We (me, wife, D4 and D1) are eyeing February 2-9 for our first trip to Disneyland. D4 is obsessed with Cars and we want to get her to see Radiator Springs before Star Wars hits and the entire resort becomes a zoo for two years. I have my Orlando trip planning down to an absolute science but I'm completely out of my element trying to plan Disneyland. Our normal WDW touring schedule is four hours in the parks in the morning, three hours at the hotel in the afternoons, and four more hours in the parks in the evenings. We usually take the morning off after a late night show.
What are everyone's tips in terms of allocating time to the two parks? We want to do absolutely everything since we don't plan to make this trip very often (if at all) in the future, meaning we'll need to allow time for rider swap so we can get on the "big kid" rides that the girls will be too small to go on. What should I expect in terms of crowds? Is rope drop as important at DLR as it is at WDW? One thing I'm really not liking is the lack of FastPass+. It seems to throw a major wrench in my normal plans of taking the morning off after a show.
We'll be staying at either the Disneyland Hotel or the Grand Californian, so we'll have access to Extra Magic Hours (or whatever they call it out there). I'm tentatively thinking of taking advantage of them on the days the parks open at 10am (9am EMH), but going to the opposite park on the days when the parks open at 8am or 9am (7am or 8am EMH).
What are everyone's tips in terms of allocating time to the two parks? We want to do absolutely everything since we don't plan to make this trip very often (if at all) in the future, meaning we'll need to allow time for rider swap so we can get on the "big kid" rides that the girls will be too small to go on. What should I expect in terms of crowds? Is rope drop as important at DLR as it is at WDW? One thing I'm really not liking is the lack of FastPass+. It seems to throw a major wrench in my normal plans of taking the morning off after a show.
We'll be staying at either the Disneyland Hotel or the Grand Californian, so we'll have access to Extra Magic Hours (or whatever they call it out there). I'm tentatively thinking of taking advantage of them on the days the parks open at 10am (9am EMH), but going to the opposite park on the days when the parks open at 8am or 9am (7am or 8am EMH).
Last edited:
You can opt for MaxPass if you want, $10/day/person, and it feeds real-time FP availability to your phone through the app. Otherwise you're doing it like the non-WDW parks (and how WDW used to be), going to the machines and getting tickets that way. But I'd say FP just isn't as important at DL because I generally find the ride lines to be much shorter. The shorter lines and the close proximity of many of the attractions makes it much easier to do a lot of rides in a shorter period of time. You could probably still take the morning off after a show and have tons of FPs available when you get to the park. The only rides where they really go quickly and often run out are RSR and GOTG (add Space if HyperSpace. 
