Hi everyone we are planning our first trip to the US for December this year - 11-17th in LA and 18th-24th in Hawaii. I think I am more excited than DD12 but the organising of it all is quite daunting! We're currently debating 3 or 4 days at
Disneyland, have heard it gets busier the closer to christmas so the plan is to go to DL first from the 12th to the 14th or 15th. Given the 15th is a Saturday so will be busier is it worth going that extra day? We figure this is probably our one trip to DL so we plan on staying at the Disneyland Hotel and getting the full on disney experience, has anyone stayed there and is it worth the extra $$?
to the boards Beee (had to put my glasses on then to make sure I added enough eee's
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Disneyland and Hawaii
what a heaven holiday! How exciting having your first trip to the USA in December. It is just magical over there at that time of year, so festive, so many decorations, carols playing everywhere (even in taxis!). I just saw that you are going to miss Christmas Day, you will leave Hawaii Christmas Eve, arrive back in Australia Boxing Day.
I definately think it's worth staying at one of the DL hotels! You will hear from many here that will say no, but it's really a personal thing. For us, for my family, it's worth it, we love it! I have never not stayed on property, I just love being completely at Disney and it's just something I have always done, since I was a child. My next trip I am going to do our first stay offsite, which I am actually looking forward to, having a change. In saying that who knows what will happen, we may end up at Paradise Pier as we haven't stayed there before. DLH (Disneyland Hotel) has recently been renovated so I haven't seen it or stayed there since the reno but it looks fantastic and seems to be getting great reviews.
The couple of weekends before Christmas are really busy. The year we were there, the Saturday nights had signs up out on the street saying that they were at capacity. But during the week, until the week before Christmas it was really nice. Sure it was busy, it's Disney, but no where near as busy as the week before Christmas. We really noticed the crowd levels from week to week when we were there for 2.5 weeks.
If you are staying at DLH (Disneyland Hotel), then you will have magical mornings, where you can go into the park before the general public. It is really great going in then, you get so many rides in over the first couple of hours that morning. Although not every ride in the park is open during magic mornings, you can still get many of the good rides done, before the crowds start building later in the morning. So you could go on the Saturday for a few hours in the morning and take advantage of the magic mornings. We didn't go on Saturdays on that last December trip, we went shopping and did day tours, but we were there for a long time so we could do that.
You can upgrade your ticket. So if you are there on the Friday and decide that you would like to do the Saturday, you can upgrade your ticket there at the ticket windows (maybe guest services too?
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We Aussies, love to hear about travels so feel free to share your details of your Hawaii trip too