heathpack
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Jan 9, 2003
Short trip report from our day trip yesterday, May 5. This was our third theme park reservation out of three associated with a 3 day SoCal Resident Pass.
Ive recently posted about my Genie+ annoyance- how you have to pay more $ to avoid lines (or just suffer the lines), and then are stuck with your nose in your phone all day. I still found that annoying after yesterday’s trip.
This reservation was originally for Food and Wine, but we changed it to early May when they announced Main St Electrical Parade. We hoped to purchase a parade dining package but for unexplained reasons, no dining packages were released for this week. We wanted to visit Friday to see the fireworks as well, but when we couldn’t get the dining package, we switched to yesterday (Thursday) in hopes of mitigating crowds. Then evening was still pretty crowded, though. We were sorry to miss the fireworks but think we made the right choice, assuming Fri would have been even busier.
We rope dropped, arriving DL at 7am. Rode Space Mtn, Buzz, Star Tours, Matterhorn, Teacups, Mr Toad, Carousel, Pinnochio, Carousel, all without LL, by 9:30am or so. We were happy to see a 10 min wait in the app for dumbo, and planned to ride it, but when we got to the ice, the posted time was 40 min which looked accurate. Nope, not worth it. We had purchased an ILL for Rise for 12:30 and had a Cafe Orleans lunch reservation at 11:30. Looking at the app, Smugglers Run had a 15 min wait time, so we decided to head through Star Wars land, and then hit up Winnie the Pooh and Haunted Mansion on our way to lunch.
Annoying in that when we got to Smugglers, the actual wait time was 60 min, and the LL return times werent immediate, so we continued on, grabbing a 10:30 LL for Haunted Mansion- except that I didn’t notice it was actually confirmed for 10:50. Annoying again. The plan was to hop on Big Thunder prior to lunch but now neither the standby nor the LL times worked for that. We rode Davy Crockett Canoes before Haunted Mansion, nice mellow thing to do.
Right before the canoes, my Club 33 friend texted me to say that she saw from my FB post that we were in DL, did I want her to try for a Club 33 lunch? Yes! We hadn’t asked her because for weeks I was trying to book the parade dining package, to no avail. Amazing, by the time we got off the canoes, we had an 11:30 Club 33 lunch reservation- big upgrade from Cafe Orleans! We finished Haunted Mansion at 11:20, perfect timing for our lunch.
Super lovely Club 33 lunch on the balcony, it was a beautiful day. I grabbed a Toy Story LL for 1:30 and the plan was Rise after lunch and then head over to. California Adventure. Rise, however, was down most of the day and was still down by the time we finished lunch. Just as well, Club 33 was a two hour lunch, vs the 1 hour we had budgeted for Cafe Orleans, so we would have been pressed for time.
After lunch, we rode Toy Story with LL, then the Symphony Swings and Zephyr, then Soaring with LL. We headed over the Mickeys Philharmagic and the Animation Academy while waiting for our Grizzly River Run LL window, around 4pm.
We originally had a 6:30pm Lamplight Lounge reservation, and we decided to keep it, thinking we might need a rest and could have a small bite and maybe another cocktail around that time. I wanted to purchase a Radiator Springs Racers ILL for something like 7:30, I like the ambience of that ride around sunset. But- suddenly after having been down all day, Rise was up and we wanted to ride it. We booked the ILL for Radiator Springs for 5pm, rescheduled our Lamplight reservation for a later date and rode Mater and Luigi while waiting for our Radiator Springs LL window. Luigi was our longest line of the day- 30 min- consistent with the posted time but not the app, which listed a 20 min wait time.
I was able to grab a Smugglers Run LL for immediately after Rise, and we headed back to DL park. The line just to scan your ILL bar code was huge. We almost bailed asked for a refund because Cast Members at the Rise entrance said it would be an hour wait for ILL. Glad we persevered however, the wait was only 16 min! Then Smugglers immediately after and managed to grab a perfectly timed LL for Big Thunder prior to heading off to snag a spot for the parade.
We started looking for a spot around 1:15 ahead of parade time and most of the good spots were already snagged. We found a decent spot near the top of Main St, mobile ordered husband a corn dog and we hunkered down. I really hate being packed into a crowd like that, we perched on a rail and sort of took a load off our feet. I started to feel really tired, I thought it was just a long day. But also a slightly sore throat. Maybe I was talking loud all day due to being in crowds at the park.
Eventually we had a pretty decent view of the parade, not great, not terrible. People who hadn’t been waiting as long as we had of course forced their way in front of us after the parade started. But we could see the parade pretty well as it came around the circle at the top of Main St, even though we couldn’t see it at the top of Main Street. Good enough but I really think in the future, it’s dining package or no parade for us. That wasn’t super enjoyable.
We tried to stay for Mix Magic afterward but it was pretty lame, so headed off to what we planned as our last ride of the night- Jungle Cruise, which is really at its best at night. We finished up at 10pm and the tram lines were so long, that even though we’d been on our feet all day, we just walked back to the parking garage.
The negatives- Genie + was still annoying to use, lots of checking and rechecking looking for just the right LL return times. The app was annoying when the wait times were wildly inaccurate, like for Smugglers Run and Dumbo. The parade viewing experience was just not fun for us. It was pretty crowded for a low season Thursday. Without LL, wait times were 60-120+ minutes for most of the prime rides, and even the lesser rides were frequently 30-40 min waits. None of the wait times were exaggerated on the things we did wait for.
The positives- The parade is very cool. How lucky was that Club 33 reservation?! We got a huge amount done for a day trip, and Genie + and ILL were invaluable, if annoying. Thursday morning was not bad at all, from a crowd perspective.
Our take homes: We own DVC at Grand Californian and have future stays booked for Aug, Oct, Dec, and next Jan. Genie+ was pushing us away from continuing with our plan to buy an Annual Pass in August. I’m still feeling that was, even though this Genie+ experience was not as annoying as our most recent two (maybe I am getting used to it). The thing that might make me reconsider is the idea that maybe with an AP, the thing to do would be to go sans Genie+ on a weekday morning and just leave around the time of day Genie+ becomes necessary. For day trips, the $30 for parking adds up, but for overnight trips, maybe we just enjoy the park in the morning, no Genie, no hopping. Then leave after lunch and return in the evening if we can find a civilized way to enjoy the nighttime entertainmen. I’ll just have to do the math to see if we can justify the cost of the AP if we’re not spending full days in the park.
Ive recently posted about my Genie+ annoyance- how you have to pay more $ to avoid lines (or just suffer the lines), and then are stuck with your nose in your phone all day. I still found that annoying after yesterday’s trip.
This reservation was originally for Food and Wine, but we changed it to early May when they announced Main St Electrical Parade. We hoped to purchase a parade dining package but for unexplained reasons, no dining packages were released for this week. We wanted to visit Friday to see the fireworks as well, but when we couldn’t get the dining package, we switched to yesterday (Thursday) in hopes of mitigating crowds. Then evening was still pretty crowded, though. We were sorry to miss the fireworks but think we made the right choice, assuming Fri would have been even busier.
We rope dropped, arriving DL at 7am. Rode Space Mtn, Buzz, Star Tours, Matterhorn, Teacups, Mr Toad, Carousel, Pinnochio, Carousel, all without LL, by 9:30am or so. We were happy to see a 10 min wait in the app for dumbo, and planned to ride it, but when we got to the ice, the posted time was 40 min which looked accurate. Nope, not worth it. We had purchased an ILL for Rise for 12:30 and had a Cafe Orleans lunch reservation at 11:30. Looking at the app, Smugglers Run had a 15 min wait time, so we decided to head through Star Wars land, and then hit up Winnie the Pooh and Haunted Mansion on our way to lunch.
Annoying in that when we got to Smugglers, the actual wait time was 60 min, and the LL return times werent immediate, so we continued on, grabbing a 10:30 LL for Haunted Mansion- except that I didn’t notice it was actually confirmed for 10:50. Annoying again. The plan was to hop on Big Thunder prior to lunch but now neither the standby nor the LL times worked for that. We rode Davy Crockett Canoes before Haunted Mansion, nice mellow thing to do.
Right before the canoes, my Club 33 friend texted me to say that she saw from my FB post that we were in DL, did I want her to try for a Club 33 lunch? Yes! We hadn’t asked her because for weeks I was trying to book the parade dining package, to no avail. Amazing, by the time we got off the canoes, we had an 11:30 Club 33 lunch reservation- big upgrade from Cafe Orleans! We finished Haunted Mansion at 11:20, perfect timing for our lunch.
Super lovely Club 33 lunch on the balcony, it was a beautiful day. I grabbed a Toy Story LL for 1:30 and the plan was Rise after lunch and then head over to. California Adventure. Rise, however, was down most of the day and was still down by the time we finished lunch. Just as well, Club 33 was a two hour lunch, vs the 1 hour we had budgeted for Cafe Orleans, so we would have been pressed for time.
After lunch, we rode Toy Story with LL, then the Symphony Swings and Zephyr, then Soaring with LL. We headed over the Mickeys Philharmagic and the Animation Academy while waiting for our Grizzly River Run LL window, around 4pm.
We originally had a 6:30pm Lamplight Lounge reservation, and we decided to keep it, thinking we might need a rest and could have a small bite and maybe another cocktail around that time. I wanted to purchase a Radiator Springs Racers ILL for something like 7:30, I like the ambience of that ride around sunset. But- suddenly after having been down all day, Rise was up and we wanted to ride it. We booked the ILL for Radiator Springs for 5pm, rescheduled our Lamplight reservation for a later date and rode Mater and Luigi while waiting for our Radiator Springs LL window. Luigi was our longest line of the day- 30 min- consistent with the posted time but not the app, which listed a 20 min wait time.
I was able to grab a Smugglers Run LL for immediately after Rise, and we headed back to DL park. The line just to scan your ILL bar code was huge. We almost bailed asked for a refund because Cast Members at the Rise entrance said it would be an hour wait for ILL. Glad we persevered however, the wait was only 16 min! Then Smugglers immediately after and managed to grab a perfectly timed LL for Big Thunder prior to heading off to snag a spot for the parade.
We started looking for a spot around 1:15 ahead of parade time and most of the good spots were already snagged. We found a decent spot near the top of Main St, mobile ordered husband a corn dog and we hunkered down. I really hate being packed into a crowd like that, we perched on a rail and sort of took a load off our feet. I started to feel really tired, I thought it was just a long day. But also a slightly sore throat. Maybe I was talking loud all day due to being in crowds at the park.
Eventually we had a pretty decent view of the parade, not great, not terrible. People who hadn’t been waiting as long as we had of course forced their way in front of us after the parade started. But we could see the parade pretty well as it came around the circle at the top of Main St, even though we couldn’t see it at the top of Main Street. Good enough but I really think in the future, it’s dining package or no parade for us. That wasn’t super enjoyable.
We tried to stay for Mix Magic afterward but it was pretty lame, so headed off to what we planned as our last ride of the night- Jungle Cruise, which is really at its best at night. We finished up at 10pm and the tram lines were so long, that even though we’d been on our feet all day, we just walked back to the parking garage.
The negatives- Genie + was still annoying to use, lots of checking and rechecking looking for just the right LL return times. The app was annoying when the wait times were wildly inaccurate, like for Smugglers Run and Dumbo. The parade viewing experience was just not fun for us. It was pretty crowded for a low season Thursday. Without LL, wait times were 60-120+ minutes for most of the prime rides, and even the lesser rides were frequently 30-40 min waits. None of the wait times were exaggerated on the things we did wait for.
The positives- The parade is very cool. How lucky was that Club 33 reservation?! We got a huge amount done for a day trip, and Genie + and ILL were invaluable, if annoying. Thursday morning was not bad at all, from a crowd perspective.
Our take homes: We own DVC at Grand Californian and have future stays booked for Aug, Oct, Dec, and next Jan. Genie+ was pushing us away from continuing with our plan to buy an Annual Pass in August. I’m still feeling that was, even though this Genie+ experience was not as annoying as our most recent two (maybe I am getting used to it). The thing that might make me reconsider is the idea that maybe with an AP, the thing to do would be to go sans Genie+ on a weekday morning and just leave around the time of day Genie+ becomes necessary. For day trips, the $30 for parking adds up, but for overnight trips, maybe we just enjoy the park in the morning, no Genie, no hopping. Then leave after lunch and return in the evening if we can find a civilized way to enjoy the nighttime entertainmen. I’ll just have to do the math to see if we can justify the cost of the AP if we’re not spending full days in the park.
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