Trip: Report: ROTR Opening Day at Disneyland

[alleinesein]

So I braved the crazies and took part in ROTR opening day at Disneyland. 

We stayed at the Grand Californian in a 1 bedroom villa on Thursday night so that we wouldn't have to drive up from San Diego on Friday morning.  I got up at 3:30 am to get in line for the park.  They were officially letting us line up around 4 am.  By the time I met up with my early morning park buddy and got in line, it was 4:15 am.  The lines were only back to the monorail track and by 5:15 they stretched all the way back to the entry of DCA.  Shortly before 6 am, they opened the gates and started scanning us into the park.  We were on main street at 6 am.  Once main street filled up, they opened up the hub.  We snagged a bench and just chatted while watching the sun rise.  One of my old coworkers joined our group of 5 and we synced up all of our APs in the app. 

At 8 am, the boarding pass system went live and it was a total random crapshoot.  We got our boarding pass at 8:01 am and ended up with group 97.  The people standing next to us got group 15 and 72 so it was definitely random.  They were guaranteeing up to boarding group 82 so we were in one of the back up groups.  All boarding passes were gone by 8:02 am!!!  

They didn't start calling boarding groups until around 9 am. We bounced out of the park as soon as we had our group and went back to the room to just chill and eat breakfast.  There were people trying to get into the park as we were leaving who were pissed that they couldn't get a boarding group. All of the "advice" that WDW people have been giving out about still being able to get a boarding pass 15-30 minutes after the park opens did not work out here.

We headed back into the park after 11 am  and both parks were dead; aside from a few rides, everything was either walk on or less than 15 minutes.  We figured that the locals who tried to get a boarding pass just went home when they didnt get one and the locals who got boarding passes in the first few groups went home after they rode it.  We watched the boarding group status all day and figured that we would get on the ride sometime after 6 pm.  At 7:27 pm, our group was called!!  One big difference is that you only have a 1 hour return window at Disneyland.  We had to wait about 15 minutes to get in line since one member of our party was on Pirates.  We were finally scanned in at the ride at 8:01 pm; 12 hours after we got our boarding pass.  

The line moved way too fast!!  I actually wanted the line to move slow since there are so many things to do in the datapad and we couldn't even get crates scanned because the line was constantly moving.  My old coworker is also a huge SW fan so we paired up in line and just geeked out over everything.  We had everyone around us in line cracking up and even the First Order officers were trying not to crack a smile.  We were the only FO supporters in our group and the only ones excited to see Kylo and Hux. We walked off the ride around 8:40 pm.  It was a lot of fun and my mom is dying to go back so it looks like there will be at least a few more day trips in the next few weeks.

Disney did a good job of keeping the boarding groups fairly small and the line moved really fast in the evening.  We think it might have gone down for a little bit during the day since they stopped calling groups for awhile when they hit group 61.  They stopped around group 114 last night so I dont think they were running the ride until closing time.  We left the park at 9 and they were up to group 112 when we walked out. I also think that the 1 hour return window might have sped things up; if you give people too much time, they will wait until the last minute and if everyone does that, it causes a backlog of people.  

[luv2rn4fun]

So glad you were able to ride and have the experience, especially on opening day!

We have AP and are planning to go after preschool tomorrow (not for Star Wars Land since my boys are 5 and 3yo and the little one isn’t tall enough). Have you heard anything about parking issues? We would get there around 12:30. I have been checking ride times and it seems like the park is pretty empty in the afternoon but not sure if that also means parking won’t be too bad...

[mandymay]

Jan 23, 2020 23:32:01 GMT -5 luv2rn4fun said:

So glad you were able to ride and have the experience, especially on opening day!

We have AP and are planning to go after preschool tomorrow (not for Star Wars Land since my boys are 5 and 3yo and the little one isn’t tall enough). Have you heard anything about parking issues? We would get there around 12:30. I have been checking ride times and it seems like the park is pretty empty in the afternoon but not sure if that also means parking won’t be too bad...

I was there last night and parking was a breeze at 4. There was only 1 car in front of us getting in to the parking structure and we parked right next to the escalator since the whole level was practically empty. I’m not sure what it would be like at 12:30, but I don’t imagine it would be too bad.

I hope you have fun tomorrow!

[luv2rn4fun]

Jan 24, 2020 2:20:25 GMT -5 mandymay said:

Jan 23, 2020 23:32:01 GMT -5 luv2rn4fun said:

So glad you were able to ride and have the experience, especially on opening day!

We have AP and are planning to go after preschool tomorrow (not for Star Wars Land since my boys are 5 and 3yo and the little one isn’t tall enough). Have you heard anything about parking issues? We would get there around 12:30. I have been checking ride times and it seems like the park is pretty empty in the afternoon but not sure if that also means parking won’t be too bad...

I was there last night and parking was a breeze at 4. There was only 1 car in front of us getting in to the parking structure and we parked right next to the escalator since the whole level was practically empty. I’m not sure what it would be like at 12:30, but I don’t imagine it would be too bad.

I hope you have fun tomorrow!

Thank you! That’s how it was two weeks ago when we went Fri at 12:30!

ETA: parking was super fast and easy! Parks weren’t crazy crowded today either! Great day!