Radiator Springs Racers - Ride first or FP first?

[preschoolmom]

We'll be hitting DCA at rope drop, but what would you recommend? I would love to ride it in the morning and in the evening.

We're a family of five - and Carsland is the reason we decided to come to Disneyland (instead of World) this time around. We are SO Excited - and I think we're going to love so many attractions in a walkable format! And I'm so glad to not have to do fast pass +. We might be converts when this is over

 

[SMD]

We'll be hitting DCA at rope drop, but what would you recommend? I would love to ride it in the morning and in the evening.

We're a family of five - and Carsland is the reason we decided to come to Disneyland (instead of World) this time around. We are SO Excited - and I think we're going to love so many attractions in a walkable format! And I'm so glad to not have to do fast pass +. We might be converts when this is over

I would ride first. With the FPs being connected now, you're going to have to wait in sine standby lines between FPs. After the first ride, decide if you want FP (and the return window probably won't be at night yet, so you'll still have to wait) or if single rider will work for your second ride. If you decide you're going to do SR, then you can pull and FP for Soarin and move on to something else, like TSMM.

 

[figment_jii]

It depends on whether or not you want to do TSMM and how late into the day you are willing to wait to ride RSR.

TSMM does not have a FP and the line tends to remain long throughout the day. So you want to ride TSMM, I would probably ride that at rope drop and then go back and get RSR FPs. RSR FPs are lasting a bit longer now (I'd still go with 90-120 minutes after park opening), so you should be able to ride TSMM and then get back for RSR FPs. The biggest drawback is that the RSR FP will probably be for late in the day (e.g., between evening and closing). That does mean you wouldn't be able to get another DCA FP (excluding WoC) until two hours later (or when the RSR FP time window opens, but it's unlikely that it would be within two hours).

If TSMM is not a priority and/or you don't mind waiting in line for TSMM, then I would employ the "Wide Right" technique and ride RSR as standby. Then, as SMD said, after you ride, you can head back to the FPs to see if they still have any and what are the return times.

 

[preschoolmom]

Thanks for your replies! I think we'll head for the standby line first, then check the FP machines. We've ridden TSM lots at WDW - so I think it would be more fun to ride RSR as our first attraction in DCA.

 

[auteur55]

How fast can I dump off my stroller doing wide right technique?

 

[SMD]

How fast can I dump off my stroller doing wide right technique?

Unless you have a stroller as a wheechair tag, I'd just leave it before the rope drop (or even in the hotel) and pick it up later in the morning. You don't really want to navigate a stroller through the crush of people, just to have to unload it after a few minutes.

 

[auteur55]

Sorry to highjack the thread but when is there a place to leave the stroller before standing at rope drop? We don't want to leave it at the hotel because then we'll have to walk all the way back. It would be good if there was a station when you go to stand at rope drop to stash it.

 

[B-Ride]

Like everyone else we headed to RSR at rope drop on a early entry morning of our first day only to find it closed with no ETA for opening.

So we headed over to TSM only to find it closed as well. Not a great start to our trip. Still after a quick ride on California Screamin' TSM was open and we got a couple of quick rides in with no line.

As for RSR, it was the only ride in our 4 day visit that had FastPasses running out. In fact, we couldn't believe the return windows for other FastPass attractions at Disneyland. Usually within one hour.

The best approach for RSR, for our family of 2 adults and a 19 and 21 year old, was the single rider line. We rode 5 or 6 times over 2 trips with usually a 5 to 10 minute wait while the standby line varied from 30 to 90 minutes.

 

[samserena]

We had one of us go get the FP tickets and the other one of us with the family go to standby - it worked well for us and meant we got to go twice fairly easily - but this was before they were connected and RSR was something we were not willing to compromise on. Now they are connected I guess you'd have to trust the second half of the team to make the right judgement call depending on the return time.