You know you want to help!

[2boysmommy]

Planning our upcoming DL trip and I need the advice of the DL planners!
Background - family of 4 (celebrating boys 16 & 14th birthdays); Staying at Villas @ Grand Californian; Not our first trip to DL but first time since 2017
We will are staying on property Sat-Tues (3 nights) but arriving Friday late and staying at SNA airport, driving to DL early Saturday AM. Departure flight is 4:30 pm on Tuesday from SNA so planning to leave the park around 2:00.
Loose plan is 4-day park hopper with reservations at DL on Saturday/Tuesday and CA Sunday/Monday. Oogie Boogie affects Sunday planning.

With all the new things open in both parks since our last visit, I'm struggling to plan our days. First...is the park hopper a good idea with the time restrictions? We have always had one as we like the flexibility. That combined OBB on Sunday plus staying at GCH makes the hopper still feel like a good thought.

Secondly, what are my rope drop priorities at each park? Knowing we need to lock in virtual queues at 7:00 am each day and the fact that we are coming from CO, everyone will be up and ready for rope drop but I know longer have confidence in where to go each day.

Finally, food. We have always loved how relaxed the food process is at DL, especially compared to WDW (pre-covid). After reading posts on here and trying to get a few reservations, I'm totally stressed about eating this trip! Any tips on how to make it less anxiety ridden? Is it just making sure we mobile order way in advance and at off times? Do any of the sit-down restaurants accept walkups if we have hit our quick service limit?

Oh - and temperatures? We've only done DL in dead of summer, January, or late November. It seems recently temps are closer to summer than November? Is this the norm or just a strange phenomenon?

Thanks in advance for any and all help!!

 

[dieumeye]

Park Hoppers are always a good idea. Even with the restriction. You'll want them, especially if you’ve used them before.

It’s often warmer in September than it is in the summer, so not unusual.

Rope drop depends on your preferences, but it’s the same usual suspects. At DL, Indy and Peter Pan are the ones people rush to most I’d guess. Space Mtn hasn’t been too bad in the morning. I know Labor Day weekend, the Space Mtn queue was 20 mins or less at least until around 10am. Matterhorn is one that can get long later in the day so keep an eye on that one.

At DCA, Radiator Springs Racers will have the longest line all day so that’s a good one to rope drop with everyone else. GotG, Soarin’, Midway Mania are the other potential longest lines at DCA you could rope drop.

But with 4 days and parkhoppers, you shouldn’t have any problems getting in all the rides you want with relatively shorter waits than you might even be used to in the past.

For food, you will need reservations if there are any table service places you want to guarantee. You can do walk ups, many on the app when available, but you’ll need to pay attention and put your name in at the appropriate times.

Mobile Order can be aggravating, especially the unknown wait for your food after you arrive to pick it up (could be 1 minute, could be 30 minutes). But it isn’t always the disaster it is made out to be. Keep an eye on available times and if they start to get close to when you want to eat, place the order. How quickly mobile order slots will fill depends on what time you want to eat and where.

Again, with 4 days and park hoppers, you’ll be in a great position, so don’t stress too much!!

Edit: of course, there’s the upcoming release of Genie+ which could change things. But there has been no date set for it to start.

 

[2boysmommy]

Edit: of course, there’s the upcoming release of Genie+ which could change things. But there has been no date set for it to start.

Thanks for all your thoughts!! And yes, I'm so worried that dang Genie will appear before our trip. Although we did love MaxPass before...