First Disneyland Trip - How does it compare in wheelchair to WDW?

[sunburnin]

We're a veteran WDW and DCL family and are about to take our first trip to Disneyland. We are very excited. Can anyone share some insight on navigating with a power chair there compared to WDW? Are there reserved accessible spots for shows, fantasmic, WoC, etc? Are most queues wide for a chair? We will be getting a DAS, so we know how all that works, and glad we won't have to navigate busses. Thank you for any tips or advice!

 

[DisSurfer878]

So there are two parks in California for Disneyland. The OG Disneyland and Disneyland California Adventure Park (DCA).

DCA was built in 2001, so all of the lines in that park are wheelchair accessible and you can remain in your chair in line. Not sure if there are lines with restrictions for ones you have to transfer to regular manual chairs for so hopefully someone can chime in there.

HOWEVER, OG Disneyland has a lot of ride lines that are NOT wheelchair accessible even for manual wheelchairs. A lot of these queues are OLD and predate the existence of ADA. A lot of Fantasyland rides, Jungle Cruise, and Splash Mountain (if still open) are a few that come to mind but there's more. For those rides you will need to speak to a cast member and get a wheelchair return time, because you'll usually have to enter through the exit or a separate entrance. These return times are completely separate from DAS.

WoC and Fantasmic definitely have wheelchair accessible viewing. I'm pretty sure the fireworks do too. I don't know about the parade though so hopefully someone else can chime in.

 

[bluecruiser]

You can read some experiences in my trip report from 2019:
Trip report - first trip using an electric wheelchair at Disneyland

 

[elvispursley]

When we rented a wc for our DLR trip, I think we had to see a ride attendant for pretty much every ride at Disneyland. Some rides they just had has go down the exit ( space mt comes to mind). They were very accommodating. I tried to used my knee scooter but by the end of the first day, my knee hurt so bad from the rough terrain of lands that we ended up using a wc.