12/10-12/13 Trip report: "this would not happen in Florida"

So here I am at John Wayne airport, waiting for my flight back home, sad, but it was a great trip.
I didn't think the parks were too crowded, and I can't tell you how many times I found myself saying "this would not happen in Florida"...
-Space mountain, soarin, splash mountain, tower of terror, btmrr, all being walk ons an hour after park opened, with splash, btmrr, tot, and one day even soarin having 10 minutes or less for a better part of the day.
-doing 4 laps on splash mountain without getting off at 7pm
-90 minutes after Disneyland opened, longest wait on the info board was 15 minutes.

Of course there was one ride that reminded me of the hussle and bussle of Florida... Radiator Springs racers. That was between 50-90 minutes throughout my trip, when everything else had a very little wait, single rider was always around 20-25 minutes (not bad), but the fast passes... Omg. I went to the distribution area (which is next to its tough to be a bug for whatever reason) 45 minutes after park opening and the sign had just changed to 4:00-5:00 (park hours were 9-8) I had originally intended not to bother with fast pass for this ride as I am a single rider anyway, but there weren't too many people waiting, so I figured why not. I waited between 2-3 minutes for my fast pass, and when I got it, it was for... get this... 4:25-5:25, so yeah, 5 minutes every 30 seconds or so, and remember, I didn't think the parks were that busy. If you are there on a busy day, get your fast passes immediately, or risk not getting on that one. One thing to note, the radiator springs fast passes do not interfere with your ability to get another fast pass, at least not on quieter days, busy days i dont know, so you can get 3 fast passes at the beginning of the day at DCA... Radiator springs, world of color, and something else.
I stayed at the comfort inn maingate (which is actually pretty far south, just north of chapman), and I was very happy with that. It was a hotwire purchase for $44/night, would have been $72 on their site. The free breakfast was worth at least $8-9, and no resort fees, so I would be thrilled to stay here again.
One final thing I will say, I think I prefer OCTA to ART, in the past I've stayed at hotels with their own shuttles, but this time I had to use public transit. I was thinking back to a post I made on the wdw boards where someone was asking about a rumor that shades of green transportation was bad compared to wdw transportation, and I, along with a bunch of other posters immediately disagreed. Shades of green is like the octa bus, rather than being "every 20 minutes or so" like art and wdw, the octa bus has posted times so you know when to be there, and if stopping at the restroom could cost you 20 minutes. Plus octa is less expensive and, at least when I was riding, less crowded. If you are ever staying on harbor blvd anywhere near Disneyland (north or south) you may wish to take octa route 43 instead of art.
Well, now I'm going home, to the place where I belong. Have a good day!

Thanks for all of your insight. You're right about RSR Fastpasses. Your best bet to get a Fastpass for this attraction is to line up, for the pass - not for the ride, before the rope drop.

I was there on the 12th and agree that the parks did not feel crowded. We practically walked on Indy which surprised me since it has been closed for several months. I expect it will pick up as Christmas approaches.

Thanks for the report! I really want to get to Disneyland one of these days.

Love the title of your TR! It's so true that there are so many things unique to Disneyland that you just would never see in Florida.

My favorite one is spontaneous character appearances all over the park. I actually like how there is a limited amount of "backstage" access at Disneyland and so you get to see the face characters as they meander through the park en route to their destinations. I used to love watching the villains stalk through the park, gossiping and harassing people. Loved seeing Peter Pan skip around playing with kids. Loved seeing Alice ask people if they had seen the white rabbit anywhere.

And I LOVE how nobody mobs them, and people just, for the most part, wave from where they are.

Glad you had a good trip.

We did not have to do the FP/Single rider dance at RSR due to our son's GAC (we had our own way we had to wait an hour for our turn), although my advice would be SINGLE RIDER all the way! If the ride is running, get into the SR line a.s.a.p.! This ride breaks down a LOT and you should ride it while you can. Even getting a FP for later doesn't guarantee you'll get on the ride. It could break down. In our limited experience, the FP line tends to be very similar (wait wise) as the SR line.

Also, it is true the RSR is "off the grid" as far as Fast Passes are concerned. The tickets say so right on them "you may obtain another FP immediately." This is also true of Grizzly River Run and CA Screamin. ;)

One thing I should add, as most everyone knows there are two sides on radiator springs racers during the second part of the ride (theres one track that splits midway through the ride), if possible, you should try and enjoy a ride on each side, as there are different things to see on each side, however, it is impossible to decipher which side you will be sent to until you get to that part of the ride. The cars are dispatched in groups of 4, and I thought it was like 1st and 3rd go left, 2nd and 4th go right, or vice versa. It is not that way, your boarding position has nothing to do with which side you will race on, as such the cm directing you will have no ability to meet your requests for a certain track side. All that will happen is that you will be sent to the side opposite of the car before you, but because there is a separate station for wheelchairs (like space mountain) whenever that station dispatches a car, that reverses the odds to the right, evens to the left.

Thanks for the report! :mickey:

Thanks for the Report! :mickey2:

Thanks for the great report.

We kind of had the opposite experience when we went to WDW this year. We've been going to Disneyland the past several years without a trip to WDW and while we enjoyed WDW we found ourselves saying this would never happen at Disneyland but more in the manner that things were "worse" in Fl. We just didn't seem to be able to get as many attractions in in one day in FL and kept saying how is it possible that we see so much more at Disneyland.

And going along with BrerGnat's comments, the characters are the other big difference. We saw far more characters in three days at Disneyland than we did at WDW in a week. We've compared autograph books just to make sure we weren't remembering wrong. And we were making a point to see characters at WDW by going to the specific locations which we don't usually do at Disneyland. And the one that really got me upset was at Donald's Safari Breakfast. The cast member told me that Donald didn't have time for paper work in the morning just pictures. I told her that would never happen at Disneyland and the characters have always spent a lot of time with my son and signed his book even if they were experiencing a long wait and large crowd.

I almost felt like it was unfair to compare the two but we are looking forward to getting back to Disneyland.