First Time to Disneyland, have 3 questions. Would APPRECIATE any help!

[baketank]

Hi Everyone! I need the Disneyland experts' help. I am planning a trip to Disneyland for the first time and although I have been to DisneyWorld 30+ times, I am very unsure of how to plan how much time to get everything done at Disneyland. I am almost 100% sure that my dates will be check-in May 30th (Sunday) through check-out June 4th (Friday). My questions are as follows and any help on any of these would be extremely helpful:

1. My dates would be over the end of Memorial Day weekend. Monday, May 31st will be Memorial Day. Is that an overly busy day at Disneyland? Is it something I should avoid?

2. I read in the sticky that hours can be shorter during the non-busy seasons, especially during the weekdays. It seems the end of May, beginning of June is kind of a borderline time whether it is busy season or still slow season. Should I expect there to be a lot of ride closures or less nighttime activities that I will miss because I am not there for a true weekend night (Friday or Saturday)? Or will the fact that it is Memorial Day on Monday give me later hours etc.? Basically, since I am from Boston, I won't be making an annual trip to Disneyland and I want to make the most of the trip and see as much, if not all, of the rides and activities that Disneyland has to offer. I am beyond excited about my first visit there.

3. How many days do I need to attempt to see and do every activity at both parks? I know this can be subjective depending on the tour group, but we will make rope drop at least once at each park and we are staying at the Grande Californian Hotel, which I think I read lets you in California Adventure early one morning. Also, we are very versed in fastpass from Disneyworld so we will use that as much as possible. Since we will be arriving on Sunday and since its 3 hours earlier in CA than MA, I assume we will just head to a park for a few hours and do the rides that don't have lines to try to get a few things out of the way. So we will have all day Monday (Memorial Day), Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I am trying to decide if we need that last day. We are doing a split trip with Las Vegas, so we will be checking out on Friday and driving to Las Vegas for 3 nights. If we can reasonably get everything done, I might want to check out on Thursday instead and use that 4th night in Vegas.

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If you have read this far, thanks for your patience. I know it was a long one. Any help you can give me would be awesome. Thanks a lot everyone!

 

[Quilter007]

Read Hydroguy's tips.

It will probably be a busy weekend, but manageable.

Get there early every day. EVERY DAY!!!! Since you are staying on-site, take naps & stay until closing & you'll be able to do more stuff. Get there early & stay late is the key. Take the DVC tour in the middle of your first day & get some extra fastpasses & some free drinks. Plus it's kind of fun. PM me and use me as a reference -- if you actually buy it it will be cheaper supposedly. The tour takes about an hour & they usually give you 2 or 3 fastpasses for everyone in your group, so it's well worth the tour, plus a free soda. Just go to any DVC area & they take you over -- should be one in the Grand Cal.

If you don't have small kids, you may not want to do every attraction, like Toontown. If you don't have girls, you don't really need to say Hi to Tinkerbell, etc.

We have DSes 5 & 9 and we've done just about everything & the stuff we like multiple times from 6pm Fri nite untl park closing Sun nite. But, we stay late, get there at park opening & we know where we are going & we have a plan. Also, we don't mess around with parades & Fanspasmic (unless we cough up the $65 a head for the desserts & chairs), except for the Electrical Parade.

Another note, we generally do table service not counter service at Anaheim. We don't think the price difference is that great & the quality is a lot better & we like getting a break & some air conditioning is usually welcomed.

Also, I'd spend extra time in So Cal rather than Vegas. In order to do DCA "right" it takes a lot of time. Just the Animation building can take a couple of hours. An then there's the Aladdin show which is truly amazing & funny -- even my DSes enjoyed it. They should have more of the new stuff open by May '09. We don't always see the Aladdin show, we don't always take a drawing class at the Animation building, etc. But we go several times a year. However, we feel if you've seen one slot machine you've seen them all, so we just can't figure out why people spend more than 1 night in Vegas unless they are going for the golf. Of course, one of my favorite phrases is "Lotto is a tax on people who are bad at math!" Yeah -- the folks at 7-11 LOVE it when I say that when other customers are busy trying to see if they've won anything on their scratchers! If you think you'll run out of stuff to do @ D-land, you could always schedule a beach trip. Grab some El Pollo Loco & have a picnic @ Huntington Beach. You can rent surfboards & wetsuits in San Clemente near the pier & go surfing and then eat right on the pier. Just driving up PCH at sunset is fun......dang it -- now I want to go hang out for the week-end!

Again -- highly recommend Hydroguy's tips!

 

[HydroGuy]

Probably not that busy. But the weekend itself will be pretty busy. Do not let that scare you off though. The weekdays after Memorial day usually go back to something resembling off-season. So your entertainment choices may be more limited than you'd like. You may have seen this already: "What You Should Know About Off-Season at DLR" www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=18462889

I would recommend at least coming on Sunday evening to have an extra night of entertainment (Sunday in addition to Monday). Also, the excellent Aladdin show at DCA is better than any of the WDW stage shows and performs on Thurs-Sunday. So if you only do Mon-Wed you will miss it. It is a must see.

I would say come Sunday and see Aladdin and probably the new World of Color show opening in March. Then Monday you could see Fantasmic or something similar at DL.

You will probably not have too many ride closures at this time as DLR has finished most of the refurbs by then in prep for summer.

To see hours and ride closures in recent years see these links. The first one is having trouble with May 2009 for some reason. Check May 2008 and 2007.

http://www.laughingplace.com/Guide-Cal-dlr2-200805.asp

http://www.mouseplanet.com/search.php?type=c&cid=dl

If you only have three days I think you will not see everything and will feel a but rushed. Four days will be better. If you can only have three you can still have a solid experience. Three days is considered the minimum for DLR.

Have a magical trip!

 

[baketank]

Thank you for your responses. Those tips help a lot.

HydroGuy, I have read all your tips etc and they have helped a ton and saved me hours of self-research. I will make sure I book an early flight for Sunday, so I can make the night-time Fantasmic and the Electrical Light Parade in California Adventure, if the schedule is similar to last year. The link to the laughingplace was very very helpful to get an idea of what hours and what will be available during that time. Is Fantasmic like it is at DHS? Do you need to get there REALLY early to get a seat? I was hoping to see the Electrical Parade at CA Adventure and then go over to Disneyland for the late Fantasmic, is that feasible?


Quilter007, I am actually already a DVC member at the Animal Kingdom, so I doubt I can get fastpasses, maybe I still could because I dont own in CA. However, I think you are right and we will definately spend the extra night in Disneyland. We are planning on checking in Sunday and checking out Friday, so hopefully that will give us enough time to do pretty much everything. I appreciate the help.

 

[bumbershoot]

I was hoping to see the Electrical Parade at CA Adventure and then go over to Disneyland for the late Fantasmic, is that feasible?

It used to be somewhat possible, especially if you knew to stand behind the light tower (seems to be a blocked view until just before the show starts), but this year they've been messing with the timing, and people have said it's harder, if not impossible.

But to try, you actually want to watch the parade from the start, which means deep in the heart of DCA. It finishes in your area first, so you walk as briskly as possible to the pathway towards Grizzly River Run, follow that along and out, and you'll likely be leaving DCA before the parade gets to the Sunshine Plaza area.



Two years ago, the Monday of the holiday weekend was lovely. I read that many people were there over the weekend, but they all had late sunday flights, it seemed, and they'd cleared out. This year, however...busy.

 

[HydroGuy]

HydroGuy, I have read all your tips etc and they have helped a ton and saved me hours of self-research. I will make sure I book an early flight for Sunday, so I can make the night-time Fantasmic and the Electrical Light Parade in California Adventure, if the schedule is similar to last year. The link to the laughingplace was very very helpful to get an idea of what hours and what will be available during that time. Is Fantasmic like it is at DHS? Do you need to get there REALLY early to get a seat? I was hoping to see the Electrical Parade at CA Adventure and then go over to Disneyland for the late Fantasmic, is that feasible?

Next year 2010 is DL's 55th anniversary and DL will have something special going on. Rumors are that the Electrical Parade (used to be called Main Street Electrical Parade or MSEP but has been called Disney Electrical Parade - DEP - in recent years while at DCA) will return to DL for the 55th and agan become the MSEP. If so you should be able to catch it there.

Fantasmic is fairly similar to DHS but most including me who have seen both prefer the one at DL. The big difference is that F! does not have stadium seating at DL and actually performs on Tom Sawyer Island. Imagine at MK Fantasmic happening there in front of Country Bear Jamboree. It works at DL because they have designed the walkways with terraced levels to improve viewing of the show. Also at DL the show is more elaborate especially with the new (and tempermental) dragon. Definitely plan to see it at DL.

Getting a good viewing spot takes some planning. If there are two F! shows then you can get a spot for the second one 45 minutes ahead of time. The first show (or if there is only one showing) happens at 9PM and you need to get there a couple hours early to get a good spot.

 

[Flitterific]

DBF and I actually did a split DLR/Vegas trip this past Memorial Day weekend. We were in DLR the Thursday and Friday of Memorial Day weekend, drove to Vegas on Saturday and flew home on Wednesday. Although it was busy, the crowds at DLR were pretty manageable when we were there.

I definitely recommend staying the extra night at DLR instead of Vegas. We were in Vegas for 3 days and there wasn't much for us to do. Let's just say it's hard to enjoy Vegas after all the Disney magic Be prepared for the traffic while driving to Vegas though. We left around 2:30pm and didn't get to Vegas until after 9pm. But we did take a little detour on our way when we saw an exit pointing to a fashion outlet center and went shopping for a while

Be aware of the differences in weather and definitely pack in layers. The weather in Anaheim was perfect during the day (up to mid 70s) but it got chilly at night. Vegas was just super hot (in the high 90s).

Like a PP said, the Electrical Parade is amazing so I would definitely make time to watch that along with Fantasmic and the fireworks. I hope you'll have a wonderful time