WOC fast passes

[JennyN]

We will be staying at the GC at the end of September and I read on another thread that the private entrance to CA opens half an hour before the main turnstiles. Is this still true? I was hoping to use this to go in and get fast passes for WOC, does anyone know where I have to go to get the fastpasses.

 

[skiingfast]

Yes you can do just that, assuming they continue to open it at 9am for resort hotel guest.

Follow the signs in the GCH to the DCA entrance and you will be directed to it. When you go in you can go right to the WOC Show ticket distribution at that time. You will find the WoC Show Tickets at the Grizzly River Rapid FP distribution. This area is about 50 feet from the entrance, just go in and look to the right, it's quite simple.

At this early time you will get tickets for the Blue veiwing area in Paradise Park.

After that you can ride Little Mermaid Ariel's Undersea Adventure and then Soarin over California. All before the official 10am opening.

 

[rramstad]

After that you can ride Little Mermaid Ariel's Undersea Adventure and then Soarin over California. All before the official 10am opening.

Unless the layout has changed -- which it might -- we found it best to get the WOC FP at GRR, then walk over to Soarin. Grab an FP for later, then ride it when it opens. You'll have time to walk back past GRR, get to LM, ride LM, and be ready for rope drop before 10 AM, no problem.

(This assumes that you can still walk from Soarin to GRR to LM... they keep re routing things, so I dunno, but this worked great in July. We didn't even get into the park all that early, we probably passed through the GCH gate at 9:20, and were done riding Soarin by 9:35, at LM by 9:45 with no line, ready for rope drop by 9:50ish.)

 

[skiingfast]

Yes you can do just that, assuming they continue to open it at 9am for resort hotel guest.

Unless the layout has changed -- which it might -- we found it best to get the WOC FP at GRR, then walk over to Soarin. Grab an FP for later, then ride it when it opens. You'll have time to walk back past GRR, get to LM, ride LM, and be ready for rope drop before 10 AM, no problem.

(This assumes that you can still walk from Soarin to GRR to LM... they keep re routing things, so I dunno, but this worked great in July. We didn't even get into the park all that early, we probably passed through the GCH gate at 9:20, and were done riding Soarin by 9:35, at LM by 9:45 with no line, ready for rope drop by 9:50ish.)

I noted right at the beginning that it depends on the continuance of the 9am opening for hotel guests.


There is little to no reason why they would change the route you can walk. There is no work going on between Soarin and LM currently or planned that would effect it.

 

[PoohBearFriends]

Do they allow you to get a FP for Soarin before the 10:00 park opening?

 

[skiingfast]

Do they allow you to get a FP for Soarin before the 10:00 park opening?

Yes, you can do that too. If you want to ride Soarin more than once it is usually a good idea to ride it and grab a FP too during the early entrance time. However it opens at 9:30 not at 9am when resort hotels guests are allowed to get WoC Show Tickets and ride LM.

 

[PoohBearFriends]

Thanks that cleared it up for me. You are great!

 

[ttfn2u2pooh]

DCA opens up at 9:00am to hotel guests? This is not posted on the Disneyland website. We're staying at GCH so we can take advantage of this. Does the early entry happen everyday? And, is the rest of the park open or just the few rides like LM and Soarin' that get really busy?

Thanks... adding this info to my list of things I didn't know.

 

[skiingfast]

DCA opens up at 9:00am to hotel guests? This is not posted on the Disneyland website. We're staying at GCH so we can take advantage of this. Does the early entry happen everyday? And, is the rest of the park open or just the few rides like LM and Soarin' that get really busy?

Thanks... adding this info to my list of things I didn't know.

It used to be 9:30 for all guests. Resort Hotel guests through the special GCH entrance and regular guests through the front gates. This let the hotel guests get a head start on the regular guests.

Earlier this summer they started letting the hotel guests in at 9, mainly so they could ride Little Mermaid before any regular guests as a special perk. Haven't heard that they changed it back to 9:30 so it may still be ongoing.

In either case it was a bit like entering early for rope drop which is common in all US Disney parks. Except at DCA Soarin was open and then they had the WoC Show Ticket distribution running. Otherwise you went to the rope drop, and you still can do this. The ropes are for Hollywoodland to get to ToT, and Paradise Pier in both directions to get to TSMM.

Just an FYI on the rope drop to TSMM. It varies a bit. The rope holding back the crowd that is going across the bridge towards Ariel's Grotto is spilt on some occasions. Right side to TSMM. Left side to everything else which usually means California Screemin. They sometimes walk in the right side right to TSMM before the left side is let in. If you are at the front of the crowd it will save you some time. If the crowd is really big it may be better to go on Screemin or Mickey's Funwheel first, because TSMM gets a fairly consistent wait time the rest of the day.


If you'd like to know more about this, there is somthing of a superthread with some details and discussion.
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2680309

 

[Nonsuch]

We will be staying at the GC at the end of September and I read on another thread that the private entrance to CA opens half an hour before the main turnstiles. Is this still true? I was hoping to use this to go in and get fast passes for WOC, does anyone know where I have to go to get the fastpasses.

Cast Members sometimes hand out WOC fastpasses to the line waiting at the Grand Californian entrance, eliminating the need to use the fastpass machines located inside the park a Grizzly River Run.