Looking for a non rope drop strategy (DL until midnight) using G+ and $$LL

[jina]

Hi all,

My daughter and I just booked a last minute DL trip for mid-April, mid-week but for the first time ever, will not be doing rope drop. We've been to DL about a dozen times from '14-'18 and several week+ trips to WDW from '14-'19 so our last DL trip was in Maxpass days and we've been away from a Disney park for 2 1/2 years which has been painful. We're not driven to go on every ride and experience everything, but we do have certain rides we really want to do and could miss the fireworks one night, have no need to see WOC and can miss all parades. We are firm believers in rope drop (we even did a 6AM rope drop our first full day at WDW after flying from California so we could get on Slinky's and Smugglers during those early Galaxy Edge months in '19 - yes that was effectively a 3AM pacific rope drop!). But alas, my daughter is in the midst of puberty and has become a vampire. Waking for rope drop is just not worth the pain for either of us, and it turns out DL will be open until midnight both nights we are there so instead I will train to become a vampire as I currently conk out by 9pm.

We fly into SoCal around noon on day 1 and expect to be at a park by 1:30pm - we've chosen DCA as our first park for days 1 and 2 since we plan to be at DL until midnight both of those days. We have already bought G+ with our hoppers and expect to buy $$LL on WS & RotR at least once as we've never been on either and fully expect to shell out $ for RSR at least once as that's one of our favorites, assuming it's running. Other must-do rides for us are Indy, BTMR, Smugglers, Space and HM. Wish Pirates would be open but such is life.

For days 2 and 3 I'd guess we will target getting to the parks around 10-11am which will be very strange but given we will have been at DL until midnight and the vampire thing it makes the most sense. We've reserved DCA as the starter park for day 2 and DL as the start park for day 3 as we will have to leave for the airport on day 3 around 4pm. We can change the starter parks as both parks are currently available those days if that makes more sense given your input.

We do plan to do at least 1 drawing class per day -that's one of our favorite activities, hence, why we expect to be at DCA for part of each day.

Having said that, here are my questions:
1. What would be a good strategy for trying to be able to buy LL on WS and RotR? I assume we will arrive so late standby will not be an option for us.
2. Are there certain LL rides which would be gone by 10:30-11am? 1:30pm? The max we want to wait for anything is 30 min.
3. What are availability and wait times like in the late DL hours (9pm-midnight) as well as during WOC at DCA?
4. Is it possible to hop back to DCA until DCA close and then back to DL at 10pm or are we limited to 1 hop per day?
5. We learned from our '19 WDW trip to go bagless (I actually have a small bag I put in my pocket and hand carry my phone and water bottle in, then after getting through security pull out the empty bag and use it to carry water bottles and unnecessary layers/hats) to save time in security lines. Does DL have a "no bags" security line as well?
6. With covid, are there still self-serve water filling stations at the parks?
7. Is there hand sanitizer at every turn, or should I bring a little bottle along? We do want to try to stay covid free so my daughter can go back to school the next week.

thanks! We are so excited to return to DL. It's been way too long!!!!

 

[pokee99]

My daughter and I went for 4 days this past week, didn't do rope drop for any days. First day we arrived at 6pm last Saturday at DCA. We bought ILL for Webslingers and RSR, LL for Guardians, then LL for Incredicoaster, and then did multiple single rider rides on RSR. We did all that by the time the fireworks ended at DLR. We hopped to DLR at 9:30pm and got LL for Smugglers Run, then rode standby on a few rides in Fantasyland, went back to Galaxy's Edge to ride SR and got a walk in table at Oga's at around 11pm, and left at closing.

On Sunday we arrived at DLR at around 10am on got a ILL for Rise at 1:15pm. But it wasn't a very busy day. On Tuesday we got there at 9am and ILL return was for after 2pm. By 10am, it was 4:30pm. We did standby that day because it was our last and we had to leave by 1pm. Standby was 90 minutes, but it went by quickly.

You can hop back and forth as much as you want after 1pm.

We actually really enjoyed avoiding rope drop... it made entering the park soooo much more pleasant. The only downside to that is you'll have to endure some lines at Fantasyland. We missed Peter Pan and Mr Toad this time because the lines were never under 30 - 60 minutes when we were in the area. I hoped we could do both late night, but they were either down or still had a massive line.

Fantasyland was seriously a crowded nightmare everytime we entered. And we're from Canada and had to covid test for the way home. Too high of a concentration of children for our risk tolerance! Lol

Bring hand sanny wipes. We used them before eating and after every ride. But like I said, we had to covid test on the way home. We also wore masks indoors and when we were in close crowds.

Bags aren't really a big deal for me. I brought a sling backpack and a waist pouch for my phone, to keep it easily accessible. And security is basically dead when it's not rope drop!

I think I saw a couple of water refill stations, but I brought a big bottle that lasted each of my 6 hrs days.

Have fun! We had a great mom/daughter trip! I'm convinced DLR is better without men...

 

[jina]

excellent- thanks so much! The crowd calendar says "yep it's packed" so we have low expectations on rides but we've done the Fantasyland rides so many times we're ok skipping them this round.

 

[DLRExpert]

If experiencing Fantasyland attractions with low waits is important then the first hour of a 8am opening is necessary. The lines start to diminish at around 10pm. Not so much for Peter Pan.


If experiencing the top E tickets attractions twice is important, then the first hour is important. Again, a few waits will go down, but for Space Mountain it is rare that after 9am you will see a wait lower than 45 minutes.

Best day for late night rides is Sundays. As most locals go home early due to work the next day and some out of towners have already left to go back home.

 

[jina]

thanks. Fantasyland isn't that important so we should be ok missing them this trip. We're all about e-ticket rides (and yes, my first trip to DL in the 70's was w the ticket books and we went home with a ton of unused A tickets). Perhaps we'll have to readjust our minimum wait time and be ok w some longer waits. My daughter is excited to use the Disney Play app while in line (I'll have to bring a power brick). Unfortunately I just checked and we will be there during LA county's spring break so I suppose locals will also be out late w us even though we'll be there midweek.

 

[chezcurrie]

I have mentioned this several times on several posts, so my apologies for being repetitive), but my favorite memories from our Dec 2021 trip were the late nights with my 2 eldest (12 & 8 at the time.). And this was a *busy* pre-Christmas week. Saving those E-ticket LL (much like stacking max pass) meant we often did LL then standby back to back, or vice-versa.

Enjoy your vampire teen and those specials moments you will have… not getting emotional at all at the memory of my 12-year-old-who-looks-19 holding my hand the whole walk out of DCA. Nope, totally not *me*! ENJOY!!!

 

[jina]

We got back last night after 2 nights/3 days during a busy Spring Break week. Here is how our vampire strategy worked for us:

1. flew in Tuesday morning was at the DCA gate just before 1pm which was good because there were several lines of people waiting to hop at 1pm but we were able to breeze in.
2. no ROTR LL's available despite checking, every time I saw one shop up by the time I clicked on it, it was gone. We were hoping to get one for the evening when we hopped to DL.
3. we were able to get a LL for webslingers which we loved and was well worth the $36 to not stand in a 2+ hour line.
4. Regular LL's were all several hours out from when we arrived so we booked a Goofy's for 2 hours out, grabbed some lunch and learned how to draw Grogu.
5. MOBILE FOOD ORDERING ROCKS! Note if you have an allergy order (other than Lucky Fortune which was super fast), be prepared to wait ~15 min so your best bet is to say "I'm here" in the app and then show up about 15 min later (or when the app tells you the order is ready). We used mobile ordering for Crazy Cone, Corn Dog Palace, Red Rose Tavern, Jolly Holiday- all were excellent experiences. Most of the time the window for pick up in DL was about 30 min out, for DCA it was usually within 5 minutes.
6. As typical rope droppers, arriving in the afternoon was a real shock despite knowing this was going to be the case. People everywhere, most lines over an hour, blech.
7. We hopped over to DL around 5 as we had a 5:30 Smuggler's Run LL then did standby for HM. Also picked up a 10:50pm for Space.
8. Brought our droid from a 2019 WDW trip so it could interact while in Galaxy's Edge which was very cute. We liked how when we walked by someone else with a droid they would talk to each other and the other surprising times our droid would wake up and interact with someone or something. Glad we brought it.
9. At 8pm we had an 9pm LL for BTMR but saw it was a 45 min wait so we decided to cancel the LL and stand in line there, while getting a 9PM Buzz instead since we were going to do Space later. We got to BTMR at 8pm and while the wait said 45 min, the first time through it was 10 min. 2nd and 3rd times 5 min. So awesome! BTMR has always been one of our favorites but had never done it in the dark and boy is it fun in the dark and extra fun to get to do it 3 times in under 30 min.
10. I started to feel sick around 9:30pm which is my normal bedtime. My daughter the vampire was tired since we had been rushing around all day so we decided we would not make it to the 10:50pm Space LL so we stood in line at 9:30pm with a posted wait time of 50 min. That was a mistake. It took more like 75 min and we were miserable as we spent most of that wait in the large room area which had very poor ventilation and was packed with people. I think my face mask wearing was contributing to my nausea as well.
11. About 1-5% of the people wore masks indoors despite the strong recommendations. I was getting really sick after doing rides in my mask and decided on day 2 to take the thing off since I just got double boosted 2 weeks ago so my antibodies are at their max right now. DD chose to keep her mask on as she wants to be able to go back to school next week and she's due for her first booster in a few weeks. We will test on Sunday. Fingers crossed. Cases are rising in our area.
12. On day 2 we decided to not do rope drop but still ended up getting there at 8:25am at DCA. We got a ton done, such a relief after day 1. We left DCA around 11:30am after doing Incredicoaster then LL's for TSMM, Guardians, Webslingers (ILL) and Soarin over California (so cool to see this one again). Rested at the hotel and returned to DL around 2 so we could do our Smugglers LL before our Cafe Orleans reservation. Then ROTR (ILL- SO WORTH IT - always a 2-3 hr wait otherwise), plus LL for Indy before we decided to call it quits and head back to the hotel around 6 for dinner and relaxation in the room.
13. Slept in for day 3 and got to DL around 11am. Again that was a mistake. We will not go for the vampire thing again. It's just too annoying tapping in and having our first LL be like 2-3 hours out with everything else an hour or more wait, no ILL avail for ROTR and so forth. We are going back to being rope droppers w/ a midday break. Getting there at or just after rope drop lets you cruise through LL rides, grab some future ones and then during the midday break get another LL or two (since you can get new LL's every 2 hours) so you can have a fun and productive afternoon and evening as well. The vampire agrees.

We had a wonderful time together and hope to do more mother/daughter trips as she moves through her teens.