Disneyland tomorrow - quick help?

[jbbhb]

If you are open to doing California adventure instead of Disneyland I think your DC will see a lot of more characters of interest there. My boys are 3 & 5 and choose CA almost every time we go (we are pass holders so usually once a week). You can see the Disney Jr show which is pretty cute, plus see characters in the Hollywood area, bugs land, and car land. I think you will get a lot more done in California adventure in four hours. You could probably do all the rides in bugs land in less than an hour at rope drop, hit cars land to see Lightning McQueen and mater, then go do monsters inc and Hollywood area, see the Disney jr show and be done. Hope you have fun!

[PZMommy]

If you are open to doing California adventure instead of Disneyland I think your DC will see a lot of more characters of interest there. My boys are 3 & 5 and choose CA almost every time we go (we are pass holders so usually once a week). You can see the Disney Jr show which is pretty cute, plus see characters in the Hollywood area, bugs land, and car land. I think you will get a lot more done in California adventure in four hours. You could probably do all the rides in bugs land in less than an hour at rope drop, hit cars land to see Lightning McQueen and mater, then go do monsters inc and Hollywood area, see the Disney jr show and be done. Hope you have fun!

This is a really good suggestion! My boys like all the characters at CA much better, but like the rides at DL better, my parents haven't gone to DL in 25 years, so we are doing DL tomorrow. We usually do a park hopper and hit both parks in a day, but have a feeling we will be moving at a slower pace tomorrow.

[MMMommy]

Like PPs have mentioned, being there right at opening is your best bet. You can get the most done in the first two hours of opening. 10am/11am and after, it gets very crowded with long lines. If you are not there right at opening and arrive late morning or lunchtime, you will not be able to ride many rides at all in a four hour time span. Those first two hours make a huge difference in the number of rides you can ride.

[AnnieW625]

If you can afford to go for four hours and live within a two hour radius of DL I highly suggest getting passes instead. Even when we had passes we went for at least 6 hrs. a visit and went about once a month (the only time we didn't stay that long was on Mothers Day and it was a zoo so we left after 3 hours). I don't trip plan at all so a 4 hr. time plan wouldn't work for me at all because I would be a basket case figuring out what I could see in that time frame.

We would alternate parks so we would spend the bulk of the day at one park and then pick two or three must rides at the other park. When the kids were really little we would walk over to CA after DL so DH could ride CA Screaming and I would walk around with the girls in the stroller while he rode it.

[bisous]

If you can afford to go for four hours and live within a two hour radius of DL I highly suggest getting passes instead. Even when we had passes we went for at least 6 hrs. a visit and went about once a month (the only time we didn't stay that long was on Mothers Day and it was a zoo so we left after 3 hours). I don't trip plan at all so a 4 hr. time plan wouldn't work for me at all because I would be a basket case figuring out what I could see in that time frame.

We would alternate parks so we would spend the bulk of the day at one park and then pick two or three must rides at the other park. When the kids were really little we would walk over to CA after DL so DH could ride CA Screaming and I would walk around with the girls in the stroller while he rode it.

I think this is a good suggestion. Passes are awesome. They're so much more expensive now then they were ten years ago when we started getting them! (They were $99 then--isn't that crazy?) But we loved the flexibility to ride our favorite ride 5 x and watch the ducks and then go home, lol. Still, even with those activities we'd often stay longer than 4 hours!

Good luck tomorrow! I hope you love it as much as we do! I think that if you do find yourself loving it, you can buy passes at the end of the day, applying the cost of your tickets to the cost of your passes, but check first to make sure!

[AnnieW625]

I think this is a good suggestion. Passes are awesome. They're so much more expensive now then they were ten years ago when we started getting them! (They were $99 then--isn't that crazy?) But we loved the flexibility to ride our favorite ride 5 x and watch the ducks and then go home, lol. Still, even with those activities we'd often stay longer than 4 hours!

Good luck tomorrow! I hope you love it as much as we do! I think that if you do find yourself loving it, you can buy passes at the end of the day, applying the cost of your tickets to the cost of your passes, but check first to make sure!

The first year we had passes in 2008-2009 the pass we had where would go on Sunday was $179 a person, but by the time we let them expire in 2012 it was up to $350 a person (and we would have had to buy 4 of them) and now our pass sadly no longer exists unless you have had it on auto pay since 2012 or 2013 iirc. We go once a year to each park when they offer the special SoCal resident offer (although we didn't go this year).

[mackmama]

If you are open to doing California adventure instead of Disneyland I think your DC will see a lot of more characters of interest there. My boys are 3 & 5 and choose CA almost every time we go (we are pass holders so usually once a week). You can see the Disney Jr show which is pretty cute, plus see characters in the Hollywood area, bugs land, and car land. I think you will get a lot more done in California adventure in four hours. You could probably do all the rides in bugs land in less than an hour at rope drop, hit cars land to see Lightning McQueen and mater, then go do monsters inc and Hollywood area, see the Disney jr show and be done. Hope you have fun!

We are just here for the week, so this sounds like the perfect plan. Thank you!

For PP, I have no idea what a character lunch is. I'm going to go google it since that sounds fun too for a different day maybe.

[Tondi G]

Here is the link for Goofy's Kitchen. It's a buffet with multiple characters. Super fun for kids who love the characters .... was a complete nightmare for our friends child who was petrified of the characters!

https://disneyland.disney.go.com/din...oofys-kitchen/

We are just here for the week, so this sounds like the perfect plan. Thank you!

For PP, I have no idea what a character lunch is. I'm going to go google it since that sounds fun too for a different day maybe.

[mackmama]

So for those saying to get there by the time it opens... it opens at 8am. So you all are suggesting leaving San Diego at 6:30am? All things Disneyland are completely new to me, but this seems like madness.

[SnuggleBuggles]

Like I said, if you are in the park, not parking lot, by 9:30 you should have 1-1.5 hours of manageable crowds. Obviously the earlier you get there before 10:30-11, the better. I have never successfully arrived at rope drop and still got tons find before the lazy folk arrive.