I Need To Get Out More Often! A Day Trip In May

[HydroGuy]

Those of you who know me know that my trips to DLR in recent years have all been high season. Which I actually like. We go in the summer and sometimes around Thanksgiving. We have four (yes four) teenage boys in our family and thus it is tough to get time to visit any time that is not already high season.

So I went on a day trip last Saturday May 16. Normally I would never go on a Saturday - too many locals - but had no choice because it was with a middle school music competition.

Saturdays are Magic Morning (MM) days and frankly I was shocked at the crowds on Saturday morning and generally all day. To be more specific, shocked at the lack of crowds! I know the rule on a busy day. Avoid Fantasyland after a Magic Morning.

But on this trip I was with my DS13 and a few of his friends and I was not going to be the director. I let them say what they wanted to do, gave my advice, and let them choose.

So we arrived at the DL gates at 7:50AM - also beyond my control. When I am in control we are there by 7:30 at the latest. But 7:50 worked great and I just made up my mind ahead of time to not let it bother me.

The kids did Star Tours right off while I got FPs for Space Mtn. Then they wanted to do Matterhorn. My warning lights went off because of the MM but I figured the Tomorrowland side would be a better bet so away we went. Matterhorn was practically a walk-on even after the MM. While on Matterhorn I noticed the other FL rides had no lines. What the heck? And PP was closed for refurb which should have made the other FL rides worse!

So we did Alice in Wonderland as a walk-on, Tea Cups as a walk-on, and then at around 8:30 the kids decided to do Dumbo as more of a joke than anything. It was a walk-on! At 8:30AM! I could not believe it! Next we walked on to Toad before heading to Adventureland.

I got the feeling I need to get out more. It was nice not having to contend with so many crowds. Might go in May again sometime! The weather was great - about 80 a degrees high. Night was a little cool but I had shorts and tee shirt on until after 10PM when I left.

Overall we had a great day and lines were fairly light all day long. Space and Splash got up to 60 minutes. We spent several hours over at DCA too, and Soarin was 60 minutes mid-day. We had FPs for all so it all worked out. We did standby for Screamin twice with 20 minute waits.

 

[Disney Princess]

Sounds like you had a very successful day! That makes me excited that maybe our crowds won't be too bad. We leave on Sunday!! Thanks for giving us your take on how Saturday went.

 

[mechurchlady]

Saturday is the new Sunday. With the black out dates in effect people are now coming on Sundays which last time I was on a Sunday was a madhouse. Fridays are worse that they were 5 years ago again due to block out dates.

Glad you had fun and for showing that going early gets you short lines.

 

[wendypooh22]

I agree that Saturday is the "new" Sunday... Crowds are soo much different this year than in times past...

Glad to hear that you guys had a great day

 

[prettyprincessbelle]

Glad to hear you had such a great day and what a wonderful surprise to see the crowds not what you expected!

 

[DLR29]

This is good news because next year, our high school band is taking a trip to DL and I am already pumped. So was it a band competition at DL or was it in So. Cal and the trip just happened to include DL?

 

[Hound 109]

"Lined up at 7:50am" .....

"Rode on Star Tours first"......





Glad you had a great time HG.

Did you ride both sides of Matterhorn?


It will be interesting to hear from others on the crowd differences between Sat. & Sun. (maybe the economy is preventing the local one day visitor from shelling out $$ to visit on a Sat.....while the AP'ers will visit anyway ....since they already pre-paid for their ticket....on Sunday??)

 

[DisneySuiteFreak]

I've noticed the last couple of years that it seemed slower on Saturdays than it did on Fridays and Sundays. Worked well for me too ---until I got my DAP. I'm afraid June is probably going to be crazy busy.

 

[lulubelle]

I agree that Sunday is the new Saturday. And Fridays are wonderful in the am but get progressively busier as the day passes and by night time, the place is packed!

Thanks for the mini daytrip report - and nice to see you around Trey, I haven't seen you post in quite a while.

 

[blackjackdelta]

I agree that Sunday is the new Saturday. And Fridays are wonderful in the am but get progressively busier as the day passes and by night time, the place is packed!

Thanks for the mini daytrip report - and nice to see you around Trey, I haven't seen you post in quite a while.

I have to agree, have not seen Trey post in along time.

Jack

 

[mechurchlady]

June will be insane. The 2 Fer will be dying out and be replaced with the 3 for $99 for parts of Mexico and Southern California. New stuff on June 12th will get the crowds out. I remember when late September to Thanksgiving was empty then from January to May was empty except holidays and weekends.

They have added so many discounts on hotels and admission along with the Halloween events. It aint what it used to be. I have never seen DCA so crowded that I walked away until this year. Of course the headache from a kid screaming louder than a rock concert while in a bathroom because mommy did not want him kicking her.

See you in the parks, maybe.

 

[HydroGuy]

This is good news because next year, our high school band is taking a trip to DL and I am already pumped. So was it a band competition at DL or was it in So. Cal and the trip just happened to include DL?

The competition had vocal groups and concert bands. The performances and judging was outside DLR on Friday but the awards were inside in the Big Thunder Ranch area on Saturday (I had no idea there was that much space back there). We came from Colorado but they also had some zonies, a Las Vegas school, and a few Northern CA schools. Most of the schools were Southern CA.

 

[HydroGuy]

Thanks for the mini daytrip report - and nice to see you around Trey, I haven't seen you post in quite a while.

I have to agree, have not seen Trey post in along time.

Jack

LOTS of distractions in recent months. It looks like they are behind me now.

 

[HydroGuy]

Did you ride both sides of Matterhorn?

We were planning to do the TL side early morning and lined up there but there was no line for either side and we ended up riding the FL side. We came back in the early evening (6PM ?) and did the TL side with a wait of 15 minutes max (might have been closer to 10).

BTW this is like the third time I have ridden Matterhorn early morning and it seemed like molasses. The ride at 6PM was way faster. I have heard speculation about cold tracks or something making things slower in the morning.

 

[S. S. Columbia]

Did you ride Toy Story Mania? Any major differences from the WDW version?

What did you think about the construction at Paradise Pier? Are the photos in the MiceChat and MousePlanet weekly updates accurate, or do they exaggerate the mess?

 

[HydroGuy]

Did you ride Toy Story Mania? Any major differences from the WDW version?

What did you think about the construction at Paradise Pier? Are the photos in the MiceChat and MousePlanet weekly updates accurate, or do they exaggerate the mess?

We rode TSMM once thru the single rider line. FWIW the mid-day line was posted 40 minutes. We did SR in about 20 minutes with eight in our group.

Of course TSMM is the same basic ride, but it seemed the layout inside was a little different. The exterior queue was very different with WDW being mostly inside and DLR being all outside albeit covered. Once you start playing the TSMM game it seemed just like WDW. I guess the best evidence of sameness was my score which was about the same as my best at WDW.

Yes, Paradise Pier is a mess. We rode Screamin twice and you could see all the new fountains being installed in the empty lagoon. The pier area has boards all the way around to try to block this out, with info about the upcoming World of Color show. I thought work had started on Little Mermaid but did not see any evidence of this when we walked by.