It does make a difference to wait in the esplanade for an hour than in the park for an hour. Open park hours are much more valuable than closed park hours. If I got to go often then it probably wouldn’t matter but for a once every year or 2 trip, it’s nice to maximize our park hours. Thanks for another great video!
That’s a very good point! One I failed to consider. My kids can usually tolerate ride lines, but they are the most bored standing in an unmoving rope drop line, so perhaps that affected my logic and I’d failed to consider such a thing would be valuable to others. Thank you for bringing that up!
Though you call it a fail, this was a super helpful video! It’s great to show both sides of the coin….not every day is going to be magical and according to plan.
For sure! The word “fail” is a bit of hyperbole for RUclips. It definitely didn’t go “according to plan” but I hoped folks would find it helpful either way!
I wouldn’t call this a fail. This is helpful. The part I’m most excited for is the relatively small Soarin’ group at rope drop! I rarely rope drop DCA, but I’m paying a lot of money just to go ride Soarin’ Over California very soon. This will make my trip! 💜💜💜
Yes! I was surprised to see Soarin’ with a 10 minute wait 15 minutes after rope drop. I feel like that’s a little unusual, but at the same time it was a super crowded day (sold out) and that was Soarin’s wait at 8:15 AM. I think the novelty of California was worn off for the locals at this point. It’s usually a lot longer of a line toward the beginning of Food and Wine.
If you want to do Soarin first, you might consider entering DCA through the Grand Californian entrance which is open to anyone whenever the park is officially open because it’s in the Grizzly Peak area. I did this the other day and it was a 10 min wait.
I was also in DCA for rope drop on Monday, with my 4 year old. I had a similar strategy to ride some A-D attractions but it worked out ok. We rode Monsters Inc, Mater’s and Ariel before stopping for breakfast corn dogs, so I considered it a pretty solid morning.
If I hadn’t been trying to knock out some pretty big attractions right off the bat for this video, we probably would have just stayed in Pixar Pier/Paradise Gardens Park and just ridden a bunch of the smaller attractions. My original plan was to ride the three I mentioned before 9 AM and then check back on their wait times later in the day to see how much time we saved by rope dropping those three, instead of hitting up RSR.
Our family was there on Monday too and Radiator Springs Racers going down blew up our rope drop too. Thanks to checking out your other videos we still had a great day!
We were there Monday and it was insane. I felt a lot of the rides we wanted to do kept breaking down. We waited in a lot of long lines. Felt like the time posted was not accurate.
On our last trip to DCA hardly anything was open at park open including Radiator Springs Racers. Thankfully we got to ride Guardians at rope drop and then Radiator Springs actually opened, so we were able to jump in line with only a 20 minute wait (without paying for LL or splitting up with single rider). Radiator Springs went down again shortly after we got off the ride and many of the smaller outdoor attractions were closed due to wind/rain preparations. Just as you said, Radiator Springs and weather closures, definitely throws a monkey wrench in a DCA park day.
DCA needs another big E ticket or two. Hopefully Disney Forward will happen and we can get some rides far away from Carland and spread out crowds more.
Yes!!! I have been waiting so long for more news on their expansion. I think it would be AWESOME to have the parks extend to engulf the hotels like their plans had shown.
Had a morning like that last Nov at Disneyland: Indy was closed, went to Pirates, closed, walked right into the Haunted Mansion building - went down, Big Thunder's line went around the Rivers.
I just came back from our Disneyland trip (we probably were in this rope drop line you filmed in the begining!) and we did 2 days of rope dropping at DCA. FIrst time we rope dropped Radiator Springs and it went down twice when we were in the line. We were in the line for more than 90 min, it was terrible, the kids didn't enjoy it (either the line or the attraction). Next time we rope dropped Pixar Pier and did everything there, and started stacking genie+ attractions. we rode everything multiple times, and my husband went to Radiator Springs single rider a little later and was on the line for only 20 min!!! so take this into consideration. Thanks for all your videos! they helped my trip A LOT!!!
i got so excited to see this upload since my boyfriend and i are visiting california adventure next week. i sent it to him and said “even when he fails, he never misses” because we love your videos and you always upload the best ideas at the right time! would love to see another DCA rope drop strategy video because i’m still not sure what we should do!
I’m sure you’ll do fine! Make a plan, and if things don’t work out, pivot and have a backup. If you want to rope drop RSR or Guardians, just make sure that you’re at the front of the rope drop line. Or just go to whatever ride you really want to ride most. If that doesn’t work, open the app and check wait times, and head to a bigger attraction with a really low wait. Since you’re two adults, I think the best strategy for RSR will be single rider. Yeah, you won’t be together, BUT you will be on every other attraction. And single rider really does go much much faster.
@@SoCalDisneyDad thank you so much for the reply! do you know if the RSR single rider line gets longer throughout the day? should we try to do it in the morning or does the single rider line stay at a consistent pace?
@@Lu-bk1qq I’m sure it’s shorter in the morning, but it’s not bad really at all at any point in the day. A good rule of thumb is the single rider is probably about 20-25% the wait of the posted standby. So 60 minutes would be maybe about 15 minutes single rider.
We rope dropped DCA a week ago and SO MANY rides were closed in the morning, plus Radiator Springs Racers broke down in the midmorning. We managed to make it work, but we had to do a lot of on-the-go adjustments for our Rope Drop strategy.
It’s unfortunate when that happens. I don’t recall RSR breaking this much before, and we’ve rope dropped DCA more often than we’ve rope dropped Disneyland.
Thanks for sharing! I’ve seen days like that where so much is down. The tip board on the app will show if Toy Story is down by 8:02 ish - maybe earlier. I always check that before walking over to the pier. I agree that way too many people rope drop Cars and it’s down so often anyway.
I’ll have to try constantly refreshing the tip board while we are walking over there to see if it gets updated. It’s such a quick walk though, we’d probably be up to near Lamplight before that even started to show. But definitely worth checking out!
going tuesday! I’m so glad you still uploaded this “fail”. So helpful! Basically only going for carsland and radiator springs, gonna be so sad if its closed 😭
More like “not according to plan” but “fail” is more punchy. 😂 I’m glad you found it helpful. I was so bummed when my initial plan fell through, I figured it was going to flop, but I knew I had shared a lot of valuable info all the same so decided to press forward despite the “plot twist” as I like to say sometimes. Radiator Springs Racers is rarely closed all day, but it HAS been breaking a lot lately.
We did our big Disneyland/DCA trip last week and found situations at DCA similar to yours in this video. On our first day there, we went immediately to Radiator Springs to find it was down, so we went to a couple of other rides. Once it went back up, it was the longest wait, almost to the point where we all had mini-breakdowns while waiting. On our other day at DCA, we went straight to Pixar Pier, and there was NO ONE THERE. Between that, Lightning Lane for other rides, and doing single rider at Radiator Springs, we were able to bang out six rides in the first 90 minutes. I will say I was shocked at how often (and for how long) Radiator Springs Racers went down. On a larger note, we've been planning this trip in one way or another since 2019 (our initial trip was cancelled days before we were to leave in March 2020 due to...well, you know), so we were happy to have this finally happen, and your videos and advice were immeasurable help in getting our plans together, and I wanted to thank you! I kept hoping I would see you and your lovely family walking around when we were there. Don't ever doubt how helpful these videos are.
I feel like a lot of rides do break down in DCA. And when one goes down. It's a trickle effect. But you did do pretty good. I have seen in your vlogs doing just what you were trying to show. And so proud of Amy having the highest score.
My good friend who goes to DCA a lot warned me not to rope drop Radiator Springs on a morning where there was any type of fog or moisture in the air. She said that that attraction likes to break down whenever that happens. It looks like you were having a cloudy morning as well. Had a similar experience last month at Universal Islands of Adventure early entry. Velocicoaster, Forbidden Journey and Flight if the Hippogriff all down, just leaving Hagrid's which was already 2 hours. Complete waste of time.
It was exceptionally foggy on the drive up that morning! We didn’t see any fog in Anaheim, but it could have been there earlier in the morning. Awesome tip!
Love your videos for tips for our upcoming Disney trip! We are doing DCA on the day we fly back home and wanted to get your opinion on how much time is needed for DCA? At the moment, we are planning to rope drop, have genie+ and have about 8 hours allotted for our time at DCA before we have to head to the airport, but was wondering if we should fly out later and get an extra 1.5 hrs at the park? Thanks again!
DCA is what you make of it. You could easily spend a whole day there. But you could also feel accomplished with just a few short hours. So long as you have a priority list and a game plan you’ll be fine with 8 hours. But an extra 1.5 hours is always nice. Just depends on whether the extra park time is worth a later arrival time getting home.
We covered a lot of crowded type content the last few weeks because of Spring Break. Typically, Summer is less crowded than Spring Break. Two whole levels of annual passes are blocked out all summer long, including my family’s pass level (I have the highest for discounts, but they have the lowest we could get them while still having enough availability for regular usage).
Great video, thanks! Taking the fam to DCA tomorrow. Had planned on doing Cars first, but after watching this, I'm switching it up. Wanted to see if I should hit up Incredibles/Toy Story/Webslinger in that order? Or what order would you recommend. We plan on a 7:30-8am arrival, so not there in time for Rope Drop.... Any help is appreciated.
If you get there before 8, you’ll make rope drop. Toy Story is hit or miss on whether it’s open first thing. But the other two are good options. Guardians of the Galaxy possibly as well, though that line is usually at 25 right away due to Early Entry hotel guests. Watch the wait times and play it by ear.
@@SoCalDisneyDad Thank you! We ended up skipping Cars and went straight to Incredicoaster, then Toy Story, then walked over to Webslinger, knocked off all three by 9:15... We saved Cars for around 2pm, did the single rider to avoid the 75 minute wait. Did that in about 30 minutes and got to ride in the same car with my daughter. (not together, but same car)... so overall day was a success. Thanks again!
Again, thanks for a helpful video! Do the wait times go down toward the end of the night or stay pretty constant? Do they do the same as Disney World where if your in line a minute before park closes your guaranteed to ride the ride?
Yes, and yes. So inevitably, families like mine will leave early to put kids in bed or locals might leave to head home. We are always gone by 7 PM. Then you’ll have people start waiting for the nighttime spectaculars, which take people out of the ride lines. So lines will decrease, yes. And, yes, if you are in line for a ride at least before the park closes, you are allowed to stay in line, even if you don’t ride it until an hour later because that’s how long the line was.
Hmm…that’s a good question. And one I’ve not paid attention to. There’s usually one outside the Cars Land sign and I did see a cast member there in this video. But I couldn’t tell if he had a camera around his neck. It looked like he might have.
@@SoCalDisneyDad got it! Been searching for that answer as well even in Disneyland park so we can plan our day properly . Continue creating informative videos
Really interesting strategy to rope drop Pixar Pier. I’ve always gone left first, usually Radiator Springs. But then I only get to ride it in the morning. As I’m thinking about it, I don’t think I’ve EVER ridden Racers after dark! Maybe I’ll try yout strat next time and pay for RSR later at night. And yes - Soaring Over California is the superior version. And it’s not close. 😂
I did RSR once. And after standing in line for 10 minutes and still being stuck outside the main attraction queue (I was by Flo’s), I abandoned and went Single Rider. Single Rider is the way to do it if you can.
Oh nice! She mentioned she saw someone there. Glad to see it’s someone I recognize (channel name)! Thanks for commenting all the time and being engaged with our videos. We appreciate it!
Yes, Trolley Treats and Starbucks are both open for the pre-rope drop time. The gates open at 7:30 and you saw in the video there the three different rope drop points. All of those are around DCA’s main hub by Carthay Circle. Over in Disneyland, you can get all the way to the Hub. I’ll have a video up next week for Disneyland as I’ll be doing that park’s rope drop on Friday.
We got the 3 day socal special and we’re not park hoping. We’re doing DL, DCA then DL. I was thinking of rope dropping for the cars ride… Never mind! We’ll probably just pay for it. That is the only ride my son is looking forward to in the whole Disney trip 🫠
It’s either that or show up really early. But as I said in the video, it’s about an hour of waiting either way. I think an ILL is worth it for a single day visit to allow you to maximize the rest of your day.
As for the Early Entry from Grand Californian, do you think it would be ok to ride Soarin’ first and head to Radiator Springs Racers? Or is it better to go straight to Racers before Rope Drop crowds make their way? We are visiting DCA on June 1st…
According to Disney’s website, RSR isn’t on early entry, but you can bet early entry guests are lining up before actual rope drop release. So I would ride something handy, recommended is Guardians of the Galaxy if you like that ride. If not, Soarin’ or Web Slingers is fine. But then head straight for RSR by around 7:50 to queue up.
I did Soarin for rope drop (hardly anybody and you dont mix with the massive crowd) and then did the entire Pixar Pier including Incredicoaster and Toy Story Mania within the first 1,5 to 2 hours with hardly anybody else. Then I did single rider Radiator Springs Racers. But I must say that I am not a Marvel fan so webslingers is not a must do for me.
@@robertspanjers7888 It was our intention to go to Soarin’ first before I decided to make it a rope drop strategy video. We were just going to take the morning casual at first. Had I done that, Toy Story probably would have been open by the time we go over there and would have been a low enough wait to get on. Usually our normal plan works just fine because Soarin’ isn’t an “always” must for us (just when it’s Over California). But it would have been better in this instance. Though we would have missed web slingers. Which, honestly, I’d rather have Toy Story vs Web Slingers if we only do one “video game” style ride.
@@SoCalDisneyDad thank you so much again!! I will keep that in mind! I truly appreciate you always taking your precious time to reply with great knowledge and insights and I think that is what makes you stand out from the other RUclipsrs.
I don’t think it matters. I wouldn’t waste rope drop to do it. Definitely take advantage of low waits throughout the park. You could go back at maybe 9:30 AM and single rider it and it would be better than doing it at, say, 3 PM. Single rider will likely be about 20-25% of whatever the standby wait is. So roughly between 10-20 minutes depending on when you go.
Hi, thanks for the great video. What if my case is I do have early entry, and then 30 mins later, I choose to rope drop the radiator. Is there any advantage to the rope drop radiator if I have the early entry? Thank you!
@@SoCalDisneyDad Cool! Thank you so much for your response. Just want to let you know that I love your video, and your kids are cute! Have a great day!
I am confused about the lighting lane pass for radiator springs. Can you just buy that lightning lane for that one ride on its own or do you need to purchase genie+ as well?
@@SoCalDisneyDad i knew it was separate but wasn’t sure if you needed to have genie+ in order to purchase it on the side. Seeing the strategies in your video showed me how we did it all wrong when we went last year but these tips will help for next year when we go back :D thank you!!
Was just at DL. Rope dropped MMRAR waited 50 mins only for it to close down right before we boarded. So we ran to ROR because we don’t want to pay to skip the line, waited 75 mins and again it shut down as we were so close to the ride! It was a bad morning :(
That sucks. Yeah. They didn’t give you a multi-experience pass? Or they never evacuated the lines? We had it break down while we were in the Perfect Picnic theater. But they kicked everyone out of the line and handed us a multi experience pass. On RotR, they didn’t evacuate the line and we waited 50 minutes for it to reopen. But so many people abandoned the line we virtually the next group to enter the Rey Room. It was posted at 75, and we ended up waiting about 90.
@@SoCalDisneyDad For MMRAR they did, not for Rise. Sadly we wanted to use the multi experience pass for MMRAR But it was constantly down through out the day.. it would reopen so we would try to head that direction only to see it went back down again :/ ROR wasn’t evacuated but we waited an additional 30 mins just to see if it came back up but it never did. We left the line and watched the map and it didn’t come back up for several hours :( Those trackless rides seem to break down a lot! Haha
These stories about bouncing around broken down rides are all too common. Disney wants us to accept this as the norm and smile when they give us a fast pass for later. I’m not totally cool with it, tbh. They need to develop ride systems that work.
Thank you for sharing this. Question, when rope dropping, is there any place to check if the ride is open prior to entering the park? Or is it always a gamble, getting there and discovering that the ride is unfortunately closed?
If the attraction is part of early entry, like Web Slingers, you can check the wait times on the app while standing in line. If it’s marked as temporarily closed, then avoid it. But all the Pixar Pier rides, except Incredicoaster, aren’t open for early entry. They *might* put wait times up right at 8 AM, but at the point you’re in the shuffle and press and it’s hard to be on your phone.
This was yesterday, Monday, the 10th. I imagine it’s not ALWAYS this busy because it was the day after Easter and still spring break for some (my kids were off school still, they went back today).
For some reason I feel like DCA is a lot more complex rope dropping than Disneyland. At least in Disneyland it seems more flexible when rope dropping rides than DCA. Makes me wonder if Radiator Springs Racers is better to just ride it 30 minutes before closing time. Hmmm 🤔🤔🤔Watch World of Color and then head to straight to that ride that is if it doesn’t break down lol 😂
Radiator Racers is very popular at night because of the lights and coloring so it might not be anymore less crowded in the evening. We still recommend just single rider it if you can.
i’m going on a trip to disneyland only for a day, it’s for a field trip and we have a limited amount of time do you have any tips? this is a great vid btw and you should do a video like this for disneyland for where you should go for rope drop thanks!
We are planning on doing a Disneyland one for sure. This coming Friday. As Mighty Monster said, Genie+ is going to be a necessity for you, and we are ALSO working on that video this Friday as well. So hopefully you find them both helpful!
Hey Traver! I'm currently still planning my itinerary for Disneyland Anaheim, and I am just wondering if Splash Mountain is still available up until the end of this month? I am planning of going there until it closes down!
Yes, as far as I'm aware, they have no plans to close it soon. Early May was falsely reported by the OC Register last week, but Disney has made no official announcement as of yet. They won't suddenly close it. It'll get announced ahead of time, so I believe you'll be fine if you're coming in April.
@@SoCalDisneyDad alright that's great to know, thank you! One more thing that I want to mention, but I recently watched this video of how Anaheim guests arent frantically rushing towards the rides compared to Disney World. Is it OK to run towards your preferred ride during rope drop or are there restrictions in doing so?
@@notmalcolmm At WDW cast members walk the crowd to the attractions with forced line-leading to avoid running because it was such an issue there. Disneyland doesn’t have that issue, which is why they’ve not instituted that here. I’ve never witnessed any running, but there is definitely fast walking going on. As @13jeffandtrish said, it’s a good idea NOT to run.
About 90% of the time we drive up (leave home at 5:45 AM) and drive home (leave Disney at 7:00 PM). We do get hotels on occasion, but only if we plan to do a nighttime spectacular, or we are going for two day and go back into the parks the next day, too.
For sure! I only meant that my plan (which I’d done a dozen times before) fell through when I least wanted it to. 😂 But it was still a good day. Just with some twists and turns along the way.
I was at rope drop for Cars land ride on Nov 29th of 2022. I had only waited 30 minutes for the main line to get into the ride. Also you didn’t include Single rider lines in your talk that really cut down from hour to just minutes.
I did mention the single rider, just a little bit later on in the video. It probably depends on time of year with how long it takes to get through the line, but this time of year it’s about 60 minutes.
Another DL video? Still waiting on that SD Zoo video. Been a year since a Knott’s video. Your highest viewed video is a SD Zoo video. Should probably not neglect that content.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a Knott’s pass, so going there frequently isn’t something that’s possible. Not until my youngest is tall enough for most of the main attractions. As far as the Zoo goes, I still intend to cover any major events or new offerings. But there hasn’t been any of those things lately. The Nighttime Zoo should be coming up here soon once we reach the summer season.
It does make a difference to wait in the esplanade for an hour than in the park for an hour. Open park hours are much more valuable than closed park hours. If I got to go often then it probably wouldn’t matter but for a once every year or 2 trip, it’s nice to maximize our park hours. Thanks for another great video!
That’s a very good point! One I failed to consider.
My kids can usually tolerate ride lines, but they are the most bored standing in an unmoving rope drop line, so perhaps that affected my logic and I’d failed to consider such a thing would be valuable to others.
Thank you for bringing that up!
Though you call it a fail, this was a super helpful video! It’s great to show both sides of the coin….not every day is going to be magical and according to plan.
For sure! The word “fail” is a bit of hyperbole for RUclips. It definitely didn’t go “according to plan” but I hoped folks would find it helpful either way!
No need to apologize for anything! I like that you kept it real, because stuff happens, and yet you showed that you can still have a good time.
EXTRA comment for single rider, this is an enormous time saver. Because this is a time saver tip video. So many ways to do this video.
I wouldn’t call this a fail. This is helpful. The part I’m most excited for is the relatively small Soarin’ group at rope drop! I rarely rope drop DCA, but I’m paying a lot of money just to go ride Soarin’ Over California very soon. This will make my trip! 💜💜💜
Yes! I was surprised to see Soarin’ with a 10 minute wait 15 minutes after rope drop. I feel like that’s a little unusual, but at the same time it was a super crowded day (sold out) and that was Soarin’s wait at 8:15 AM.
I think the novelty of California was worn off for the locals at this point. It’s usually a lot longer of a line toward the beginning of Food and Wine.
If you want to do Soarin first, you might consider entering DCA through the Grand Californian entrance which is open to anyone whenever the park is officially open because it’s in the Grizzly Peak area. I did this the other day and it was a 10 min wait.
I was also in DCA for rope drop on Monday, with my 4 year old. I had a similar strategy to ride some A-D attractions but it worked out ok. We rode Monsters Inc, Mater’s and Ariel before stopping for breakfast corn dogs, so I considered it a pretty solid morning.
If I hadn’t been trying to knock out some pretty big attractions right off the bat for this video, we probably would have just stayed in Pixar Pier/Paradise Gardens Park and just ridden a bunch of the smaller attractions.
My original plan was to ride the three I mentioned before 9 AM and then check back on their wait times later in the day to see how much time we saved by rope dropping those three, instead of hitting up RSR.
Our family was there on Monday too and Radiator Springs Racers going down blew up our rope drop too. Thanks to checking out your other videos we still had a great day!
Glad to hear it!
We were there Monday and it was insane. I felt a lot of the rides we wanted to do kept breaking down. We waited in a lot of long lines. Felt like the time posted was not accurate.
This is perfect timing!!! We are doing DCA rope drop tomorrow
Glad I could help!
On our last trip to DCA hardly anything was open at park open including Radiator Springs Racers. Thankfully we got to ride Guardians at rope drop and then Radiator Springs actually opened, so we were able to jump in line with only a 20 minute wait (without paying for LL or splitting up with single rider). Radiator Springs went down again shortly after we got off the ride and many of the smaller outdoor attractions were closed due to wind/rain preparations. Just as you said, Radiator Springs and weather closures, definitely throws a monkey wrench in a DCA park day.
Failure is also nice Info to me. Thanks! I hope I will have Luck!
DCA needs another big E ticket or two. Hopefully Disney Forward will happen and we can get some rides far away from Carland and spread out crowds more.
Yes!!! I have been waiting so long for more news on their expansion.
I think it would be AWESOME to have the parks extend to engulf the hotels like their plans had shown.
AGREEEEE! This video is valuable. Great videos!
Had a morning like that last Nov at Disneyland: Indy was closed, went to Pirates, closed, walked right into the Haunted Mansion building - went down, Big Thunder's line went around the Rivers.
I just came back from our Disneyland trip (we probably were in this rope drop line you filmed in the begining!) and we did 2 days of rope dropping at DCA. FIrst time we rope dropped Radiator Springs and it went down twice when we were in the line. We were in the line for more than 90 min, it was terrible, the kids didn't enjoy it (either the line or the attraction). Next time we rope dropped Pixar Pier and did everything there, and started stacking genie+ attractions. we rode everything multiple times, and my husband went to Radiator Springs single rider a little later and was on the line for only 20 min!!! so take this into consideration. Thanks for all your videos! they helped my trip A LOT!!!
Yes! Single rider is definitely the way to go. I’m so sorry to hear about the awful RSR rope drop. But glad you had a great vacation!
i got so excited to see this upload since my boyfriend and i are visiting california adventure next week. i sent it to him and said “even when he fails, he never misses” because we love your videos and you always upload the best ideas at the right time! would love to see another DCA rope drop strategy video because i’m still not sure what we should do!
I’m sure you’ll do fine! Make a plan, and if things don’t work out, pivot and have a backup.
If you want to rope drop RSR or Guardians, just make sure that you’re at the front of the rope drop line.
Or just go to whatever ride you really want to ride most.
If that doesn’t work, open the app and check wait times, and head to a bigger attraction with a really low wait.
Since you’re two adults, I think the best strategy for RSR will be single rider. Yeah, you won’t be together, BUT you will be on every other attraction. And single rider really does go much much faster.
@@SoCalDisneyDad thank you so much for the reply! do you know if the RSR single rider line gets longer throughout the day? should we try to do it in the morning or does the single rider line stay at a consistent pace?
@@Lu-bk1qq I’m sure it’s shorter in the morning, but it’s not bad really at all at any point in the day.
A good rule of thumb is the single rider is probably about 20-25% the wait of the posted standby. So 60 minutes would be maybe about 15 minutes single rider.
@@SoCalDisneyDad you’re the best! i love how frequently you upload and all of your video ideas are fun and informative, thank you!
This was such a helpful video!!! Now I know to have a backup plan!!!
We rope dropped DCA a week ago and SO MANY rides were closed in the morning, plus Radiator Springs Racers broke down in the midmorning. We managed to make it work, but we had to do a lot of on-the-go adjustments for our Rope Drop strategy.
It’s unfortunate when that happens. I don’t recall RSR breaking this much before, and we’ve rope dropped DCA more often than we’ve rope dropped Disneyland.
Thanks for sharing! I’ve seen days like that where so much is down. The tip board on the app will show if Toy Story is down by 8:02 ish - maybe earlier. I always check that before walking over to the pier. I agree that way too many people rope drop Cars and it’s down so often anyway.
I’ll have to try constantly refreshing the tip board while we are walking over there to see if it gets updated. It’s such a quick walk though, we’d probably be up to near Lamplight before that even started to show.
But definitely worth checking out!
going tuesday! I’m so glad you still uploaded this “fail”. So helpful!
Basically only going for carsland and radiator springs, gonna be so sad if its closed 😭
More like “not according to plan” but “fail” is more punchy. 😂
I’m glad you found it helpful.
I was so bummed when my initial plan fell through, I figured it was going to flop, but I knew I had shared a lot of valuable info all the same so decided to press forward despite the “plot twist” as I like to say sometimes.
Radiator Springs Racers is rarely closed all day, but it HAS been breaking a lot lately.
We did our big Disneyland/DCA trip last week and found situations at DCA similar to yours in this video. On our first day there, we went immediately to Radiator Springs to find it was down, so we went to a couple of other rides. Once it went back up, it was the longest wait, almost to the point where we all had mini-breakdowns while waiting. On our other day at DCA, we went straight to Pixar Pier, and there was NO ONE THERE. Between that, Lightning Lane for other rides, and doing single rider at Radiator Springs, we were able to bang out six rides in the first 90 minutes. I will say I was shocked at how often (and for how long) Radiator Springs Racers went down.
On a larger note, we've been planning this trip in one way or another since 2019 (our initial trip was cancelled days before we were to leave in March 2020 due to...well, you know), so we were happy to have this finally happen, and your videos and advice were immeasurable help in getting our plans together, and I wanted to thank you! I kept hoping I would see you and your lovely family walking around when we were there. Don't ever doubt how helpful these videos are.
This means so much! Thank you for sharing. I’m sorry we didn’t we you, but glad you had an amazing trip!
I feel like a lot of rides do break down in DCA. And when one goes down. It's a trickle effect. But you did do pretty good. I have seen in your vlogs doing just what you were trying to show. And so proud of Amy having the highest score.
She is very proud, too! James is still reminding me about beating me about once an hour. 😂
It would be cool to see rope dropping again. A do over for Guardians.
My good friend who goes to DCA a lot warned me not to rope drop Radiator Springs on a morning where there was any type of fog or moisture in the air. She said that that attraction likes to break down whenever that happens. It looks like you were having a cloudy morning as well. Had a similar experience last month at Universal Islands of Adventure early entry. Velocicoaster, Forbidden Journey and Flight if the Hippogriff all down, just leaving Hagrid's which was already 2 hours. Complete waste of time.
It was exceptionally foggy on the drive up that morning! We didn’t see any fog in Anaheim, but it could have been there earlier in the morning.
Awesome tip!
Very helpful even if it was a fail
14:32 yeah people don’t mention this.
Love your videos for tips for our upcoming Disney trip! We are doing DCA on the day we fly back home and wanted to get your opinion on how much time is needed for DCA? At the moment, we are planning to rope drop, have genie+ and have about 8 hours allotted for our time at DCA before we have to head to the airport, but was wondering if we should fly out later and get an extra 1.5 hrs at the park? Thanks again!
DCA is what you make of it. You could easily spend a whole day there. But you could also feel accomplished with just a few short hours.
So long as you have a priority list and a game plan you’ll be fine with 8 hours.
But an extra 1.5 hours is always nice. Just depends on whether the extra park time is worth a later arrival time getting home.
First video I’ve seen of yours and it was really helpful for our upcoming trip!! Even if it wasn’t your planned video haha 😊
I’m so glad to hear this! If you have any questions, feel free to reach out. Hope you have a magical trip!
@@SoCalDisneyDad thank you!!!
Very good video! I was wondering if maybe during summer times like June/July make some videos about tips since Disney is way more crowded.
We covered a lot of crowded type content the last few weeks because of Spring Break.
Typically, Summer is less crowded than Spring Break. Two whole levels of annual passes are blocked out all summer long, including my family’s pass level (I have the highest for discounts, but they have the lowest we could get them while still having enough availability for regular usage).
@@SoCalDisneyDad I see, thank you! I will be looking through your channel for these types of videos👍
So great video!
Hopefully I will see you at Disneyland I be there in September 11th to the 15th of this year
I will most likely be there at least one of those days. I go about once a week.
I think id die if i came all the way from the uk to disney to see everything closed in the morning
Really glad I saw this before our trip! ❤thanks
Great video, thanks! Taking the fam to DCA tomorrow. Had planned on doing Cars first, but after watching this, I'm switching it up. Wanted to see if I should hit up Incredibles/Toy Story/Webslinger in that order? Or what order would you recommend. We plan on a 7:30-8am arrival, so not there in time for Rope Drop.... Any help is appreciated.
If you get there before 8, you’ll make rope drop.
Toy Story is hit or miss on whether it’s open first thing. But the other two are good options. Guardians of the Galaxy possibly as well, though that line is usually at 25 right away due to Early Entry hotel guests.
Watch the wait times and play it by ear.
@@SoCalDisneyDad Thank you! We ended up skipping Cars and went straight to Incredicoaster, then Toy Story, then walked over to Webslinger, knocked off all three by 9:15... We saved Cars for around 2pm, did the single rider to avoid the 75 minute wait. Did that in about 30 minutes and got to ride in the same car with my daughter. (not together, but same car)... so overall day was a success. Thanks again!
AYYY IM IN THE INTRO LETS GOOO AT 1:23 AND 1:31
Again, thanks for a helpful video! Do the wait times go down toward the end of the night or stay pretty constant? Do they do the same as Disney World where if your in line a minute before park closes your guaranteed to ride the ride?
Yes, and yes.
So inevitably, families like mine will leave early to put kids in bed or locals might leave to head home. We are always gone by 7 PM.
Then you’ll have people start waiting for the nighttime spectaculars, which take people out of the ride lines. So lines will decrease, yes.
And, yes, if you are in line for a ride at least before the park closes, you are allowed to stay in line, even if you don’t ride it until an hour later because that’s how long the line was.
@@SoCalDisneyDad We figured as much but wanted to make sure with someone who goes there a lot! Thanks!
We rope-drop Web Slingers, and do single-rider at Radiator Springs later.
Sounds like a good plan!
It's Soarin' Over California right now? Awesome. We're going to be there in May, so maybe it will still be Soarin' Over California when we go.
@@elliemaejune Unfortunately, it ends on April 25th with the Food and Wine Festival. So it will be back to Soarin’ Around the World by May.
@@SoCalDisneyDad Bummer. We like it much better than the other. :-(
Super helpful for our preparation! Would you know if photo pass photo graphers are already during rope drop?
Hmm…that’s a good question. And one I’ve not paid attention to. There’s usually one outside the Cars Land sign and I did see a cast member there in this video. But I couldn’t tell if he had a camera around his neck. It looked like he might have.
@@SoCalDisneyDad got it! Been searching for that answer as well even in Disneyland park so we can plan our day properly . Continue creating informative videos
Really interesting strategy to rope drop Pixar Pier. I’ve always gone left first, usually Radiator Springs.
But then I only get to ride it in the morning. As I’m thinking about it, I don’t think I’ve EVER ridden Racers after dark! Maybe I’ll try yout strat next time and pay for RSR later at night.
And yes - Soaring Over California is the superior version. And it’s not close. 😂
I did RSR once. And after standing in line for 10 minutes and still being stuck outside the main attraction queue (I was by Flo’s), I abandoned and went Single Rider.
Single Rider is the way to do it if you can.
I saw your wife yesterday in the line for Peter pans flight!
Oh nice! She mentioned she saw someone there. Glad to see it’s someone I recognize (channel name)! Thanks for commenting all the time and being engaged with our videos. We appreciate it!
Great video. 😊
Thank you!
Are you able to enter Disneyland/DCA partially prior to rope drop? Like how in Magic Kingdom, you can access Main Street prior to rope drop.
Yes, Trolley Treats and Starbucks are both open for the pre-rope drop time.
The gates open at 7:30 and you saw in the video there the three different rope drop points. All of those are around DCA’s main hub by Carthay Circle.
Over in Disneyland, you can get all the way to the Hub. I’ll have a video up next week for Disneyland as I’ll be doing that park’s rope drop on Friday.
We got the 3 day socal special and we’re not park hoping. We’re doing DL, DCA then DL. I was thinking of rope dropping for the cars ride…
Never mind! We’ll probably just pay for it. That is the only ride my son is looking forward to in the whole Disney trip 🫠
It’s either that or show up really early. But as I said in the video, it’s about an hour of waiting either way.
I think an ILL is worth it for a single day visit to allow you to maximize the rest of your day.
@@SoCalDisneyDad agree, I should’ve done more research because I purchased genie+ and later found out that ride doesn’t take genie+
As for the Early Entry from Grand Californian, do you think it would be ok to ride Soarin’ first and head to Radiator Springs Racers? Or is it better to go straight to Racers before Rope Drop crowds make their way? We are visiting DCA on June 1st…
According to Disney’s website, RSR isn’t on early entry, but you can bet early entry guests are lining up before actual rope drop release.
So I would ride something handy, recommended is Guardians of the Galaxy if you like that ride. If not, Soarin’ or Web Slingers is fine. But then head straight for RSR by around 7:50 to queue up.
I did Soarin for rope drop (hardly anybody and you dont mix with the massive crowd) and then did the entire Pixar Pier including Incredicoaster and Toy Story Mania within the first 1,5 to 2 hours with hardly anybody else. Then I did single rider Radiator Springs Racers. But I must say that I am not a Marvel fan so webslingers is not a must do for me.
@@robertspanjers7888 It was our intention to go to Soarin’ first before I decided to make it a rope drop strategy video.
We were just going to take the morning casual at first.
Had I done that, Toy Story probably would have been open by the time we go over there and would have been a low enough wait to get on.
Usually our normal plan works just fine because Soarin’ isn’t an “always” must for us (just when it’s Over California). But it would have been better in this instance. Though we would have missed web slingers. Which, honestly, I’d rather have Toy Story vs Web Slingers if we only do one “video game” style ride.
@@SoCalDisneyDad thank you so much again!! I will keep that in mind! I truly appreciate you always taking your precious time to reply with great knowledge and insights and I think that is what makes you stand out from the other RUclipsrs.
@@robertspanjers7888 I am glad it worked well! We are not interested in webslingers for now too so your plan sounds awesome! Thanks for sharing!!
If doing single rider for Radiator Springs, would you do early morning? Thank you!!
I don’t think it matters. I wouldn’t waste rope drop to do it. Definitely take advantage of low waits throughout the park.
You could go back at maybe 9:30 AM and single rider it and it would be better than doing it at, say, 3 PM.
Single rider will likely be about 20-25% of whatever the standby wait is.
So roughly between 10-20 minutes depending on when you go.
Thank you!!! Learning and taking notes for our trip in July!! Appreciate the tips!!!
Hi, thanks for the great video. What if my case is I do have early entry, and then 30 mins later, I choose to rope drop the radiator. Is there any advantage to the rope drop radiator if I have the early entry? Thank you!
Absolutely, yes. You’ll be able to be at the front of the rope drop line. Just make sure you get in line before the rest of the guests are released.
@@SoCalDisneyDad Cool! Thank you so much for your response. Just want to let you know that I love your video, and your kids are cute! Have a great day!
I am confused about the lighting lane pass for radiator springs. Can you just buy that lightning lane for that one ride on its own or do you need to purchase genie+ as well?
You have to buy it a la carte. It is not part of Genie+. Even if you buy Genie+, you don’t get Radiator.
@@SoCalDisneyDad i knew it was separate but wasn’t sure if you needed to have genie+ in order to purchase it on the side.
Seeing the strategies in your video showed me how we did it all wrong when we went last year but these tips will help for next year when we go back :D thank you!!
Was just at DL. Rope dropped MMRAR waited 50 mins only for it to close down right before we boarded. So we ran to ROR because we don’t want to pay to skip the line, waited 75 mins and again it shut down as we were so close to the ride! It was a bad morning :(
That sucks. Yeah. They didn’t give you a multi-experience pass? Or they never evacuated the lines?
We had it break down while we were in the Perfect Picnic theater. But they kicked everyone out of the line and handed us a multi experience pass.
On RotR, they didn’t evacuate the line and we waited 50 minutes for it to reopen. But so many people abandoned the line we virtually the next group to enter the Rey Room. It was posted at 75, and we ended up waiting about 90.
@@SoCalDisneyDad
For MMRAR they did, not for Rise. Sadly we wanted to use the multi experience pass for MMRAR But it was constantly down through out the day.. it would reopen so we would try to head that direction only to see it went back down again :/
ROR wasn’t evacuated but we waited an additional 30 mins just to see if it came back up but it never did. We left the line and watched the map and it didn’t come back up for several hours :(
Those trackless rides seem to break down a lot! Haha
@@valgal193 They do, yes. They can do cool things with them, but they are always breaking. Luigi’s suffers from the same problem.
These stories about bouncing around broken down rides are all too common. Disney wants us to accept this as the norm and smile when they give us a fast pass for later. I’m not totally cool with it, tbh. They need to develop ride systems that work.
Thank you for sharing this. Question, when rope dropping, is there any place to check if the ride is open prior to entering the park?
Or is it always a gamble, getting there and discovering that the ride is unfortunately closed?
If the attraction is part of early entry, like Web Slingers, you can check the wait times on the app while standing in line. If it’s marked as temporarily closed, then avoid it.
But all the Pixar Pier rides, except Incredicoaster, aren’t open for early entry.
They *might* put wait times up right at 8 AM, but at the point you’re in the shuffle and press and it’s hard to be on your phone.
@@SoCalDisneyDad got it, thanks
Is this the type of crowd you’d expect during President’s Day weekend?
Im just curious, was this filmed on a weekday or weekend? Is rope drop always this busy, weekend or not?
This was yesterday, Monday, the 10th. I imagine it’s not ALWAYS this busy because it was the day after Easter and still spring break for some (my kids were off school still, they went back today).
For some reason I feel like DCA is a lot more complex rope dropping than Disneyland. At least in Disneyland it seems more flexible when rope dropping rides than DCA. Makes me wonder if Radiator Springs Racers is better to just ride it 30 minutes before closing time. Hmmm 🤔🤔🤔Watch World of Color and then head to straight to that ride that is if it doesn’t break down lol 😂
Radiator Racers is very popular at night because of the lights and coloring so it might not be anymore less crowded in the evening. We still recommend just single rider it if you can.
👍
Was this April 4th by chance?
Monday, April 10th.
i’m going on a trip to disneyland only for a day, it’s for a field trip and we have a limited amount of time do you have any tips? this is a great vid btw and you should do a video like this for disneyland for where you should go for rope drop thanks!
Genie + is a must for a limited amount of time
We are planning on doing a Disneyland one for sure. This coming Friday.
As Mighty Monster said, Genie+ is going to be a necessity for you, and we are ALSO working on that video this Friday as well. So hopefully you find them both helpful!
@@SoCalDisneyDad thank you so much! i appreciate how you interact and answer your fans questions!
@@ccali2 Always happy to help!! Feel free to reach out anytime.
Hey Traver! I'm currently still planning my itinerary for Disneyland Anaheim, and I am just wondering if Splash Mountain is still available up until the end of this month? I am planning of going there until it closes down!
Yes, as far as I'm aware, they have no plans to close it soon. Early May was falsely reported by the OC Register last week, but Disney has made no official announcement as of yet. They won't suddenly close it. It'll get announced ahead of time, so I believe you'll be fine if you're coming in April.
@@SoCalDisneyDad alright that's great to know, thank you! One more thing that I want to mention, but I recently watched this video of how Anaheim guests arent frantically rushing towards the rides compared to Disney World. Is it OK to run towards your preferred ride during rope drop or are there restrictions in doing so?
@NotMalcolm it's never good etiquette to run during g rope drop. Don't be that person/group, you will however see some people running/jogging.
@@notmalcolmm At WDW cast members walk the crowd to the attractions with forced line-leading to avoid running because it was such an issue there.
Disneyland doesn’t have that issue, which is why they’ve not instituted that here.
I’ve never witnessed any running, but there is definitely fast walking going on. As @13jeffandtrish said, it’s a good idea NOT to run.
@@SoCalDisneyDad @13jeffandtrish ohhh alright alright. Thank you for the heads up!
Did you drive there for the day or did you stay at a hotel?
About 90% of the time we drive up (leave home at 5:45 AM) and drive home (leave Disney at 7:00 PM).
We do get hotels on occasion, but only if we plan to do a nighttime spectacular, or we are going for two day and go back into the parks the next day, too.
@@SoCalDisneyDad thanks!
Omg theyre playing Mileys music in the park
What’s your go to rope drop plan at Disneyland?
yay new video!
Not a fail. Lines are to be expected. If you go expecting to not wait long you set yourself up for disappointment.
For sure! I only meant that my plan (which I’d done a dozen times before) fell through when I least wanted it to. 😂
But it was still a good day. Just with some twists and turns along the way.
I was at rope drop for Cars land ride on Nov 29th of 2022. I had only waited 30 minutes for the main line to get into the ride.
Also you didn’t include Single rider lines in your talk that really cut down from hour to just minutes.
I did mention the single rider, just a little bit later on in the video.
It probably depends on time of year with how long it takes to get through the line, but this time of year it’s about 60 minutes.
Another DL video? Still waiting on that SD Zoo video. Been a year since a Knott’s video. Your highest viewed video is a SD Zoo video. Should probably not neglect that content.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a Knott’s pass, so going there frequently isn’t something that’s possible. Not until my youngest is tall enough for most of the main attractions.
As far as the Zoo goes, I still intend to cover any major events or new offerings. But there hasn’t been any of those things lately.
The Nighttime Zoo should be coming up here soon once we reach the summer season.