Are fast passes necessary in January? Parades in January?

[tycopj]

I'm hoping January won't be very busy in Disneyland. We are going to be in the Park between Jan 22 and Jan 28. Do I need to learn all there is to know about fast passes, or will it be that we won't need them?

Does anyone know if there will be parades in January, if so, is there a schedule somewhere that I can get?

Thanks
Lynn

 

[iceskatejen]

January is low crowd season, so you may not need fastpasses, though it's good to know about them anyway. They're pretty easy to use, though I have heard a lot of misinformation from various people in the parks (which I generally correct them on). One I heard a couple months ago was that you couldn't get more than one FP for the same ride in a day (ie--if you got one TOT FP you couldn't get another later that day). This isn't true--I have not only had two FPs for the same ride in the same day, I've held them both at the same time. The window for getting another FP opened up before I used the first one.

As for parades, I'm guessing the Parade of Stars will be running daily most likely though the schedule might not be up for at least another few weeks (check around the beginning of Nov) and at DCA the Electrical Parade should be running on weekends.

 

[Judy from Boise]

The need for FP diminishes greatly if you are willing to use the single rider line ( if operating) on Splash, CA Screaming, and Indy. If not for all of those rides plus Soaring over CA.....I think FP is necessary to ride without waits.

 

[Amy&Dan]

Have been in February, which I assume is a lot like January. On the weekends you will still need fastpass. During the week, especially Tue-Thur you won't need it much if at all. Also, on slow days sometimes they don't even offer fastpasses. Even our last trip in September, they didn't uncover the machines for Splash Mountain until later in the day on a Saturday. It's a great time to go but more things will be down for refurbishment. Also, Iceskatejen is right about that fastpass thing. You can definitely get one for the same ride in the same day (once the original's return time has come up). I too had a castmember of all people tell me you only got one per ride per day! I have never seen a system so misunderstood by so many! Parade of Stars will probably run once a day during the week and twice a day on the weekends. When it gets closer to your time, just log into Disneyland.com and click on calendar to check your specific dates. Have fun!

 

[iceskatejen]

The person who thought you couldn't get more than one per ride per day was told this by a CM also.

 

[Belle2002]

I just came back from DL, and when traffic is low, they didn't even have the fast pass machines open, it wasn't neccessary. The parks only had the fast pass running on the weekend.

 

[tycopj]

Thanks for the info, I really hope the lines are short, that would be great for the kids, and me too!!!

 

[pcryan]

We were just at the parks this weekend and found we didn't really need them. The only one we got was for the Haunted Mansion because we wanted it to go on right before the BB for lunch. We thought it took more time to walk around to get them than to actually stand in line for the ride because they were for a time within the hour. The longest line(s) were a 70 minute wait on Splash on Friday evening and a 60 minute wait for Tower on Saturday night. Tower is really far from anything else to walk to so it just didn't make sense to get it and then go back. On Sat morning about an hour after the park opened we walked right on Splash. Did the same for Tower on Sun morning.

I felt the park was on the busy side too especially because it was open so late at night, 11 on Fri and 12 on Sat.