First Trip- Disneyland at the beginning or end of trip?

[Disney Dad ADL]

And yes, Legoland and Legoland Hotel are everything I made them out to be.

Another thumbs up here for Legoland Hotel for little kids. It's a whole different experience staying at Legoland Hotel vs staying "offsite" IMO. Going to Legoland after Disneyland may be a letdown for adults, but for the kids it will not be. Legoland Hotel is literally built for preschool aged kids, everything is so easy there. We've spent a whole week at Legoland before and our kids never get tired of it (they are currently 4 and 3 y/o), though the adults might (I personally don't mind it though as long as the kids are having fun). Fortunately, they have a large cocktail selection at the bar, lol. Our kids are maybe not typical, though. They tend to be fine with doing the same thing over and over again. In the mornings, there's a free breakfast buffet, then a 2 minute walk over to Legoland. Naptime in the afternoon, then hang out at the hotel in the evening playing in the Lego moat. Zero entry pool with big foam Legos to play with (but it will probably be too cold to swim in February). Even the toilets have built in toddler-sized toilet seats.

We just came back from Disneyland last week, our 3 year old still prefers Legoland (that's what she says, though she's not always reliable, lol), our 4 year old says he likes Disneyland and Legoland equally (he's very diplomatic!).

The biggest problem with Legoland and Legoland Hotel is that everything closes so early, and there's not a lot of dining options in the hotel. Also, it's really only for little kids. I think 5-6 y/o and younger is optimal, 7-8 is probably fine. 9-10 y/o is probably getting a bit too old.

In terms of Disneyland EMH, Disneyland EMH is Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday and California Adventure is Sunday/Monday/Wednesday/Friday. It's 1 hour before official park opening If you're staying off-site, as mentioned previously you will get 1 EMH at Disneyland but you cannot go to EMH at California Adventure. Onsite you get EMH every day. California Adventure does potentially have pre-park opening ADRs at Ariel's Grotto (if DCA opens later than 9 AM), but I'm not sure what kind of advantage you actually get from it. We had a 9 AM breakfast at Ariel's Grotto on a day when DCA opened at 10 AM (non-EMH day). There were literally zero people in the park as we were walking to our breakfast reservation though, but we didn't finish until 10 AM, so the park was already open by the time we finished.

https://disneyland.disney.go.com/guest-services/extra-magic-hour-early-admission/

The DCA entrance at GCH is sometimes limited to hotel guests only during busy times. We were there from 9/5-9/9. On Friday morning, there was a sign saying that only hotel guests could use the GCH DCA entrance. As mentioned though, you generally don't want to use the GCH entrance during rope drop anyway because there is only 1 security checkpoint.

In terms of nighttime entertainment, there is WOC every night as others have mentioned. They *might* have the Main Street Electrical Parade back by February, they are saying "early next year" whatever that means.

 

[wehrengrizz]

Yeah I found this very confusing. They call one EMH (what they call it in WDW) and one Early Entry. The days rotate but EE is only for DCA for onsite guests and EMH is for DL for both, with the park hoppers you have to pick the one morning you are going to use it vs onsite get it all days. If you are using the EMH get there early. It was a lot more crowded than I thought as both hotel guests and park hoppers have it (there were also other confused people who got there early and thought they could just get in like everyone else to get turned away at the turnstyle as they had regular passes). Also EMH is for DL is for certain lands, so you don't get just big rides spread out. My day was for Fantasyland and Tomorrowland, but most of Tomorrowland was closed so we only did 2-3 things in the hour

Thank you again for this information. I'm definitely reworking my plan now. I was just at DLR on a last-minute trip with a friend and with zero of our children we were able to get so much done! We also stayed onsite thus my assumptions on the EMH/EE/MM confusion haha. I guess we can take advantage of some pictures and hopefully do Peter Pan (before the requisite 40+ min wait)... then run over toward tomorrowland to get our Jedis signed up? Do you know if Toon Town is opened early too?