Wow the crowds are real! But had a great day (11/16) yesterday in spite.

[mtemm]

I haven’t been to DL in at least a decade, we live in Boston so tend to hit wdw for our Disney fix. My husband had a work trip to CA, though, so I tagged along and did my first ever Disney solo visit yesterday. I wasn’t sure what that would be like, but it was so much fun! I want to thank everyone for all of their advice and tips. That, and stalking the app the last few weeks, really helped.

Here was my day.

Arrived 6:15 (didn’t realize parking didn’t let in until 7, but I was coming from Santa Monica so wanted to avoid traffic. But I had a great spot and was on the tram by 7:10
I planned to do a few rides in FL first and ended up in the 3rd row of people at rope drop. It is insane how quickly the masses built behind me! Here was how my day went. While waiting, I Mobil ordered lunch and the time at jolly was already out to 12:10. Glad I did it early!

On Peter by 8:22

Alice says 20 min wait. Changed to 30 soon after. In line by 8:28. On ride by 8:48

Pirates no wait, on by 8:58

Haunted mansion in line 9:17, says 30 min wait. By 9:30 in elevator

Smugglers run 9:52 lightning lane. 15 min standby but only want to ride once. On ride by: 10

Rise: (bought) entered line by 10:22, ride by 10:30

Pinocchio said 15, entered at 11 on at 11:16

Small world said 20, in line by 11:24. At 11:50 it changed to a 45 min wait on ride at 12:10

Hopped to DCA

Web slingers single rider entered 1:22, 45 minute standby. As a single rider I walked on

Soarin 1:40 lightning lane, video by 151

RSR lightening lane but down. Snack and waited. It never came back up, sadly. Someday I will get to ride

2:30 mickey’s philharmagic seated 2:40


Back to DL

Mr toad says 15. Enter line 3:15, loaded 3:35

Pooh says 10 enter 3:56, on 4:03

Train got to station at 4:10. Train was there but full so waited for next. On 4:26

Entered HM LL 5:08, 5:18 in (95 min wait standby)

Small world genie 6:35 in line walk on, hour wait sb

Snow White says 20. In line 7:04, on ride at 7:28

And that was when I called it a day. Had been up early and my body is still on east coast time.

I could have hit the mountains with genie+ but opted out today. Didn’t do a lot at DCA. It was closing at 5 and crowds were crazy and I really just don’t know my way around that park at all and decided to head back to DL

By noon the crowds were noticeably crazy. I have never been to DL when it was so busy. Getting there early was very helpful. I loved taking some time and caught some of the parade, the tree lighting, the castle light show. Had some fun random interactions with characters that were walking around early on.

I ended up having the jolly holiday thanksgiving sandwich and their Santa hat macaron. Both were good, I thought. That macaron is HUGE! Also grabbed a peppermint ice cream cone at Gibson girl during the tree lighting, and had some of the chocolate Red Sea salt popcorn from Star Wars land in the morning (hey, it’s vacation!). That was really yummy. More cocoa than chocolate and the salt was a nice balance. Eating is the downside to solo traveling. Well, nice that I can decide where/what/when, but there were so many things I would have liked to have had a taste of. But without someone to share it doesn’t really work. Oh, I also got a Matterhorn macaroon to take back with me for today. Have already tried and that thing is so good!

 

[EEva]

Sounds like a very fun trip. Solo trips are the best.
I'm curious, what happened with your RSR ILL? Did you get a refund? If so did you have to request it at guest services or a blue umbrella? (do they even have the blue umbrella folks in DLR?)

 

[mtemm]

I went to two different umbrella people at DL (the first couldn’t get it to work and sent me to the other). Both were very nice and tried their best but it just kept coming up as error messages. They suggested I try city hall, but also said a refund should be automatic at midnight. I tried city hall but the line was crazy and not worth the $15 to me, to be honest. So now I am trying to get thru on chat. Tried to call and volume was so heavy it said to call back/no queue.

Will be curious what happens. I don’t want to throw money away, but since it was just me that line last night was not happening when I could be having fun

 

[chezcurrie]

Yay for solo disney day! Glad you had a great time and were able to go with the flow re: crowds!

 

[mtemm]

Follow up to ILL refund. I tried calling this morning and the recording said due to high volume I couldn’t even just stay on hold, and recommended using the chat feature in the app. I tried and and kept it open (due to volume someone would be with me as soon as possible). I checked often, but literally 5 hours later still nothing. Then I didn’t look at my phone for a bit and someone came on during that time, so it restarted the chat. I wrote again what my issue was and periodically checked the app and hours later still nothing. Honestly I was ready to just deal with it next week, when I just checked and had an email with my refund and a note in the chat that the refund had been applied.

Not sure if it would have been refunded without the chat, since I didn’t actually live chat with anyone.

 

[ter-moo]

Wasn't there a single rider line at RSR? That's what we always do--never more than 25 minute wait.

 

[twodogs]

I had a similar thing. We had ILL$ for RSR but the ride went down and didn't come up for hours. This was in mid October. Then it was close to park close, and we were too tired to trek all the way over there from DL to ride it. I went to the ticket booth and asked about a refund. They said it would be automatic in 24-48 hours, since the ride went down during our time and since we didn't use the ILL$. Of course, no refund came through. A week later I did the chat; took them 24 hours to answer which I didn't see, so then it restarted, just like yours. Hours later, someone came on the chat and said that they were able to look into it via the first chat that I started, and that they had therefore requested the refund. Sure enough, a few days later, the refund was on my card. I think there is NO WAY they would have refunded it without the chat or a phone call.

I honestly think they don't do the automatic refund on purpose. Many people don't want to waste vacation time or any time dealing with this, if they can't use their purchased ILL$. More money for Disney. The chat that gets back to you randomly 20 hours later is absolutely absurd and mostly useless. There should be an option on the app to cancel the ILL$ and get a refund if the ride goes down during your window. But of course, there is not.

 

[Pluto468]

That sounds like a wonderful day! I'm glad you had fun. All your food choices sound delicious.

 

[lcp9]

I had a similar thing. We had ILL$ for RSR but the ride went down and didn't come up for hours. This was in mid October. Then it was close to park close, and we were too tired to trek all the way over there from DL to ride it. I went to the ticket booth and asked about a refund. They said it would be automatic in 24-48 hours, since the ride went down during our time and since we didn't use the ILL$. Of course, no refund came through. A week later I did the chat; took them 24 hours to answer which I didn't see, so then it restarted, just like yours. Hours later, someone came on the chat and said that they were able to look into it via the first chat that I started, and that they had therefore requested the refund. Sure enough, a few days later, the refund was on my card. I think there is NO WAY they would have refunded it without the chat or a phone call.

I honestly think they don't do the automatic refund on purpose. Many people don't want to waste vacation time or any time dealing with this, if they can't use their purchased ILL$. More money for Disney. The chat that gets back to you randomly 20 hours later is absolutely absurd and mostly useless. There should be an option on the app to cancel the ILL$ and get a refund if the ride goes down during your window. But of course, there is not.

That's actually really gross (ILL refund), but unsurprising if that's what's going on.

 

[mtemm]

That's actually really gross (ILL refund), but unsurprising if that's what's going on.

I honestly don’t know if it would have automatically been refunded or not. I just didn’t want to leave it to chance, and also didn’t want to wait in the very long line for city hall. If I wasn’t solo/had my family with me, I probably would have waited and made sure it was taken care of while in park

 

[KPeterso]

We were there Tuesday afternoon through Friday and thought Wednesday was actually the quietest of the 4 days we were there. And by a lot. Tuesday and Friday were both absolutely insane. Thursday was not too bad. And Wednesday was nice, and we got the most accomplished that day.

 

[serendipityaey]

We were there Tuesday afternoon through Friday and thought Wednesday was actually the quietest of the 4 days we were there. And by a lot. Tuesday and Friday were both absolutely insane. Thursday was not too bad. And Wednesday was nice, and we got the most accomplished that day.

I thought Wednesday morning at DCA was actually pretty dead lol.

 

[mtemm]

We were there Tuesday afternoon through Friday and thought Wednesday was actually the quietest of the 4 days we were there. And by a lot. Tuesday and Friday were both absolutely insane. Thursday was not too bad. And Wednesday was nice, and we got the most accomplished that day.

I thought the morning at DLR was fine, but by afternoon is was wall to wall people wherever I went. As a solo/fairly nimble person, I maneuvered fine, but I haven’t been to DL since 2005 and I used to go to DL a ton in the ‘80s. Times/crowds have changed a lot!!!!

DCA wasn’t all that bad, I just got turned around a lot. I only had a handful of things I wanted to do there, though, since I was on limited time there.