First revisit in years.. questions

[Model3 McQueen]

Family wants to visit the parks later this year. If you recall awhile back I started a thread about this months ago, but that trip ended up getting cancelled so we're all trying again for December.

Here's my list of questions:

1. -Is it possible to book 3 days, with only 1 as a park hopper option, without losing out on the 3-day streak discount?
This would ideally be 2 days DL, 1 day split between DCA & DL. Or maybe it'd just make sense to do both parks all 3 days?

2. -Without fastpass, how difficult is standby going to be? Do I need to look into saving up for LL & Genie+?

3. -Does ROTR still require mobile checkin?

4. -We will be taking our 1 year old for the first time. Literally any advice on this front will be much appreciated. Where can I see a list of attractions we can take her on?

5. -How have crowds been this year? I read attendance was down even though profits are through the roof.

Thank you everyone, truly. I know I've been a nasty pessimist but it really has been over 4 or 5 years since I've stepped foot here. It'll either be a nice breath of fresh air, or a bad reminder.

 

[PiratesMansion]

Family wants to visit the parks later this year. If you recall awhile back I started a thread about this months ago, but that trip ended up getting cancelled so we're all trying again for December.

Here's my list of questions:

1. -Is it possible to book 3 days, with only 1 as a park hopper option, without losing out on the 3-day streak discount?
This would ideally be 2 days DL, 1 day split between DCA & DL. Or maybe it'd just make sense to do both parks all 3 days?

2. -Without fastpass, how difficult is standby going to be? Do I need to look into saving up for LL & Genie+?

3. -Does ROTR still require mobile checkin?

4. -We will be taking our 1 year old for the first time. Literally any advice on this front will be much appreciated. Where can I see a list of attractions we can take her on?

5. -How have crowds been this year? I read attendance was down even though profits are through the roof.

Thank you everyone, truly. I know I've been a nasty pessimist but it really has been over 4 or 5 years since I've stepped foot here. It'll either be a nice breath of fresh air, or a bad reminder.

1. You can't buy a park hopper ticket for just one day, it's all or nothing. I mean, you could buy it on your last day, but you would still be charged the 3 day rate for hoppers. Remember that currently you can't hop before 1 PM.
2. I didn't do a ton of standby for the big stuff, but looking at the app (despite much discourse about how much more Genie guests may or may not be waved ahead of standby guests) it didn't appear to be dramatically different from the past. Genie isn't dramatically different from MaxPass except you can't reride things, some attractions cost extra, and the interface is worse.
3. Nope, you can do standby for everything now, including Rise and Spider-Man.
4. Can't help on this one.
5. Can only speak for the five days I was there in July. Those days, park certainly felt at a normal level of crowds, if not even a bit more crowded than I was used to in the past, though part of that might just have been a result of the different passes in place.

 

[chadwpalm]

Family wants to visit the parks later this year. If you recall awhile back I started a thread about this months ago, but that trip ended up getting cancelled so we're all trying again for December.

Here's my list of questions:

1. -Is it possible to book 3 days, with only 1 as a park hopper option, without losing out on the 3-day streak discount?
This would ideally be 2 days DL, 1 day split between DCA & DL. Or maybe it'd just make sense to do both parks all 3 days?

2. -Without fastpass, how difficult is standby going to be? Do I need to look into saving up for LL & Genie+?

3. -Does ROTR still require mobile checkin?

4. -We will be taking our 1 year old for the first time. Literally any advice on this front will be much appreciated. Where can I see a list of attractions we can take her on?

5. -How have crowds been this year? I read attendance was down even though profits are through the roof.

Thank you everyone, truly. I know I've been a nasty pessimist but it really has been over 4 or 5 years since I've stepped foot here. It'll either be a nice breath of fresh air, or a bad reminder.

1. Parkhopper is a $60 add-on no matter the ticket type whether it is one day or 5 days, so buying a parkhopper for one day wouldn't make sense as it is the same price to buy it for all 3 of your days. Plus you don't have a choice. You can't break up multi-day tickets like that. It would actually cost more to buy 3 single-day tickets with one day having parkhopper than to buy a 3-day ticket with parkhopper.

2. If it's December I'd recommend Genie+ for at least one of your days. It will probably be fairly busy. I wouldn't get ILL for Rise as the wait times are usually shorter than what is posted. Just wait for it to be 70-80 minutes (or less) and it probably won't last more than 45-60 minutes. WebSlingers you may have to pay if don't want to wait 80+ minutes if you really want to try it once. That's what I did.

3. As PiratesMansion said, no more virtual queues for attractions except for World of Color.

4. All the attraction listings on the website/app tell you the height limits. You'd be surprised how many rides at DL don't have restrictions. Probably more than do. At that point, it's up to you as the parent to gauge your child's limits.

5. Somewhat busy, but not as bad as times I've seen before the pandemic. Toon Town being down doesn't help, but it's not crazy. You can usually get a lot done before 11am.

 

[Model3 McQueen]

1. You can't buy a park hopper ticket for just one day, it's all or nothing. I mean, you could buy it on your last day, but you would still be charged the 3 day rate for hoppers. Remember that currently you can't hop before 1 PM.
2. I didn't do a ton of standby for the big stuff, but looking at the app (despite much discourse about how much more Genie guests may or may not be waved ahead of standby guests) it didn't appear to be dramatically different from the past. Genie isn't dramatically different from MaxPass except you can't reride things, some attractions cost extra, and the interface is worse.
3. Nope, you can do standby for everything now, including Rise and Spider-Man.
4. Can't help on this one.
5. Can only speak for the five days I was there in July. Those days, park certainly felt at a normal level of crowds, if not even a bit more crowded than I was used to in the past, though part of that might just have been a result of the different passes in place.

1. Parkhopper is a $60 add-on no matter the ticket type whether it is one day or 5 days, so buying a parkhopper for one day wouldn't make sense as it is the same price to buy it for all 3 of your days. Plus you don't have a choice. You can't break up multi-day tickets like that. It would actually cost more to buy 3 single-day tickets with one day having parkhopper than to buy a 3-day ticket with parkhopper.

2. If it's December I'd recommend Genie+ for at least one of your days. It will probably be fairly busy. I wouldn't get ILL for Rise as the wait times are usually shorter than what is posted. Just wait for it to be 70-80 minutes (or less) and it probably won't last more than 45-60 minutes. WebSlingers you may have to pay if don't want to wait 80+ minutes if you really want to try it once. That's what I did.

3. As PiratesMansion said, no more virtual queues for attractions except for World of Color.

4. All the attraction listings on the website/app tell you the height limits. You'd be surprised how many rides at DL don't have restrictions. Probably more than do. At that point, it's up to you as the parent to gauge your child's limits.

5. Somewhat busy, but not as bad as times I've seen before the pandemic. Toon Town being down doesn't help, but it's not crazy. You can usually get a lot done before 11am.

Thank you both, very informative.