WDW to DL

[fosse76]

fosse76 - themed queues aside, did you catch any shows/parades? DCA has Pixar Play Parade and the Aladdin musical.. in addition to other streetmosphere shows. Sounds like you skipped a lot if you only spent half a day there. There's also World of Color coming up next month, which will keep many guests in the park until dark.

I hate parades. ALL parades. I find them pointless so I skipped them. I saw the Aladdin Musical twice (and must say I find their preferred seating policy extremely discriminatory, especially considering how it is a "locals" park). The few times I walked down Main Street, I didn't see any streetmosphere performers. I spent quite a deal of time in the Main Street shops (including the gallery next to Lincoln, with the Peter Pan painting I desparately want to own), watched a few cartoons at the Cinema, meandered through New Orleans Square, watched the quartet as it was conducted by Mickey Mouse; a few days later I caught a band in the Square, took the Omnibus, spent some time people watching near the statue in the hub. I spent very little time actually waiting in any lines. I took hundreds of pictures. So I can say I didn't skip much of anything.

As for the OP's question - My thoughts on this are simple.. You can never go wrong with Walt's original Magic Kingdom I think every Disney fan should try and visit Disneyland at some point in their life.

I like Disneyland better. It just feels like there's more to do in a closer space. I was lucky, crowds were pretty light. Even Saturday, my last day there, was a bit slower than I expected (but it was definitely more crowded). What I had is the advantage of single-rider lines + good timing. A lot of attractions in any theme park tend to have differing periods of busy-ness. I just happened to get to a few of them during a slow period.

 

[TP2000]

Bottom line is there is almost the same amount of attractions crammed into the 2 Disneyland parks as there are in the 4 WDW theme parks.

Yup, amazing isn't it? And then when you consider that there are currently five all-new attractions being built in DCA that open in 2011 and 2012, it's even more amazing how much they pack into the two Anaheim parks compared to the four parks in WDW that are more sparse.

A first-time Disney fan would probably want 4 days to do DLR. But if it's a busy time of year, perhaps 5 days, especially when all the evening entertainment at both parks is scheduled into the mix. During a slow time of year, like right now, you could probably spend 3 full days at DLR and get almost all of it done.

But it's going to be darn near impossible to get on every attraction at Disneyland even during a multi-day visit. You're going to leave something out; Columbia or Canoes instead of Mark Twain... Getting on all seven Fantasyland-style dark rides in Disneyland where Magic Kingdom only has three... Doing both the StorybookLand Canal Boats and Casey Jr. Circus Train... etc., etc.