DCA tips for a DL vet?

WonkaKid

DIS Veteran
Joined
Apr 2, 2009
Hello, folks. Many of you have seen/read my countless (nearly weekly) posts from/about Disneyland. I'll be at DL this Sunday morning, as per usual. However, in the afternoon I'll meet some old friends at DCA (we'll go there Sunday, DL on Monday). I rarely go to DCA because to me it's always lacked the magic of Walt's park. I've probably been there 20 times or so but the last time was back in October for my brother's birthday.

Now: I'm anxious to ride Soarin', which I love. But I'm not a fan of big drops, so GOTG is out (I've done it once before and that was enough). Can anyone provide any tips to help me enjoy this park? I'm mainly going for my friends' sake.

Thanks, Disboards community!

Rob
 
Well....being that you are journalist as a free-lance writer, I would suspect, that perhaps those aha moments may be nice for your friends and your consideration once more.

*Dusk at Carsland with the shaboom moment and then exploration of all the neon light moments in a dark Radiator Springs.
* Crush. I grew up watching Art Linkleteer end of episode segments on TV, and though they were my peers, they made my mom laugh, and then me laugh as child. Perhaps the last stage for children to be innocent when talking to Crush...I just find it a refreshing row of seats to hang out and rest and smile
* Bugsland. Cue Big Yellow Taxi. And if your friends have never been to DCA, it would be cute to pre-shop for those tiny individual servings of sugar cereal at the grocery store , have one for each friend and ask them....."ever been inside one of these boxes?"
* Stand-by line for RSR....indeed very ridiculous...but it answer the life long Disney question....what would stand-by line themes look like for each ride
* Walk in-side the water fall pathway of Grizzly Peak at night , to my experience, the only place at either park where there is a true reflection of being outdoors in a urban area....other than watching your 5 year-old stick their feet into the water's edge at Tom Sawyer Landing.
* White Water Snacks...no...not for the food....but chance of seeing a feral cat in the underbrush next to the window...maybe someone can tell you the %chances of seeing a feral cat.
* Walking CMS in era costume and entertainment acts on Buena Vista street
* Strange carnival prizes on the boardwalk.
 
The rides I would recommend are: Radiator Springs, Toy Story Midway Mania, and Soarin'...I'd also highly suggest getting max/fastpasses for these rides. They always have the longest stand by wait times. Grizzly River Run is fun too, but be aware that you get drenched on this ride..way more than Splash Mountain

Rides to avoid: Guardians, like you mentioned lol...Incredicoaster (you may not like the initial take off, and first drop), and Goofy (those turns are too scary).

Other fun things: Monsters Inc Ride (has A/C),Little Mermaid (also has A/C), Pal Around, Silly Symphony Swings
 
I like the shows at DCA, so I would definitely recommend that you take some time to catch one or two musical performances. Pixarmonic Orchestra was great plus fun and funny. I also really enjoy Five and Dime. There's the newsboys too, but I admit I've grown a little tired of that one.

I second the suggestion to catch the shaboom moment when they play music and light up Radiator Springs at dusk. If your friends aren't entering a park until the afternoon, Racers fastpasses may already be out, so if that's a ride you and they would enjoy, you may want to consider single rider if you don't all want to wait in what will likely be a 60-90 minute queue. There are fun things to look at in the queue, of course, but I personally don't invest those lengthy waits in almost any ride, even only getting to visit the parks 5 or 6 times a year versus your weekly trips. Carsland is fun to look around at all the little details, and the smaller rides are ok if the waits aren't too long and you don't mind being jostled about a bit.

Have you ever been to the Animation Academy in the Animation Studio in Hollywoodland? You learn to draw a character in a 15 minute session. They do both classic and more modern characters throughout the day. A schedule is posted inside the Animation Academy, so you could stop in early on and check to see if there are any characters you would enjoy learning to draw and plan what time to return.

Definitely get a fastpass for Soarin' if that is a priority for you. That queue is slow and not fun. Ditto for Toy Story Midway Mania.
 


Take the time to enjoy the little details on BVS -- the details in the store windows, the mailbox for "E. Valiant," the artist desk that is a tribute to Mary Blair, Walt's Candy Mountain, Walt's voice teaching an art class from upstairs, etc. So fun! Enjoy the characters in their period costumes. Really cute! Look for Hidden Mickeys on Monsters, Inc. -- our favorite is in the sushi restaurant. Like the pp, we love the live music shows, too -- Five & Dime, the Newsboys, the Mariachi Divas (Grammy winners!), the Ellis Island Boys (so worth it if they're playing!), etc. Catch the GRR cats, Francisco and Snickers, by the GRR observation point. Definitely catch the neon lighting on Rte. 66 in Cars Land -- magical! Take a break in the Carthay Circle Lounge -- and don't forget to look at the memorabilia inside the cases on the walls. DCA is very different from DL, but has a magic all its own. Have a great time!
 
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Thanks for the tips, everyone! I didn't know about the "shaboom moment." I've never experienced it (even after 100+ times at DL ;-)).

Incidentally, and I realize this is kind of a complicated/messy question: I'll arrive at DL for rope drop tomorrow and will buy my friends discounted park tix at 7:00 a.m. They'll arrive at noon and we'll only go to DCA tomorrow. My friend asked if I could go over to DCA early and get them FPs for RSRs. Can I do that with their tix? I presume they have to be scanned before they'll work. If that's true, do they have to be there with me when they're first scanned? Will they have to have their pix taken? They're only single-day tix. The next day I'm getting them free park-hoppers from a CM friend.
 
Thanks for the tips, everyone! I didn't know about the "shaboom moment." I've never experienced it (even after 100+ times at DL ;-)).

Incidentally, and I realize this is kind of a complicated/messy question: I'll arrive at DL for rope drop tomorrow and will buy my friends discounted park tix at 7:00 a.m. They'll arrive at noon and we'll only go to DCA tomorrow. My friend asked if I could go over to DCA early and get them FPs for RSRs. Can I do that with their tix? I presume they have to be scanned before they'll work. If that's true, do they have to be there with me when they're first scanned? Will they have to have their pix taken? They're only single-day tix. The next day I'm getting them free park-hoppers from a CM friend.
They have to be there to enter since they attach their picture to the ticket. You have to have entered the park to get FPs
 


And you need to be with them the first time they enter. I had to show my I.D. when we entered this week with an AP ticket I bought for my husband.
 
They have to be there to enter since they attach their picture to the ticket. You have to have entered the park to get FPs
You could, however, get a fastpass for one of them on your ticket, as long as you figure you can trust this person with your ticket when they use it (or, alternatively, if that is person uses your smart phone to redeem & your tickets are linked). From what I’ve seen, there’s no checking photos when redeeming fastpasses (and my husband has without problems used fastpasses on my daughter’s ticket). You would of course have to time getting that fastpass to become active when they arrive & would also have to time it around Soaring’s fastpass (see below for comments on that one), which has pretty fast return times towards the beginning of the day).

If there’s more than one person to ride, then single rider is definitely your best bet.

I second getting a fastpass for Soaring. Even if the posted standby wait time is relatively short. Every once in a while, one of the projectors breaks down & they stop taking people from the standby line to accommodate fast pass users. We once went into the standby line when the wait time was supposedly 30 mins (usually my cutoff) for not getting fastpasses and ended up waiting at least twice that, most of it at the front of the first line, right before they divide the line & tell people to go to either side.
 
I'll have to be honest with you--DCA just isn't my favorite, either. I do like a few things there, but most of them you've already mentioned yourself. I think I'm one of the few that doesn't care one way or the other if I ever go into Carsland. I think they did a good job on the theming but I have no interest in it and I don't find it magical.

What I do love:
Buena Vista Street. It's amazing and fun. I haven't done it yet, but I'd like to sign up for the Carthay Circle tour they give in the mornings. I like riding the Trolley. I enjoy the shops (and it's the only place to get a Gingerbread Mickey, something I adore). Animation Academy and Turtle Talk are really cool. I very much enjoy the live theater at the Hyperion; whatever you might think of Frozen, it's a great show and they've done a good job on it.

The Wharf area. I still like going through the Boudin tour. I like getting a sourdough sample there and chocolate sample at Ghirardelli right across the way. Also my favorite place to eat in DCA, plus you can have a beer.

I have tried the place that used to be the Cove Bar and didn't feel strongly one way or the other about it. It was ok, but I don't know what people see in lobster nachos. Blech. I haven't yet been since it turned into the new venue so I'll have to try it and see. It was a nice place to have a drink and snack with friends, but I'd rather go to Trader Sam's.

I used to like the Greek food place down by the Silly Symphony Swings, but it was replaced with Mexican food. I like Mexican food, but I mean, did we really need another place selling it?

I can't really think of anything else. I don't dislike DCA, but like you, it doesn't hold the same magic for me as DL. I'd find it hard to spend a whole day there.
 
@WonkaKid I'm curious how did your day at DCA end up going? Any unexpected moments/places you ended up liking?
Thanks for asking. The day was OK. Still not a big fan of the park but it was enjoyable. First of all, I was able to buy my friends discounted park hoppers ($109 vs. $185). But I was only allowed to buy two. So I got another friend with an AP to buy the third one (the fourth person had already purchased her tix). That all worked out perfectly and I saved them about $210 (the next day I got three of them into the park for free thanks to a friend who's a CM).

The first ride we did was Cars. There were five of us altogether but we did it as single-riders. To my great surprise, we were all able to ride it twice in about half an hour and at least two of us were able to sit together for both. The bad things were that it was unusually hot/humid and I wasn't feeling well. I seem to get sick two or three times a years, possibly because I'm asthmatic and am prone to respiratory ailments. Otherwise I'm in excellent health. Doctors often laugh when they read my blood work because the numbers are always so good. Cholesterol is low (HDLs are good, LDLs are great). I don't drink/smoke, eat meat, fried foods or sugar and several raw things are in my daily diet. Despite the challenges, we all had a good time. I left around 6:30 but my friends stayed to do Incredicoaster and GOTG, which they loved.
 
Thanks for asking. The day was OK. Still not a big fan of the park but it was enjoyable. First of all, I was able to buy my friends discounted park hoppers ($109 vs. $185). But I was only allowed to buy two. So I got another friend with an AP to buy the third one (the fourth person had already purchased her tix). That all worked out perfectly and I saved them about $210 (the next day I got three of them into the park for free thanks to a friend who's a CM).

The first ride we did was Cars. There were five of us altogether but we did it as single-riders. To my great surprise, we were all able to ride it twice in about half an hour and at least two of us were able to sit together for both. The bad things were that it was unusually hot/humid and I wasn't feeling well. I seem to get sick two or three times a years, possibly because I'm asthmatic and am prone to respiratory ailments. Otherwise I'm in excellent health. Doctors often laugh when they read my blood work because the numbers are always so good. Cholesterol is low (HDLs are good, LDLs are great). I don't drink/smoke, eat meat, fried foods or sugar and several raw things are in my daily diet. Despite the challenges, we all had a good time. I left around 6:30 but my friends stayed to do Incredicoaster and GOTG, which they loved.
Hope you are feeling better! Glad it ended up being an ok day otherwise. I'll look forward to more of your DL posts!
 
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