I hope this doesn't sound selfish....

M&E

Mouseketeer
Joined
Jan 14, 2008
I really want to ride ROTR and Slinky TWICE the same day. We will be at HS on a Sunday at the end of August. I plan to buy Genie+ the morning of our day (hopefully it's available) and we will be at the gates 45 minutes before park opening. We are staying on site so we have EE. We also want to ride: Rockin' Roller Coaster, ToT, Toy Story Mania, and MMRR each one time. We will either be at HS the whole day or we will head back to the hotel for an afternoon swim and come back in the evening. I say that because we have the potential to jump in a line a few minutes before park closing. Is this impossible? That would be 8 rides on some pretty popular choices. If it can be done, what is our best plan of attack? (I know how Genie+ currently works) Thanks!
 
I really want to ride ROTR and Slinky TWICE the same day. We will be at HS on a Sunday at the end of August. I plan to buy Genie+ the morning of our day (hopefully it's available) and we will be at the gates 45 minutes before park opening. We are staying on site so we have EE. We also want to ride: Rockin' Roller Coaster, ToT, Toy Story Mania, and MMRR each one time. We will either be at HS the whole day or we will head back to the hotel for an afternoon swim and come back in the evening. I say that because we have the potential to jump in a line a few minutes before park closing. Is this impossible? That would be 8 rides on some pretty popular choices. If it can be done, what is our best plan of attack? (I know how Genie+ currently works) Thanks!
I think it's doable since we get a good bit done and we don't even rope drop or even get to DHS until after lunch time. Our last visit was at the tail end of spring break in April so the parks were pretty crowded. This was our day below. All times are estimated since it's from my notes on my phone. We chose to do smugglers and TOT standby since we couldn't get G+ for them but we love TOT so we were willing to wait since we wanted to ride it twice. I think you could easily take our time doing star tours, lightening mcqueen and smugglers and do MMRR and then make your RD plan to hit ROTR and buy iLL$ for Rise, that would cover your two times and then get G+ for SDD and plan to hit it again at park close. I don't see doing SDD or ROTR standby a good move midday.

We arrived at 1:30pm- qs lunch
2pm- star tours standby
2:30pm Lightening McQueen standby
3:30p Rockin Roller Coaster G+
TOT- standby- 55 min wait
5:55pm -ROTR iLL$
7pm- Smugglers Run standby
7:15pm- Slinky G+
7:40pm TSM G+
8:30pm TOT standby
9pm- MMRR
 
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Wait times are, from longest to shortest, are:

ROTR
Slinky
Tower of Terror
Mickey and Minnie's
Rock and Roll
Toy Story Mania

I would stack late afternoon/evening G+.

I would book G+ Slinky for late in the day at 7:00 am.
I also grab ROTR with an ILL$ early in the day.
(Not sure which one you should do first, my gut says ROTR)
Stand in line for Slinky at rope drop.
Stand in line for Mickey and Minnie.
Ride ROTR ILL$
At 2 hours after the park opens and you are eligible for another G+. I would book Tower of Terror.
Stand in line for Rock & Roll.
Stand in line for TSM.
After 2 more hours after booking Tower "fiddle faddle" for anything you still need to do (R&R, TSM, MMRR).
Ride your stacked G+ rides
Get in line for your second ROTR ride at the end of the day.

Be flexible if one of your rides nearby has a particularly short wait.
 
When I went in November, DHS opened gates at 7:30AM for a 8:30AM (for resort guests).

I got in and went shopping for a few minutes but kept walking towards galaxys edge and the tunnel was empty and I got to Rise of the Resistance and for my surprise IT WAS OPEN. I walk on, rode it, and went back in again.. I rode twice by 8:30 and It was like a 40 minute wait but decided to do MMRR instead (back then wasnt on Genie+).

Of course, I tried this again later in my trip. This time, we got stopped in front of the tunnel by Galaxys Edge. They started to move us into the actual queue at 8 AM. But this time, the ride was down, so had to wait over an hour inside and end up riding it after 9AM.

I am not sure if opening at 7:30 that day was luck or is the norm and second day I wasnt lucky because ride was down.

I think is doable, RotR twice if you rope drop and buy ILL. Slinky twice is the one I found hard, but you can get an early genie+ and then keep using genie+ for other rides (refresh refresh for better times) and maybe at night you can get to Slinky again.
 
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Just keep in mind you need to be flexible. Rise is known to go down often and for long times, even at EE and rope drop. I've done EE twice with it and it went down both times once after I had already stood in line for 50 min, and once before the park was even open. Just know it's a possibility and be willing to adjust your plans accordingly. I don't think it has ever been down all day but even if you have a LL, if it goes down, you are going to stand in line when it comes back up.
 
Just keep in mind you need to be flexible. Rise is known to go down often and for long times, even at EE and rope drop. I've done EE twice with it and it went down both times once after I had already stood in line for 50 min, and once before the park was even open. Just know it's a possibility and be willing to adjust your plans accordingly. I don't think it has ever been down all day but even if you have a LL, if it goes down, you are going to stand in line when it comes back up.
Even one of the OP's top rides being down with mess things up. We went to DHS and went to ToT right away and R&R was down so everyone was in line for Tower. We bailed and did MMRR instead and even that was busier since people did the same as we did.
 


We did ALL of those rides by 12:30pm without using G+. 4 weeks ago. No problem.
 
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We were there a few weeks ago and easily did Rise and Tower twice with a 4 pm arrival. No $ILL required. We had G+ stacked for Tower, Runaway Railway, RnRC and Toy Story Mania in advance. We also picked up one for Swirling Saucers after arrival. We didn’t do Slinky that day though.

At Rise at 7:40 pm, the posted wait was 85 minutes with an actual wait of 15. We rode again with a 5 minute wait (posted time was still 85). We could have done it a 3rd time but opted for a 2nd ride on Tower instead. Over there, the posted wait was 80 with an actual wait of 10.

All done by just after 9 pm. That’s how you close a park.

The keys are staying until close, not getting up too early and tiring out, and understanding that those posted wait times are intentionally exaggerated late at night.
 
Wait times are, from longest to shortest, are:

ROTR
Slinky
Tower of Terror
Mickey and Minnie's
Rock and Roll
Toy Story Mania

I would stack late afternoon/evening G+.

I would book G+ Slinky for late in the day at 7:00 am.
I also grab ROTR with an ILL$ early in the day.
(Not sure which one you should do first, my gut says ROTR)
Stand in line for Slinky at rope drop.
Stand in line for Mickey and Minnie.
Ride ROTR ILL$
At 2 hours after the park opens and you are eligible for another G+. I would book Tower of Terror.
Stand in line for Rock & Roll.
Stand in line for TSM.
After 2 more hours after booking Tower "fiddle faddle" for anything you still need to do (R&R, TSM, MMRR).
Ride your stacked G+ rides
Get in line for your second ROTR ride at the end of the day.

Be flexible if one of your rides nearby has a particularly short wait.
So you're saying you think I should buy the ROTR ILL at 7:00 before I try for a Slinky G+?
 
Just keep in mind you need to be flexible. Rise is known to go down often and for long times, even at EE and rope drop. I've done EE twice with it and it went down both times once after I had already stood in line for 50 min, and once before the park was even open. Just know it's a possibility and be willing to adjust your plans accordingly. I don't think it has ever been down all day but even if you have a LL, if it goes down, you are going to stand in line when it comes back up.
If ROTR is down first thing, should we got to Slinky? Or will the line there be too outrageous since it wasn't where we first headed. I'm assuming we won't know ROTR is down until we are actually at the ride.
 
We were there a few weeks ago and easily did Rise and Tower twice with a 4 pm arrival. No $ILL required. We had G+ stacked for Tower, Runaway Railway, RnRC and Toy Story Mania in advance. We also picked up one for Swirling Saucers after arrival. We didn’t do Slinky that day though.

At Rise at 7:40 pm, the posted wait was 85 minutes with an actual wait of 15. We rode again with a 5 minute wait (posted time was still 85). We could have done it a 3rd time but opted for a 2nd ride on Tower instead. Over there, the posted wait was 80 with an actual wait of 10.

All done by just after 9 pm. That’s how you close a park.

The keys are staying until close, not getting up too early and tiring out, and understanding that those posted wait times are intentionally exaggerated late at night.
I appreciate this plan, however, I know we will get up early and be at the park before opening. I do think we will need to head back to the resort for a nap/swim though at some point. Hopefully by doing that we can stay till close. It kind of makes me mad that wait times are so exaggerated at the end of the evening, but I guess if they were accurate, more people would get in line.
 
So you're saying you think I should buy the ROTR ILL at 7:00 before I try for a Slinky G+?
Yes. As an onsite guest you have the advantage for getting ROTR in the morning. You *want* Slinky to be in the late afternoon/evening.
 
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It kind of makes me mad that wait times are so exaggerated at the end of the evening, but I guess if they were accurate, more people would get in line.

We first read about Disney’s Line Stacking techniques in the 1998 Unofficial Guide so this is nothing new. The intent is to steer guests toward the gift shops and eventually the exits later in the evening.

The theory is that guests are more likely to make purchases before official closing time than after.
 
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A couple of weeks before your trip start practicing with the tip board. We were there first 2 weeks of august. RoTR was not going immediately. ToT and Slinky were both gone by the second LL drop and we had to pick. But there was time to get both slinky and RoTR. Remember that 2 people can be booking simultaneously.
 

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