do more.

You already got some great ideas above. Reading trip reports and asking specific questions helped me out immensely. Plus, if you are used to doing touring plans, you can do this. Rope dropping and late nights are the way to go. Lines are always long mid morning to mid afternoon. Those are great times to eat, shop, and/or see characters, if that’s your thing.

Also, I felt that the rides broke down very often. But unless the CM cleared the queue, I stayed in line.

If you are interested, I wrote about my trip here: Eating My Way Through DLR.

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Thanks for all the info guys!

What does rope drop mean
What is the latest you can get in line before the park closes?
What are the character meets like now

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Rope Drop - Arrive at the gate at least 1 hour ahead of park opening so that you will be among the first in line. Once through the turnstile, you will be among the first held at the entrance to the lands.

You can hop in line right before park closing and still get on the ride.

Character meets are from a distance. There is no line. You can take pictures with the characters. They will ham it up for you. I talk about it and have pictures of and with them in my trip report.

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