7:30 am. Alarm goes off. Yes, we actually got to sleep in a little bit today. Considering what time we got back from Universal. Plan today is to attack DCA, more importantly, Carsland. We no longer have the advantage of getting in early so no need to be at the gates that early. Little did I know I would be wrong, wrong wrong.We needed to be there at 8:30 instead of leaving the hotel at 8:30. Poor planning on my part. I’m never wrong. Except for that one time when....., and that one time when. Ok, I’m seldom right but when I’m right, watch out universe.
Our mission, if we so decide to choose it.. Park opens at 0900. That’s 9:00 am for all you civilians. No I wasn’t in the military, so I guess I would be counted as one of the civilians. However; my dad and grandpa were both in the Army, so when ever you asked them the time, they would tell it to you in military time. I got to be pretty good at it.
Oh right, our mission..
Leave the resort around 8:30 and head on over to the shuttle stop. If we don’t have to wait for the shuttle long, we should get to the park right about 8:45 or so. Line up at the gate and head straight for the Radiator Springs Racers (from here on out to be known as RSR) fast pass line. Grab a FP and then head straight to Carsland. Our scouting report from the other day showed us that Carsland tends to be crowded. Hopefully going first thing, the lines won’t be as bad. You all remember the picture right. 150 minute wait for RSR. This was our mission and your computer will self destruct in 5, 4, 3, 2, abort abort. I’m not done telling you about DCA yet.
I stroll over to the kitchen to get Lady H and I some coffee. This time I got the time and timer on the coffee pot set up correctly, and coffee was actually ready by the time we got up. We go through our normal morning routine, grab our stuff and head out the door. We still need to stop by the front lobby to buy a new shuttle pass for the day. They sell multi-day passes, but since we wouldn’t be going to Disney each day, it was cheaper for us to buy the single day tickets.
8:35 and we’re making our way to the shuttle stop. Not too bad. It usually takes Lady H and I about 5 minutes at the most to get from our resort to the shuttle stop. Not today. Today we made it in outstanding 2-minutes. As we start our walk and walk towards the street corner, guess what passes by? Yup our shuttle. If we miss this one, we’ll have to wait about 20-minutes for the next one to show up. We take off running the 25 yard dash and make there in a whopping 10 seconds. “Run, Thumpers, Run.” Ok. That is actually pretty slow for 25 yards, the point is we had to run to catch the shuttle. Good thing there was a decent group of people waiting to get on the shuttle, as this allowed us a few extra seconds to make it and catch our breath. Which reminds I need to start exercising more. Once we get to the shuttle door, we realized, it wasn’t our shuttle. It was the city bus. Well at least we made it on time. About 3 minutes later, our shuttle does show up.
This time when we get on, it’s standing room only. Did I put deodorant on this morning? It’s already pretty warm this morning and after that brief run, I’m already starting to perspire. I recall what I did this morning and yup, I put deodorant. Everyone’s noses will be safe today. I can now safely grab the rail above my head to hang on. This time we didn’t have the comedian, but a driver that isn’t aware of what time the last shuttle is supposed to leave. Both DL and DCA close at 10 tonight, which means the last shuttle should leave at 10:30. The driver tells us the hours of the parks and says the last shuttle will leave at 9:30. Sounds like tonight is going to be another race to the shuttle night. I’ll be getting my exercise today. Hopefully I can lose about 20 pounds in the process. A man can dream can’t he. One man had a dream, and he built the place we all love to visit.
So far we’re making good time until we hit check-point Charlie. Getting through security was a breeze the other morning. Not a lot of people in line at 8 in the morning. Now at 8:45, both lines were extremely long. Now the main problem with security, I don’t remember if I mentioned it or not, is that they DO NOT have a separate entrance for non-bag people. Everyone has to wait in the same line. Sure you are waved right through if you don’t have a bag, once you get to the front of the line; but you have to wait in the line to get there. Being we both have a bag, we were doomed to wait.
After we pass inspection, we head over to DCA. It’s 9 exactly and people are already being let into the park. Each line is about 8-10 people deep, but they are moving pretty quickly. We present our boarding passes to the CM and she lets us enter. Time to put the rest of our plan in motion. One thing we also like to do is rent a locker. Every trip we’ve taken, we’ve stayed off-site; so we will bring what we will need with us for the day and stash it in the locker. We each have a small waist pack and carry only what we will need at the time. Usually our phone, ID (just in case the bartender wants to be nice and card me today), credit card and cash. We have our lanyards with our tickets and will also use them to put our FP’s in.
At this point in time we bypass the lockers. We go to grab a map, but they are already out of the English ones. We agree to look for one later and head straight for the FP line for RSR. We’ll come back for a locker after we get a FP. No time to waste. We can tell everyone is headed in the direction we want to go. Another thing we also learned is that the FP location for RSR is not actually by RSR. Where most would expect it to be. The FP location is close to the Bugs Land entrance.
Here’s a picture of the map. I indicated where the FP machine is. Keep in mind where it is.
As we make make our way up Buena Vista Street, we get to Carthay Circle and come to complete stop. I tell Lady H, “Surely that can’t be the line for Radiator Spring Racers Fastpasses? WOW!” Now this is not an exaggeration. There must have been about 300+ people waiting in line. For Fastpasses. The line started where I indicated on the map and was more or less ending by Disney Junior and were still lining up.
Here’s another edited version of the map showing how the line was going.
Time to revise the plan and come up with a new plan. No telling what time they started giving out FP’s and if we wait in line, would we actually get one? Or do we run the risk of them running out before we get to the front of the line?
We both agree it’s about a 30-40 minute wait for FP’s. We have 2 choices. A: We can wait in the FP line and hope we get one, or B: head straight to RSR and spend the time waiting in the stand-by line. Either way, we’re going to have to wait if we want to ride RSR. The way we figure it, we’ll wait 30 minutes to get a FP, then we’ll have to wait 30 minutes in the FP line once we actually get in line at the ride itself. So either, way we’re going to wait an hour. We go with plan B. Might as well spend the time waiting in line now. We know later it will be really crazy. Especially if the wait is like it was the other day.
We head straight for RSR and notice the wait time already says 80 minutes.
As the King once sang, it’s now or never. We enter the stand-by line and take out our cameras. Might as well take some pics to help pass the time.
A half hour goes by and it’s already getting hot. Look at the temp on my phone and it’s already 90 degrees. At 10 in the morning. Lady H has to break out her fan.
I sure as heck don't want to be near Stanley.
Good thing we brought our backpacks with us. Each of us has a couple of bottles of water that we froze. Poor things, sitting in the freezer just so they can melt to keep us cool. They’re thawing out fast so we down them in no time.
As we’re going through the queue, we came upon this sign.
I thought if we stay in this line any longer, I’m going to start melting right where I stand.
Few more pics of the queue.
45 minutes, later and we make it to front of the line.
Not bad considering the wait was posted as being 80 minutes. Time for us to take a cruise. We get in the car and I struggle to put my seatbelt on, because my foot is tangled in my bag. In the process I drop my camera and can’t seem to find it. I tell Lady H I just had it because I just took a pics of the cars. And we’re off. Oh well. Looks like I get to enjoy the scenery. I’ll have to find it once we get off the ride.
Here’s the moment Nebo has been waiting for. How does RSR compare to it’s WDW counterpart Test Track? Well my friend, I hate to disappoint you, but I’m not going to compare this one. I will tell you its just like riding Test Track with a completely different theme. I’m sure most of us have taken a ride on TT. If not, tough. You’re just going to have to take my word for it. For now, I’m just going to tell you about RSR. Sorry, didn't mean to sound hostile.
After searching for my camera and unable to find it because the seatbelt is already locked into place, we take a nice little cruise by the mountains before entering the bat cave. Sorry, wrong theme. I guess it’s more of a tunnel we enter. In this tunnel we almost get plowed by Mac. We’re bobbing and weaving trying to avoid traffic. We must’ve been going kinda fast because the sheriff pops out from behind the sign telling us “slow down, you’re not racing yet.” Well my heart is still racing from almost getting plowed by a semi. I thought for sure we were going to land up as his hood ornament. So the sheriff calls good ole Mater over and we do a little tractor tipping with him. We were having fun until Big Red started chasing after us with his plowing blades. We hit the gas and hightail it out of there. At the rate we’re going, we might not make it to the race. This race car is a rental and I don’t think my insurance will cover any damages. Heaven knows what Disney will charge us if we wreck this thing.
Soon we meet up with Lightning McQueen and the rest of the cars. Ramone gives our car a new paint job for the race. I was actually hoping for a faster engine. I want to win this race. After our paint job, we get some last minute advice from Doc Hudson and prepare to race.
We pull up next to another car, Luigi waves the flag and off we go. Each car takes off at the same time and we take the lead as we come into the first turn. Coming out of the turn and over the bridge we lose our lead and the other car is now ahead of us. Coming into the final turn we take the inside lane to make up ground and pull even. Out of the final turn we hit the gas going down the final stretch. We cross the finish line and…................................. …..................................................................................................................................................
Whoo Hoo. Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy. Our first race and we’re 1 & 0 baby. We pulled out the victory on the final straight away. I think I’ll retire from racing and go out a champion.
After pulling back into the pit and receiving the Piston Cup (well ok we didn’t really receive the cup, would’ve been nice though), we head back down the street over to Luigi’s Tires. 45 minute wait. Not interested in waiting that long in this heat. It’s starting to get really hot outside now. I thought the average temps were in the mid 80’s. Not on this day. I have a weather app on my phone and it states it’s already 93. Being the troopers we are, we proceed on. We make a pit stop, inside Ramone’s, one of the gift shops at CL. After Ramone’s we mozy, yes we know how to mozy and stroll, to the Cozy Cone Motel.
See what kind of snacks and beverages they sell. There are 5 different cones and each cone sells a specific snack.
Cone 1 - Churros. Cone 2 - Ice Cream Cones. Cone 3 - Cone Queso (chili con queso I’m guessing). Cone 4 - Cone-coctions (which might have been drinks). Cone 5 - Popcone (no these are not typos, that’s the name on the cones). We thought about getting an ice-cream, but of course this was the one line that was the longest, so we just skipped the Cozy Cone Motel. Next we went into Sarge’s Surplus Hut. Your basic Disney shop selling Disney merchandise. Mostly Cars merchandise. It was pretty crowded so we just decided to see the rest of the park. We’ll come back later in the evening. We heard it’s something not to be missed at night. Speaking of night, we got to meet a real Knight. Sir Tow Mater.
And with this, I will say goodnight for soon it be morrow.
2+1 PTP passes. They'll be under the tree for the kids on Christmas morning.
Although Ariel has long hair. 
ITA about the zebra domes. They look way better than they taste, IMHO.
