Cars Land Opens - Dude, You're Stepping On My Toe

Cars Land Opening Day - Morning
A Fishbulb MiceChat Inside the Parks Photo

What could you do with six hours of your life? I'll answer that question shortly. So yesterday Disney California Adventure, with pomp and circumstance, re-opened to the public. Yes, the walls were all down and Buena Vista Street and Cars Land were finally opened to thousands of eager Disney fans, many of whom waited all night to get in. For most of those people, Buena Vista Street is a place to pass by on your way to Cars Land. Yes, Cars Land was the place to be yesterday for seemingly everyone in DCA. The rest of the park was busy, but manageable. Cars Land was a mad house and will be that way for awhile, especially for the next week or so. 

How bad was it? Well, as anticipated, the lines for the two smaller rides - the controversial Luigi's Flying Tires and the surprisingly fun Mater's Junkyard Jamboree almost immediately jumped into the 90 minute wait time category. 90 minutes for rides that are less than 2 minutes long? That's nothing.

Yesterday it was all about the public (and I would be willing to bet that the majority of these people are annual pass holders) getting their chance to get on Radiator Springs Racers. By reports, within 15 minutes of park opening, the stand-by line to get on was 3 hrs. MousePlanet reported that fast passes for the entire day were completely distributed by 9:55 am. No more - the machines were closed. About 20 minutes after the ride opened, it had to be temporally shut down, and people continued to line up with a line that extended back to the Paradise Pier bridge. How long was that line? I saw estimates that it was five and a half to six hours long! What could you do with six hours of your line standing life back? I read a post from someone that they could hop on a plane, fly the 3000 miles to Orlando, take the bus to WDW, check into a hotel, go over to EPCOT, and get on Soarin' in about six hours. A bit of a stretch but not a big one.

Later in the day and through the evening, the stand-by wait time posted 240 minute wait times - about 4 hours. According to MousePlanet, the wait time of 240 minutes was still posted when DCA closed at 11:00 pm. As Disney practice, if you are standing in line for a ride when the park closes, you get on. I guess that means the ride finally shut down for the night about 3:00 am. There might have been some overtime for cast members here.

It will be interesting to see how the crowds progress through the summer. I'm keeping my distance for now. My feet hurt bad enough from walking on a trip to Disneyland. I don't need my toes stepped on as well.