Rope Drop Strategy for Disneyland and Disney California Adventure with Lightning Lane MultiPass and SinglePass - 2024 Update

[mtemm]

With individual lightning lanes, I know you can only buy 2 for the day. Do you have to ride the first before you can book the second?

If I rope drop DL and want to buy RSR, will it default to when I can hop into the park? Or will I need to watch until that iLL is available as opposed to the earlier times that show first thing?

 

[mom23boyz]

All the way at the other end of Downtown Disney. Turn left coming out of DCA, walk for 8-10 minutes, enjoy downtown Disney (a mediocre outdoor mall that survives because it’s next to Disneyland) and then the station will be on your right across from the Lego store with a fire breathing dragon on top. Hard to miss it .

You’ll have to scan tickets to get on, and it might be a few mins “less efficient” than just hopping across, but I enjoy this process way more and the monorail is awesome and this is a great way to squeeze it in AND park hop.

Hi Brandon,

You have great info and I'm wondering if you would mind giving a down and dirty schedule for Wed and Thur of next week. We are starting in DL on Wed and DCA on Thurs. have park hoppers, staying at GC, NOT doing OBB and are willing to pay for ILL. Any good suggestions for us? We're a group of 4. Thanks!!!

 

[Brandonius]

Hi Brandon,

You have great info and I'm wondering if you would mind giving a down and dirty schedule for Wed and Thur of next week. We are starting in DL on Wed and DCA on Thurs. have park hoppers, staying at GC, NOT doing OBB and are willing to pay for ILL. Any good suggestions for us? We're a group of 4. Thanks!!!

Scheduling the full day is hard, but I can give my favorite way of attacking rope drop at both parks, as well as some key milestones throughout the day. Keep in mind, my recommended schedule is for someone that will go hard all day - early morning and late (read: until midnight) nights. Breaks late afternoon are totally understandable, especially if it just means waltzing into the grand and taking a power nap - that's why youre paying those prices, for the convenience lol.

If you're an either mornings or nights person, my Genie+ recommendations and overall strategymake less sense. Also, I haven't tried this strategy since Web Slingers got added to Genie+ - single rider has worked great on that one for me so far so play it by ear on whether it's worth reserving a LL for that one or not.

Also, this schedule assumes a working knowledge of how Genie+ works. If you don't have that, then go read some other posts to clarify then come back here.

If you want to prioritize rerides on the big thrill rides in DL, skip the fantasyland rope drop on the DL day and rush Space Mountain, then Matterhorn. You'll do them again later, but if you want multiple rides, or don't want to stay late into the night do that. If you want to "get everything done", then follow this plan.

This will just be a plan for your day starting at DL. Use the DCA start day (same idea - show up early, rope drop what you care about, but this time you can start by getting LLs for DCA instead of having to wait a couple hours) to pick up the big rides you missed or want to ride again. Your productivity on day 1 will help you decide what to rope drop day 2.

For the DL day:
6:40 AM (No later - aim for 6:30) - Be in line for security.

7:?? (I don't know exactly when hotel security opens - I think around 7-7:05. General public security is at 7:15-20) - Get through bag check and get to a turnstile - preferably one on the far right of the esplanade (Tomorrowland Side - opposite of where you enter form the grand) so that you can head straight into a tunnel and down the right side of Main St. when you get through.

The idea with Genie+ is to stack up your DCA passes so that when you park hop you'll have 2-3 huge rides with no wait. Then come back to DL and use the fact that it's open late combined with the fact that everyone got excited and booked all their LLs rides for the early afternoon when you were crushing it at DCA to come swooping through and just abuse LL selections through the late afternoon and into the night. I've done this several times now and ridden every E ticket in both parks at least once. Many of the major DL ones 2-4 times each, and I always try for at least 2 rides on Guardians. Now Haunted Mansion Holiday does exist, which means you should do that one first before starting to stack DCA lanes.

Here's how I'd do Genie throughout the day:
- I don't know exactly when when ILL's will be available, it varies by day and ride breakdown since the rides the pay per skip are on are also the least reliable rides around lol - Aim for an 11 AM return time on Rise and a 2:00-ish return time on Cars. Book it when you see it comes available.
- When Haunted Mansion Holiday's return time opening is at 9:30, book it. I think that'll be around 8 AM based on the thrill data reports.
- As soon as you scan into HM Holiday, Book Toy Story Mania. You may have to wait 20-30 minutes because it's return time isn't quite 1 PM yet, that's fine.
- At 12:00 (Or whenever the 2 hour cooldown window ends), book Monsters After Dark. Its return time will proobably be like 3:00 PM or so. Cool.
- After that, prioritize booking Indiana Jones, then Space Mountain. Or whatever else tickles your fancy.

7:30 - Charge through the turnstiles, show the CM at the right end of Main Street your hotel reservation, and hit Fantasyland. These rides are short and close together - you can get a ton done in your 30 mins. Order of Priority: Peter Pan, Dumbo, Alice in Wonderland, Snow White, Mr. Toad, Pinnochio.

8:00 - If I were you at this point, I would stop riding dark rides around 7:55 and get in line for Matterhorn just before the rope drops for everyone else. Then do Thunder Mountain and Smuggler's Run (Both of those will have very minimal waits), Morning Ronto Wrap at Ronto Roasters (totally worth a stop - its like the best thing since levitating toast-cats), then swing back to Pirates and redeem the LL at Haunted Mansion Holiday.

10:00 - You've had a productive morning, breathe, ride something standby if you want, grab a snack, shop around, whatever. Ride Rise of the Resistance once that ILL return time rolls around. At this point, freestyle it until you park hop.

1:00 - Park hop to DCA, head all the way to the back, ride Toy Story via LL, then Incredicoaster via Standby Line (it moves fast. Most of the time. If the station is only operating one of the two sides, maybe just come back tomorrow). Grab an adorable snowman pixar pier frosty parfait if you want to get an epic snack that doesn't get enough love. Or at least it didn't, back in my day.

1:45/2:00 - Ride Racers via ILL.

3:00 - Ride Monsters After Dark

Past this, too many variables to give you exact advice. Try not to get locked out of LLs on big DL E-tickets (Space, Indy, BTMR), and never book a LL for any ride that opens later than 10:30 PM other than space mountain. All the big rides but space mountain becomes an actual walk-on for the last 45-70 minutes of the night. Don't believe any standby line posted times after 10:30. So if you are presented with the choice between booking Indiana Jones at 9 PM and Space Mountain for 11 PM, or vice versa, book Indy for the early evening slot and space mountain for the 11 PM slot - your tired feet and kids will thank me when at midnight you are still skipping a standby line that's over an hour long. Indy will be a walk-on, Space Mountain will have all the college students in the park waiting and making out from midnight to 1 AM. And this coming from a college student. My breed are predictable, if a bit stupid. But anyway...

Also parades and fireworks can make getting around the park super annoying at night - generally try to either stay on the left or right of the park - don't cross the parade route during a show or mass crowd exodus unless you really need to. So either stay matterhorn/tomorrowland, or everything else.

Hopefully, that's helpful. Maybe you don't follow exactly what I laid out here - it's a bit choppy and all over the place. But it gives you an idea of the thought process. DL is more about "freestyling" your day than having an exact plan.

Any Q's let me know! Have a fantastic trip!!
- Brandon

 

[Brandonius]

P.S. - if you want more data on the way lines and genie availability are looking each day and historically, check out thrill-data.com - I'm an accounting major and love analyzing data, so I have wasted many hours and also found it really helpful for understanding how wait times peak and drop, as well as how LL reservations get taken up.

 

[RealJulsie]

During early entry at California Adventure… what route do you take to walk from web sliders to radiator springs for the 8am second rope drop?

 

[DLRExpert]

During early entry at California Adventure… what route do you take to walk from web sliders to radiator springs for the 8am second rope drop?

 

[RealJulsie]

Thank you!

 

[KCanuck]

We will arrive at DLH on Dec 30 and will hopefully be walking over to DL around 6pm. We will eat an early dinner so we can focus on getting a few rides in. I have already paid for G+ for all three days, but I am wondering if there will be nothing left to book by 6pm on the 30th considering how busy it will be. I may cancel the 30th G+.
I would appreciate any input any experts may have! We don’t want to stop to watch Fantasmic or the fireworks, so maybe we can just ride some rides standby during those events?

 

[DLRExpert]

We will arrive at DLH on Dec 30 and will hopefully be walking over to DL around 6pm. We will eat an early dinner so we can focus on getting a few rides in. I have already paid for G+ for all three days, but I am wondering if there will be nothing left to book by 6pm on the 30th considering how busy it will be. I may cancel the 30th G+.
I would appreciate any input any experts may have! We don’t want to stop to watch Fantasmic or the fireworks, so maybe we can just ride some rides standby during those events?

There will be quite a few LLs showing "Not Currently Offered", but if you use the refresh trick you should see some LLs appear. Just add the main focus attractions to the Tip board and keep refreshing.

Not sure if you are having dinner at the Disneyland Resort, but you may want to scan into the park before so you can start the LL booking process.
You can even scan in at the Monorail DTD Station and quickly exit.

Finally, Magic Key holders will be blocked out so the park may not be as busy as people think it will be, especially at night.

 

[Cal-Pie]

Just add the main focus attractions to the Tip board and keep refreshing

Would you mind posting how to do this? Thanks in advance!

 

[MonocularVision]

One technique (on iOS at least) is if there is one particular ride I am interested in refreshing, is to tap on the ride in the list to open up the details then hit back, tap at the top to scroll to the top, then pull to refresh. After refreshing, the app will auto scroll to the last ride you had been looking at.

You can also favorite? like? rides and they will stick to the top of the list. I don’t remember how to do that, but DLRExpert probably does.

 

[KCanuck]

There will be quite a few LLs showing "Not Currently Offered", but if you use the refresh trick you should see some LLs appear. Just add the main focus attractions to the Tip board and keep refreshing.

Not sure if you are having dinner at the Disneyland Resort, but you may want to scan into the park before so you can start the LL booking process.
You can even scan in at the Monorail DTD Station and quickly exit.

Finally, Magic Key holders will be blocked out so the park may not be as busy as people think it will be, especially at night.

Thank you - this is all super helpful!

 

[DLRExpert]

Would you mind posting how to do this? Thanks in advance!

Enter the My Day / Tip Board screen.
You can select My Day from the home screen.
Or
Click + at the bottom middle, select My Day/ Tip Board.

On the day of your visit enter the Tip Board tab and select Enter Selection. Choose your top attractions.

 

[katyringo]

We stayed at DLH for 7 nights and had 5 days tickets. We used EE every single park day. We had two days at DCA and 3 at DLP. Here is how we used EE.

Day 1: DCA
We lined up at DTD security at 6-6:15am. We were in the first 5 groups. Security opened right at 7am. We did a "walk with purpose" to DCA gates. We were second in line. They scanned folks in starting around 7:25. They held folks at the EE sign until 730. We walked with purpose and rode webslingers, and guardians. We tried to rope drop cars and we got in the group before 8am, but they stated they didn't know if it would open on time. So we bailed and made our way to the pier and I did the small rides with kids while Hubby did incredicoaster with about a 10 minute wait. Then the weather got crazy..

Day 2: Disneyland
We lined up at DTD security at 6-6:15. We were in the first groups of people through security right at 7am. Did the walk with purpose to the gates. They scanned us in around 7:20. We walked to the EE signes. We were toward the front. Right at 7:30 they let us in. We were one of the first groups on Peter Pan. We then just did fantasy land right rides all in a row: snow white, carousel, dumbo, Pinocchio, tea cups, alice, toad.. we did them all that were open. A few minute after official rope drop we did story book with a little wait. We then started using LL as it was a very busy day.

Day 3: DCA
We did what I am calling the "trifecta!" Again we were one of the firsts in the DTD security line and then the turnstiles. We got right on webslingers (first group), then guardians, and then we got in line for racers rope drop and only waited about 10-15 for racers!

Day 4: DLP
We repeated exactly what we did on day 2.

Day 5: DLP
This day we decided to use our EE to rope drop Rise. We were at the front of the group at the fantasy land doors. At exactly 8am they let us go. Man people move fast, but we stayed the course. We were able to nearly walk right on the pre-show. After rise we did smugglers with maybe a 5 minute wait.

 

[bizaro86]

Anyone have a sense for how long the webslingers lines have been at "regular" (non-EE) rope drop? Webslingers is my kids favorite so would like to do it twice (once rope drop, once g+) but might do toy story if I can expect to burn too much valuable "just opened" time in line...

 

[DLRExpert]

Anyone have a sense for how long the webslingers lines have been at "regular" (non-EE) rope drop? Webslingers is my kids favorite so would like to do it twice (once rope drop, once g+) but might do toy story if I can expect to burn too much valuable "just opened" time in line...

Without EE, at rope drop depending how close you are to the rope, you are looking at a 15-30 minute wait.

Since it is on the normal LL service, the Stand By line has been longer on average.
You can treat it similar to the Rise stand by line. Wait until later in the day or wait for it to be down and be nearby for when it comes back up. It goes down a few times or more per day.

As long as you can get to TSMM before 845am, the line will not be too long there.

 

[shaunacb]

Can I use EE at DL for some fantasyland dark rides, then be in line for Rise/ROTR before the regular rope drop crowds? What time should I head to Galaxy’s Edge and which entry will be open from Fantasyland? (By the milk stand or by droid depot?) Not sure if this is possible? Or does using your EE for Rise mean you can’t ride anything between 7:30-8:00 am? Thanks

 

[DLRExpert]

Can I use EE at DL for some fantasyland dark rides, then be in line for Rise/ROTR before the regular rope drop crowds? What time should I head to Galaxy’s Edge and which entry will be open from Fantasyland? (By the milk stand or by droid depot?) Not sure if this is possible? Or does using your EE for Rise mean you can’t ride anything between 7:30-8:00 am? Thanks

You want to be near the wall gate door leading to Galaxy's Edge (near Casey Jr exit) by 745am-750am. Rise is opens when the park opens

Then when the park opens follow the people and head to Rise of the Resistance.
Just remember, there is a chance Rise will be closed at park opening.

 

[Jperiod]

Is it still recommended to do EE for DCA from the front gates vs the new entrance near corn dog castle? We'll be staying in the DVC wing of the Grand.

 

[shaunacb]

Is it still recommended to do EE for DCA from the front gates vs the new entrance near corn dog castle? We'll be staying in the DVC wing of the Grand.

We did EE for DCA via the new entrance by corn dog castle. Worked great, you can go down the stairs pretty much directly to the entrance! (I think the stairwell exit is beside room 1520.) Didn't try the other two entrances, but getting down there 15 min before early entry from our room was convenient and there were only 5-6 families ahead of us in line.