If you want to ride RSR . . .

[adorelc]

I agree, I was not stressed about it because I knew what to do. It is very controlled and as long as you don't get frustrated by the people who will cut in front of you no matter what, it is an exciting and fun expereince! There are so many people that have no idea where to go or what to do, and I was so thankful not to be them. Just follow all of the great advice here and you will have an excellent time!

 

[vbecky]

Do you get a fp for RSR before 8 if you are a hotel guest or do you have to wait till 8 on a EMH? Thanks

 

[coaches24]

Do you get a fp for RSR before 8 if you are a hotel guest or do you have to wait till 8 on a EMH? Thanks

no you have to wait until normal park opening before FP is available. You can get in line before non EMH guests though.

 

[lucysmom]

Okay, I am soooooo confused. We are going to DLR on December 18 for five days, a crowded time. We will have early entry. But, we should not use the Grand Californian entrance. We should use the main entrance. We should be there 30 minutes before rope drop. Then we should use the wide right technique and go straight to Cars Land. We should get in the line for RSR if it is running. Then we should get in the fastpass line and wait until the regular park hours to get a fastpass to ride RSR later. It is supposed to be a different experience at night. Then we should ignore the window on the fastpass because they do not enforce fastpass return times. Is this right???? I thought WDW was confusing, but this CL strategy seems over the top to me. If I wait in a fastpass line until the regular park opens, I will miss all the benefit of early entry to ride rides. There must be another way. Hellllllpppppp!!!!!!

 

[mrswh]

Okay, I am soooooo confused. We are going to DLR on December 18 for five days, a crowded time. We will have early entry. But, we should not use the Grand Californian entrance. We should use the main entrance. We should be there 30 minutes before rope drop. Then we should use the wide right technique and go straight to Cars Land. We should get in the line for RSR if it is running. Then we should get in the fastpass line and wait until the regular park hours to get a fastpass to ride RSR later. It is supposed to be a different experience at night. Then we should ignore the window on the fastpass because they do not enforce fastpass return times. Is this right???? I thought WDW was confusing, but this CL strategy seems over the top to me. If I wait in a fastpass line until the regular park opens, I will miss all the benefit of early entry to ride rides. There must be another way. Hellllllpppppp!!!!!!

Yes, definitely use the main entrance for EE. It makes a significant difference. You do NOT need to be there 30 minutes before rope drop for EE. Just get there a few minutes before the EE opening and you will be fine. If RSR is running, you should be able to ride once and still get a FP later. You do NOT need to waste your EE hour in line for RSR FPs. Get in the FP line about 5-10 minutes before regular park opening and you will be ahead of the hordes and should get a FP still pretty early in the day.

As for FP return times - you need to pay attention to the beginning time but not the end time. Return any time after the beginning of your return window. Yes, it is supposed to be very cool at night - but don't save your FPs for a nighttime ride unless you are willing to risk missing it altogether. We did that twice and both times the ride was down in the evening for several hours and didn't reopen until after we had left for the night. RSR breaks down frequently enough that you should use FPs any time you see it is up and running.

It's really not that over the top - just go early and get a FP.

ETA: If you are in the standby line and RSR breaks down you should make sure you bail out of line in time to get in the FP line before the hordes come in, or you may end up waiting a loooong time. And also, if RSR is down when the park opens for EMH, go ride other rides, but check back at RSR about 10 minutes before the park opens to the public - if they are close to getting it up and running, they will let the EMHers get in line before the big crowds.

 

[mrswh]

One other thing I learned on our recent trip: the CMs at any store can call any ride to see if it's open. So if RSR is down and you want to know if it's back up without walking over from TSMM or wherever you are, just ask a CM at a store to call over and find out. A real time saver!

 

[bcla]

The policy is that you need to be in the park (either park, last I checked), but not in the line. In fact, in some FP lines (WOC comes to mind) they ask that only one person per party get in line.

I tried doing that to get a World of Color FP for the rest of my family who were still at the hotel. I got a FP for myself but it spit out a message that the ticket hadn't been activated. We came later and still got the same Blue section FP.

I didn't ride on RSR, but did see someone at the entrance to the ride who was irate at a CM. Not 100% sure, but I think he was denied entry on a FP that had expired. The CM was threatening to call security, but otherwise took the abuse like a champ. The irate customer was complaining about how much he'd spent and how much time he'd taken to be there.

 

[mrswh]

I tried doing that to get a World of Color FP for the rest of my family who were still at the hotel. I got a FP for myself but it spit out a message that the ticket hadn't been activated. .

Right . . . you have to be in the park, not at the hotel.

 

[bcla]

Right . . . you have to be in the park, not at the hotel.

I wasn't sure what others meant when I was told that not everyone needs to go to the FP line in order to pick up a pass. I was under the impression that I could get in line for someone else before they were scanned at the gate.

I was thinking of maybe doing the picnic lunch to get a pass, but the Blue section wasn't even out of passes by maybe 11 AM. It wasn't even that crowded. We did enjoy standing right on the railing and feeling the heat from the flames.

 

[Fivers]

So.... Is the CA/rope drop/ RSR fastpass-getting experience in any way as intense or frightening or life threatening as the HS rope drop for TSM? Because last time we did the HS rope drop I was shaking for an hour...DH vowed to never do that again! I thought people here on the DIS HAD to be exaggerating about that experience so I wanted to see for myself......I was SO wrong. So I'd feel horrible making DH go through that for a FP for RSR. How bad is it???? TIA!

My Mom is very claustrophobic in crowds, and she handled it fine. We got there early so we could be up front, and since we were chatting with the security CM at the right, no one tried to push in front of us When the park opened the CMs very slowly walked the rope backwards until we were funneled into the actual line. I expect there was probably some jostling further back at that point, and a parent managed to shove her kids in front of us so they could cut in (really?!?!? using your children!?!?), but overall it wasn't bad at all! Having the CMs walk the line slowly back really helps!

Then we should get in the fastpass line and wait until the regular park hours to get a fastpass to ride RSR later. It is supposed to be a different experience at night.

If you don't have young kids with you and you want to ride at night, try the single rider line. We did that one evening and it worked really well

 

[oregoncurtis]

Forgive my ignorance, but what does "wide right" mean? It looks like to me that one has to go straight down buena vista and then take a left to get to cars land. I'm having trouble looking on the map and see where i should go at opening to get in the FP line. Help appreciated.

 

[ArchOwl]

Forgive my ignorance, but what does "wide right" mean? It looks like to me that one has to go straight down buena vista and then take a left to get to cars land. I'm having trouble looking on the map and see where i should go at opening to get in the FP line. Help appreciated.

"Wide right" is a strategy of staying to the right as you head to Carsland. The reason for this is because the crowd gets funneled down to the right until you enter the queue for RSR. This is for the standby line, though. You head down BVS and turn right at Carthay Circle.

For RSR FP, you head down BVS and head left to the end of the RSR FP queue. The FP queue for RSR starts at Bugs Land and goes back from there, past Carthay, and into HollywoodLand.