Thoughts on my June 27 - July 1 trip

[sewingmolly]

We took the June 22 ABD Backstage Magic Trip and then stayed at the Paradise Pier Hotel through the next Tuesday. In general, the crowds were lower than I expected. Touring plans had all the days as either a 9 or a 10, so I was expecting the worse. I actually think that the crowds were heaviest on Wed - Friday. For Sat - Tues, they seemed lighter than last year we went in July.

A few tips -
TSMM - we had good success riding after 9:30pm. There were very low lines during World of Color. We rode twice between 9:45 and 10:00pm.

RSR FP - we wanted to ride after dark, so we waited to get a FP for after 8:00pm. This wasn't until after 11:30 one day. I foolishly thought this meant there were low crowds. What it really meant was that the ride had been done a lot that morning and they weren't distributing FP while the ride was down. When we returned to ride, the FP line was backed up because RSR had been down so much that day. We had to wait about 20 minutes, which really wasn't bad. They were using 95% of capacity for FPs.

Roger Rabbit - we were on this ride twice when it went down. The second time we watched it happen. Roger Rabbit goes down if a car takes to long to load. We watched a dad in the car in front of us get his two daughters settled into the car, arrange his very large backpack into the car and then got in. Sure enough he took too long and the ride shut down. We didn't make it out of the loading area. Please try to be ready to load the ride when it's your turn, especially Roger Rabbit.

Call Otto - we had good luck using the DLR "information expert". The ride times were only off a few minutes and the voice recognition worked well despite the background noise. The number is 714-520-7090.

For non-FP rides other than Peter Pan and TSMM we found that the lines ebb and flowed during the day. They would go up to 20-30 minutes and then an hour or two later they would be 10-15.

Mornings had really low crowds until about 11:00. We were able to get a lot done.

My sister and I decided to challenge ourselves to ride all the rides in DL and DCA in one day. Normally this is 55 rides, but three were closed while we were there, so it was just 52. We started at 7:00am in DL on Saturday and finished at 11:00pm. We had a lot of fun, although we were tired at the end. It wasn't as difficult as we thought it might be. We had lunch at Hungry Bear and dinner at Flo's. We really slowed down about 5:00 when it was obvious that we would be successful. It's a fun challenge for a small active group.

I am missing Disneyland already, especially since I don't know when we'll get back there. Any questions, feel free to ask.

 

[DHSbutcher]

Wait are you saying you did 52 rides all in one day????

 

[lk2500]

52 rides! You guys are awesome!!

When I go I try to recreate the day in a journal with an itinerary (what I did and when) by taking notes, noting when I got fast passes, etc... and by looking at the time stamps on the pictures in my camera. I would love to see the order you did the rides in and what time of the day, etc...

 

[sewingmolly]

Yes, we did 52 rides in one day. Some people run marathons, but we thought this challenge would be more fun. Here's a "short" recap of our day -

We got in line about 6:45am behind 10-15 people and then headed straight to Peter Pan, very quickly, but not running. After that we rode Mr Toad, Dumbo, Snow White, Pinocchio, the teacups, Astro Orbitor and Buzz. Next we planned to get a Star Tours FP, but it wasn't 8:00 yet, so we rode it instead.
That put us behind schedule for Storybook Canal Boats, where we had to wait about 15 minutes. Then we rode Casey Jr. We had planned to ride Jungle Cruise before returning to Toontown at 9:00, but there wasn't time. So we took a short break and then watched the characters open Toontown. We didn't know they did that, so it was a pleasant surprise. Then it was on to Gadget's Go Coaster and Roger Rabbit.
Next we got a FP for Indiana Jones and rode JC, followed by PoC. When we got back to the PoC loading area, the ride was closed. Judging by the restaurant employees standing around outside, we think that the smoke alarm went off in a kitchen.
Next, we were suppose to ride HM. But everyone who wasn't riding Poc since it was closed was riding HM. So instead we got BTMRR FPs and took the Tom Sawyer Rafts over to the island and back. Then we used our IJ FP and returned to HM where the line had retreated back to normal.
After that, it was 11:00am and time for Davy Crockett Canoes, but first we got a Splash Mountain FP. There was a line for the canoes and we had to wait for the 4th canoe, but they were well organized and it didn't take too long.
Then we rode BTMRR and Splash using our FPs. At this point my 18yo niece joined us after sleeping in. We rode Pooh before stopping for lunch at Hungry Bear about 12:30.
After lunch we took a Main Street Vehicle to the park entrance and hopped to DCA. We had allowed 20 minutes per park hop on the schedule, but it never took that long.
We grabbed GRR FPs and then rode the Little Mermaid, Golden Zepher and Jumping Jellyfish. We used single rider for Goofy's Sky School, then rode the Silly Swings. We skipped over the Mickey's Fun Wheel, because the line was too long.
Next we got Soaring FPs. Then we rode the carrousel followed by CS using single rider and GRR using our FPs. We barely got wet thankfully.
We went to use our Soaring FPs but only one screen was working and the FP lines was really long. We decided to come back later.
We left DCA because we had to get back to DL to ride the Columbia before it stopped for the day. The Columbia was the only ride that we hadn't ridden before. We took the railroad from Main Street to New Orleans Square and then sailed on the Columbia followed by the Mark Twain. Three times around the Rivers of America in one day is more than enough.
Then it was back to DCA. Our plan was to grab another FP for Soaring. We stopped to ask the CM in front of the ride if both screens were working. He said that they were. Then my niece asked if we could use our FPs since one screen was down when we returned the first time. He looked at our FPs, checked some paper and then let us in.
Then it was on to Monster's Inc and Tower of Terror. We had planned to get FPs for ToT, but the wait was less than 13 minutes.
Next was Bug's Land where none of the rides had waits of over 5 minutes. Then it was back to Mickey's Fun Wheel. We took the swinging car side even though the wait was posted as 20 minutes compared to 15 for non-swinging. It turned out to be not much more than 10.
At this point it was about 6:30pm and we were way ahead of schedule. We rode Luigi's Tires and Mater and then RSR using single rider. This is where we got really lucky. I think that RSR was having a good day.
We finished off DCA with dinner at Flo's including the chocolate pie, and then TSMM. The last ride we did in DCA was the trolley. We had meant to do it earlier, but we kept missing it. Finally we had to wait for a full trolley to leave, an empty trolley to arrive and then after a 7 minute wait sitting on the trolley, we rode the trolley. I think we may have ended up waiting on the trolley longer than anything else. However the CM on the trolley was a lot of
fun.
Then it was back to DL. We finished the day with the monorail, Autopia, Matterhorn using single rider, Small World (where we almost fell asleep) and finally the carrousel. We finished at 11:10pm.

It was a long day, but a fun accomplishment. We got lucky in that the crowds weren't too bad, RSR was having a good day and the weather was seasonally warm. It turned out to be easier than expected. The key was to start early, have a good plan and change it as necessary.

 

[Chrisfilm]

Am I reading this wrong? It sounds like you were holding multiple FPs at a time? How did you manage that.

I would love to pull off something like this. There's no possible way, but it sounds like a fun challenge I'd enjoy.

 

[Dot2Vegas]

I am so impressed! 52 rides in a day?! This is a new goal for me!

 

[sewingmolly]

We got the idea to do this after reading about the guys at the parkeology blog who did all the rides in WDW in one day last summer. DLR seemed like a much more fun and reasonable goal. You need the long park hours and we got lucky with the crowds.

We never had more than two fastpasses at a time. You can get another as soon as the return window opens or in 2 hours which ever is earlier. We got most of ours early in the day and never had a return time much more than an hour out. By using one late in its window and another right when the window opened, we were able to use two FPs close together.

 

[tomato]

Am I reading this wrong? It sounds like you were holding multiple FPs at a time? How did you manage that.

I would love to pull off something like this. There's no possible way, but it sounds like a fun challenge I'd enjoy.

You CAN hold multiple FP's at a time. You are able to get another FP once a certain amount of time has passed since you got the previous one. I think it's two hours?

That way if you pick up a FP at 8:15 AM and it's for a ride that you don't return to until 8:00 PM, you can still have other FP's during the day. You just have to wait until 10 AM.

Someone correct me on the wait time, please?

 

[94bruin]

Wow! What a great day! Unless I do a solo trip, I will never fit in all 50+ rides. DH & DDs would think I went off the deep end if I attempted a touring plan like that with the.

Just wondering if you based your itinerary off Ridemax or if you just planned everything on your own.

Hoping the crowds stay manageable for our visit next week!

 

[Rubygoose]

Wow, I'm exhausted just reading about your day! Sounds like all of the stars aligned and you had a lot of good strategies. (I would never be able to do this with my 4 year old in tow who announces he needs to pee right before we get onto a ride!)

 

[bakerudall]

1st: Great job! What a fun accomplishment.

2nd: I love how your niece slept in and missed like 20 rides.

3rd: You chose to ride the swinging cages on the fun wheel? I have heard nothing but fear and loathing about those, and I have yet to try them.

 

[cmpeter]

That is awesome!

 

[GatorChris]

Is there ever an hour that goes by when Roger Rabbit doesn't go down?

 

[lk2500]

Very well done!

 

[sewingmolly]

1st: Great job! What a fun accomplishment.

2nd: I love how your niece slept in and missed like 20 rides.

3rd: You chose to ride the swinging cages on the fun wheel? I have heard nothing but fear and loathing about those, and I have yet to try them.

1st: Thanks we're rather proud of ourselves

2nd: This is the definition of you snooze, you lose. Early mornings are so great for enjoying the parks as well as riding rides.

3rd: The niece picked the swinging cars. I tried them for the first time last year and rode them the day before. They're not so bad the second time after you know what they do. We rode with a mom, dad and 3yo son. Dad loved it - mom and the kid not so much.

We used Ridemax as a starting point and general estimates for wait times, but for this day it said we planned too many attractions to fit in the time allotted. We used it on our first trip to DLR in 2010 to plan a perfect Disney day to introduce my BIL to Disney and have been fans ever since.

 

[disneyland626]

Congrats on creating an awesome plan! Sounds like a great day full of Disney magic

 

[bellazachmom]

Looking to do a few day "mom-cation" before hubby leaves me and the 4 littles for a deployment -- this sounds like a WONDERFUL use of one of my days!!

Thanks for sharing!