Kids and I are officially going in august and they will be 12, 11, 9, and 7 this time around (DD7 is SO excited to be able to ride with her siblings this trip!!). Thinking through logistics as usual….
We haven’t ridden Tron. DS11 and I will for sure want to ride. The girls are on the fence. DD7 is like 47.75 inches currently. I also just made my park plans and realized I don’t have a ADP for MK at all as we’re just doing MK evenings this trip.
So I’ll be going either for 1 pm or 6 pm VQ BGs. From what I read, our time in line will be around an hour at that point in the day? Is that correct? I figure I can either:
Get a BG and bring everyone into line and let those who don’t want to ride use the chicken exit when we get to boarding (that exists at Tron right?)
Get a BG and leave DD12 with DD7 if she’s too short to enter into the queue while I wait in the line for an hour (LEAST DESIRABLE SCENARIO).
Get a ILL for those who FOR SURE want to ride and let those who don’t hang out of line while those with ILLs wait. How long is the ILL wait time vs BG?
Buy a ILL for the kids who want to ride and hang back with DD7. I can catch it next trip.
Skip Tron altogether.
Any opinions/thoughts/advice is helpful and wanted!!
Since you say DS11 will want to ride for sure, will you get away with skipping it?
My suggestion is try for a BG for everyone on your first MK afternoon. If you get one, then you can relax. Anyone not wanting to wait in line can always go off and do something else. If DD is too short she won’t be allowed to wait in line with you.
If you don’t get a BG then buy an ILL for your next MK afternoon / evening. I’d probably buy one for everyone and then if you end up with non-riders either some get a second ride or you can go to GS and say they changed their minds at the last minute - they should refund you.
Probably….we’re back next May with additional adults so we can for sure ride then. He’s been on other trips before where it’s just the five of us and he has had to skip faves because his sisters couldn’t ride and we’re too young to be left to wait while we rode.
Interesting thought about buying everyone ILLs and asking for a refund on those who choose not to go. I didn’t realize that was something they would do…
They really should refund. I know they say they don’t but if a child chickens out I don’t see a CM saying no to a refund. And you can say someone else had to wait with her.
I kindly asked CMs twice for three payments on my trip to refund ROTR ILLs. My mom ended up staying behind two of the nights, and my husband couldn’t ride once due to illness. I told the CMs that I knew that it was a long shot to ask, but I wanted to see if it was at all possible. They refunded me both times.
We have 4 kids of comparable ages and I think I recall from previous trip reports that you tend to have a decent budget when you travel to WDW so I’d recommend an ILL. If you had a morning at MK, getting an early BG is most efficient (that’s what we did, and we walked on with a half full coaster at 8:50 a.m.) but without a lot of adult help I’d either do ILL for those who want it or skip until your next trip. If I had to choose between my most excited kids riding it efficiently or me riding it with all of us having a long wait, I would choose the former.
In my opinion, it’s not worth an hour wait (though my list of things that are worth an hour wait is very short!), especially with only one adult so you might have folks waiting who aren’t riding.
Since you don’t have any APRs for MK, I would lean towards buying the ILL. It sounds like you have multiple nights - I would buy it the first night for those that you know for sure want to ride and it gives DD7 to see if she wants to ride.
Then on the 2nd night, I’d probably buy it for everyone or just DD7 and you if she decided she wanted to ride.
This is what I’m thinking too. Our main evening/time together in MK will be during deluxe evening hours and I really don’t want to blow an hour of that time waiting in line for Tron - especially when everything else has a short wait.
I’m really tempted to switch one morning to MK……just to get BG1 and ride with a super quick queue time but also want to ride at night!
I like this idea. Also gives us a chance to have her measured before committing to the purchase. I was trying to think if anything in the park has a 48” height requirement we could check her before we make it to MK. Is RnRC 48”?
Is this with or without shoes on? Cause if without, she will definitely be over 48 inches with shoes.
FWIW, my DD9 (who is a bit of a scaredy cat) loved Tron and it was one of her favorites. It’s honestly not that scary, though a bit intimidating to look at. More thrilling / fun than scary.
Yes I would plan on that and be pleasantly surprised if it’s less.
Yes, that is possible. I saw a Dad bring his son to the loading platform before exiting. (Edit: if she’s tall enough to be admitted to the queue, as Nicky mentioned.)
Practically walk on, but plan on 15 minutes in and out. I would definitely do ILL if you can afford it. My general advice is to only use a BG if you are arriving by 9:15am.
I would recommend option 3 but get an ILL for everyone if DD7 is tall enough. You’ll want to ride and it is fun.
If you get there and she’s not tall enough, get RS passes (there is a special spot to do this before you get to the VQ) and after Group 1 rides, have 3 “Group 2” riders: attending adult with RS pass, repeat rider with RS pass, and another repeat rider using DD7’s MB (ILL).
Super helpful as always @Jeff_AZ thank you! It seems more twists and turns and hills….is that right? DD12 doesn’t love steep hills but really does like fast/fun/twisty rides - GotG is her new favorite. And DD9 loves a coaster with a similar thrill level at Sea World last year so she’d probably enjoy it too.
Given everyone’s advice I am now learning toward the ILL option especially in the event we have to separate temporarily. DD12 is very responsible and can handle watching out for her and her sister but she doesn’t always like having the pressure of being responsible. A shorter period of being in charge would be preferable for her for sure.
As for DD7, I’m not positive but I think with shoes. We are currently at Big Cedar Lodge in MO and they have a jr. ropes course (under 48”) and a big ropes course (48” and over) and she’s been told she could do both.
And here’s one more scenario. Do they allow you to utilize RS if all parties want to ride but some will not if they can’t ride with their parent because they are scared? I can actually see this happening with all of my girls but DD9 and DD7 in particular where they may change their mind ride/no ride on the basis of being able to ride with me.
There really aren’t any hills. More like gentle dips if anything.
The way the setup occurs, they will not know and they don’t check heights. Especially if your child looks small at a glance, I’m sure they will set it up without issue. And they are nowhere near where you join the line, so they won’t see.
To answer your question directly, I’ve heard some instances of CMs not granting RS passes on other rides (not Tron) where the child simply doesn’t want to ride. But it seems to be a rare occurrence and would depend on the procedure at the ride. I can’t remember what ride I heard about this on.
I’d describe it as a juiced up Space Moutain…though even with SM, there’s at least one spot where you feel like you’re coming off the seat a bit, and there’s nothing like that on Tron. It’s just fast! My daughter liked GotG, but would not go on Tron twice. I think it was more not being able to see where you’re going (once you get inside) than the takeoff/speed so much.
And for me I’ll never do GotG again because it was too swively (I don’t do spinning rides) but found Tron to be smooth and easy (though “launch” was definitely intense)
RnRC is also 48".
