AP Early Entry questions for DCA any advice is appreciated!

[smarie82181]

Hey everyone...Ok I know there are quite a few posts with different early entry (hotel, and ap) questions and advice so please bear with me

We have ap's and are going with some friends on the 21st. We live in Nor Cal so we go every other month or so (we have family in So Cal) Anyways, I signed us up for the early entry for ap holders for DCA, We went to Cars Land 2x in June, but it was so over crowded we just rode maters jamboree. Our son was also just shy of the 40" height requirement so we decided to just skip it knowing we were going again soon. Now he meets the height requirement and is a huge cars fan so were gonna try to go on RSR this time.

My question is....we plan to get to the park early and get in the gates at 7 like recommended by other mice chatters. Now that the hotels are getting ee every day and Cars Land has been open a little while and hopefully getting in a routine, I would like to see what is the best way to make the most out of that extra hour. To help anyone posting a reply....we can not do single rider. Our son is too young, so it will be the 3 of us. Our other friends are meeting us when the park opens to the general public so we will have a larger group and it will be a little harder to do everything everyone wants to do. We dont need to do it more than once either, we are going again on Halloween ha ha so it wont be the end of the world if we only ride it once.

Is it really best to just do TSMM and some other rides while everyone rushes to Cars Land, then grab some fast passes once the machines open at 8? I want to make it as fun as we can for our son, but don't spend all our time in one line. He is young enough that worst case senario we can take him on other rides. Last time we just stood at the hill and watched the cars come over and around the corner and he thought that was awesome and wasnt devestated that he couldnt ride. Now that he is tall enough (ha ha he has been literally sleeping with the tape measure thinking it will help him grow in addition to watching the video on YouTube) we would like to try to take him

Any advice is appreciated, and again I apoligize in advance since I know a lot of people have been asking a lot of ee questions.

Thanks!

[swampymarsh]

I want to put this out first, just because a child reaches 40" at home, doesn't mean they will reach the top of each measuring stick in the parks. So don't talk this up as his Radiator Springs Racers trip because it could end up as a disasster when he doesn't measure up. The way you wrote this you are already on that dangerous path. Because of this situation you may want to do other rides first. Although if you want to risk it do go to RSR right away, you are taller after laying down, and you shrink as gravity compresses your spine during your awake hours. Then when you find out if he is in the clear to ride again you may want to get a FP.

Problems may arrise because RSR doesn't usually open on time and often delayed 15-30-45-60-75-90 minutes. So if you go in line there is a risk you will still be in it when your friends get in the park. If the ride is open at 7am you will wait 5 to 30 minutes. If the ride isn't open add the 5 to 30 minutes to the possible delay time. It will be something you have to decide on when there and know the days situation, and risk it's worse than it looks. The RSR CMS may say it's opening soon, opening in a while, or are not sure.


Since you have friends coming in at opening, you may want to coordinate. Have someone find them in the rope drop and get thier tickets. Then get in the early admission FP line with everyone's tickets. The early admission FP line will have FPs within 15 minutes of 8am, the Rope Drop regular guests form a second FP line that gets behind it. Then at 8am everyone can go to the pier or where ever and ride lines with short waits, and the person getting the RSR FPs meet with them. At 8am the rush is to Carsland and the rides in there get huge lines while other rides take longer to build lines. So you can still get on TSMM or Tower of Terror with small waits a couple times in row.

[CassiefRN]

When I went I went straight to luigi's and was first on so I got that out of the way, went to check out racers, which hadn't opened so I decided to head to TSMM and was the first rider on it at about 720. When I got off a few other people were walking up finally and I was offered to stay on if I wanted to. I declined due to a bad wrist and headed to screaming which I rode 6 times in a row, just moving rows if one of the few people who were there were in line for the row I was currently in. I made sure to be off and back to carsland before the park opened to the general public (note that the side entries are closed, you must enter through the main entrance) but it was back down again. This was before they combined AP EE with hotel EE so it was less crowded then it might be for you, but the rest of the park was empty... Also make sure to get there at least half an hour prior to your early entry time to park and get checked in so you can be in line and ready to enter as soon as it opens.

[smarie82181]

Thank you! That is exactly what I needed

[swooshbear]

If your plan is to ride RSR with your entire group, I would recommend getting in line for the FastPass well before 8am. 8am is when they start handing them out, but people are in line well before 7:30am. For reference, I was in line at 7:30am and got a FP for 10:30am. Also note that only tickets/passes that have been scanned can get Fastpasses.

Even after 8am when the general public was in, I was able to go on TSMM twice with no wait. I could have gone a third time but my arm felt it was going to fall off.