The first full day and we were both awake early. For me, it was because I’d been awake every two hours since going to sleep and just chose to give up around 4:30am.
During our stay, we had the ‘extra magic hour’ each morning, which started at 8:30, with the parks opening for regular guests at 9:30. We got ourselves ready and headed to the Starbucks at the hotel for breakfast, before heading to the parks – opting to start with Walt Disney Studios.
DLP offer an ‘Ultimate’ version of their Premier Access pass, which bundles “all” the passes together, for a set price and enables you to ride each ride included once at a time of your choosing (when buying individually, you’re pass is limited to a set time window). It’s not the cheapest option, working out at approximately €90 each, but individually (in theory) the passes bought individually add up to more than that.
Premier Access lines don’t open until after extra magic is finished (and probably aren’t required either). We headed to Tower of Terror first and then after, we did Ratatouille and Crush’s Coaster – using our first Premier Access pass of the day.
Premier Access is a game changer for Crush. The ride is fun, but it is in no way worth the wait for stand by and due to the design of the shells (4 seats each), single rider can be just as long (as it’s rare that people are queuing in stand by alone, meaning it’s rare that single riders are needed). Waiting what is usually over an hour in stand by, for a ride that lasts 1 minute, 55 seconds is nothing but a recipe for disappointment. Premier Access lets you bypass that queue and enjoy the ride for what it is.
Once we’d rode the EAC all the way to Sydney, we headed out of the park and to the village and more specifically, Annette’s, for breakfast. The food was fine, a severe lack of servers on roller-skates though – only saw one guy.
After breakfast, we headed into the main Disneyland Park. We hit up the usual suspects of Phantom Manor, Pirates, Big Thunder, Disneyland Railroad, Peter Pan, Tea Cups, Star Tours and Autopia.
I’d never been on any version of Autopia before. Mostly because I’m not that interested in cars, and the fumes the Florida one gives off has never enticed me in. How it hasn’t been ripped out and replaced by something before now is a mystery to me. It’s such a lame ride (though, I understand it’s probably a people eater), that takes up such a large plot of land. It could be used for something so much better.
We then attempted to do Orbitron. It has a Premier Access line, and so with our ‘Ultimate’ pass, we went to scan it in.
Nope.
For some reason (and I couldn’t find an answer in the 5 second google I did at the time), Orbitron is not included in the Ultimate pass and it seems to be the only Premier Access pass not included in the Ultimate bundle. BUT WHY?!
After that (extremely minor) disappointment, we headed back to the Studios park and to Avenger’s Campus, to experience it all at night. Which, wasn’t as cool as I thought it’d be. I enjoyed the Campus in general, but thought it’d look cooler at night.
I won at Spider-man again though, so that was good.
One of the biggest issues with going to the parks at this time of year, during the quiet season, is that they close too early. You’re forced to spend all day in the parks to get the most out of your trip, but if you go back to the hotel to rest at all, it’s pretty much pointless going back out, as the parks will be closing shortly after. There is, of course, the balance of them being quieter and queues being less busy, but I don’t know if the trade-off is worth it. Especially when you’re buying the premier access passes any way.
