All the big stuff, hopefully. We are planning to follow your suggestions for rope dropping DCA both days but I’m unsure how to get as much as we can in at Disneyland after we hop over. Seems like
genie+ is going to be a must have and we are probably going to need to shell out for the Rise ILL.
Based on my experience a couple weeks ago genie+ and ILL for Rise is definitely worth it.
I would say park hop as soon as you can (1 PM) from DCA. As far as genie+ rides generally everything is gonna be immediate except Indy, Space, and Matterhorn and maybe Thunder. I don’t know if single rider lines work for you but I wouldn’t book a LL for Matterhorn too far away if you can do single rider because Matterhorn has a pretty good one. Sometimes it gets a little backed up but I’ve rarely waited more than 15 minutes in it and sometimes I’ve walked right on. I would book Space or Indy from DCA at some point (maybe while your daughter is performing and you can’t do rides would be a good time to book either one of those since it’ll change the return time to 1). I’d book Indy because that one is usually a little farther out than Space. At some point you’re gonna have to book Space and wait a little bit (usually an hour or so) to redeem that one. If you notice Thunder (or anything else but not likely) is way ahead you’ll want to book that one earlier as well. You also want to be looking at ride breakdowns and see if you can get a soon LL for those because you might be able to get a bonus multiple experience pass valid on any ride except Space, Matterhorn, Indy, Peter Pan, Rise, Toy Story, Racers, or WEB Slingers. (If the broken down ride is Space, Matterhorn, Indy, or Toy Story the bonus LL will be valid on any ride except Rise, Peter Pan, WEB Slingers, and Racers. If Rise, WEB Slingers, or Racers break down during your window they will turn into all day passes still only valid on that ride).
As far as the other big genie+ rides (Falcon, Star Tours, Buzz, etc) you can pretty much grab those right before you want to ride. Note Falcon does have a very fast single rider line but when you’re in a group and you can get a LL anyway I’d recommend that because of 3 reasons:
1. Single rider line skips the Hondo preshow and the experience of walking up onto the Falcon
2. Single rider almost guarantees you’ll be an engineer, which is definitely fun, but pilot and gunner is a lot more fun and if you have a LL (or go standby) you can request either of those positions
3. It’s really fun doing the ride itself with a group because you have to work together to not damage the Falcon, etc
Anyway while you’re waiting to book your next LL (like you booked Space or another popular LL, a ride is broken and you’re waiting for it to convert to a bonus LL, etc) that’s when you’ll want to do non LL things (rides without LL, rides with LL that you want to repeat and need to do standby, Matterhorn single rider, eat, etc, also this is when you could get a Rise LL). I don’t know what all rides without LL you want to do.
Pirates is a big one to knock out, either you’ll have to wait for it in the middle of the day (it shouldn’t be too long, maybe 20-30 minutes even if the posted wait is longer) or you can do it later at night when the wait will be MUCH shorter. The posted wait at night might say 30 minutes but if you can see there’s nobody waiting outside you’re gonna for sure be on in less than 10 minutes.
Jungle Cruise is another big non-LL ride. Either you’ll have to wait half an hour (likely more) in the middle of the day or wait for it to drop at night. It’s a great experience either way.
Now idk if you want to do Fantasyland rides but those are tricky. The capacity for those rides is very low so the waits are usually pretty long. Peter Pan and Snow White especially. Don’t trust the posted wait for Snow White. I’ve had it say 15 and then wait 35. Peter Pan is just going to take a while, maybe 45 minutes. Alice will also probably take half an hour. The others might not be as long but I don’t really do the others a lot. When I did Mr. Toad in November it was really short later at night but the others I mentioned were still long. One way you might be able to avoid these lines is if you catch Fantasyland right after it opens after the fireworks (it closes since they shoot fireworks from there), which I think is 30-ish minutes (maybe a little more) after they end. If you’re gonna try to “rope drop” Fantasyland do it from the rope near Matterhorn, not the castle, because when I tried this on 1/7 the rope at the castle dropped after the others, probably because it wasn’t safe to walk under the castle just yet. By then the line for Peter Pan was as long as it always is but that wasn’t the case at Snow White or the others just yet. So if you do it right you might be able to save some time on those if you go just after fireworks
If you want to repeat the LL rides, you can’t get a LL for the same ride multiple times (except when you get a bonus LL when it breaks down) so you’re gonna have to do standby or single rider (and they recently scrapped single rider for Space, Indy, and Star Tours and since Splash is closed Matterhorn and Falcon are the only ones with it right now). Here’s what I’ve observed about that:
Space Mountain is going to be very slow unless you go toward the end of the day when everyone has used their LL there. Even if there’s not that many people in line, LL is INSANELY prioritized there. I waited 50 minutes one time when most of the indoor queue wasn’t even full and the line wasn’t even extending outside of it at all (you might not know what I mean by that if you’re not familiar with the queue but basically the line moves very slow when a lot of people are using LL). If you go at the end of the day you’ll wait much shorter. When I was there when the park was open until midnight it was almost a walk on the last half hour of the day so that’s a GREAT time to go. When it closed at 9 it wasn’t quite as short but it moved way way way way wayyyyyy faster because nobody was using LL.
Star Tours: it’s honestly never longer than like 30 minutes but it dies down a ton in the evening so if you want to repeat it do it later in the day
Buzz Lightyear: very similar to Star Tours
Autopia: honestly I have no idea because I do not care one bit about this ride and I highly doubt you’ll feel the need to do this twice. But if you do it’ll probably be shorter the later you go lol
Matterhorn: I think this one dies down especially if the park is open late but again, use single rider at literally any time
Small World and Splash are closed
Roger Rabbit: I haven’t really been paying attention to this one either lol. I doubt you’ll feel the need to repeat it but if you do it should die down later but also keep in mind Toontown closes around 8 I believe
Falcon: standby definitely dies down a lot toward the end of the day. You could also do this one together with a LL and then save a lot of time by doing single rider if you want to repeat it. While single rider takes away from some of the experience (as described above), you do get on basically immediately. Tip: take the left staircase, not the right. Almost everyone goes to the right because they don’t see the left
Thunder: it’ll probably die down a bit later at night but honestly it didn’t die down during my last trip as much as I thought it would. This one is never too long though, even if you do it in the middle of the day, you likely won’t wait more than 30 minutes
Indy: honestly if you’re gonna repeat this one just wait for it earlier in the day, not later. Idk how familiar you are with how the queue works but basically there’s an outdoor queue that usually only takes 10-20 minutes depending on how full it is (it could be more if you go at a bad time). This is all LL skips so once you’re past this point LL won’t even be a priority anymore. Once you go inside you’ll wait probably 15 more minutes.
Haunted Mansion: when I was just there it was the holiday version which is more popular (and way worse in my opinion lol) for the first couple days until it closed to be converted back to the normal version which is open now. LL was a little far ahead for holiday but I bet they’re a lot sooner (likely immediate) for the normal version. If you do want to repeat this one the line probably won’t take more than a half hour any time you go I’m guessing and like everything else it’ll die down the later you go
Rise of the Resistance: this one is gonna be consistently long throughout the day. If you wanna wait that’s fine but don’t do it if the ride broke down recently because
lightning lane will be super backed up from everyone who was in line when it went down getting a makeup LL. For example what should’ve been 30 minutes for me after it reopened was 80. I’ve had a lot of luck doing this one right when it closes. Since it’s such a high maintenance ride it never stays open past 9:30. But they say it’s gonna close at 8 and then update that on the app toward the end of the day if they decide to keep it open until 9 or 9:30. I think it’s since a lot of people think it’ll only be open until 8 that the line drops significantly after that. I waited a total of about 20 minutes to get on the final ride portion of the experience when I did it around 8:45 or 9 a couple times. Don’t rely on this though, it could break down or not be open past 8. But keep checking the hours on the app for Rise!
Oh and one more thing, your bonus LLs from ride breakdowns actually work on rides without LL like Pirates, Jungle Cruise, etc (not Peter Pan though). That could potentially be useful. If you need clarification on the bonus LLs (or anything) lmk.
I hope this helps! Have the best time ever and remember to have fun in all the rushing around to do all the rides!
