Follow up dining question - leave to go to DTD then return to park?

[SweetieinVT]

How big a to do is it to leave the park to go eat at DTD and then return? How long a walk is it and are we likely to get stuck in lines getting back in?

 

[Bad Pink Tink 2.0]

It depends on where in the park you are, what time of day, as in if a parade is on, and if you are walking or taking the Monorail.

 

[Steven G]

DTD is located right next to the Esplanade, which is the main entrance/exits to DL and DCA.

However, consider that DTD is a long strip of land, so if you are talking about a restaurant at the other end, it is a walk (or you can take the monorail, if you are in DL to get to the other end).

To get from the esplanade to the other end of DTD is about a 10-15 minute walk.

To get from the esplanade to where you want to go in the park, could be anywhere from less than 5 minutes to 15 minutes.
Taking the monorail from DL can be a time save, if you are near that area (near autopia in tomorrowland), but it would still be at least a 5 minute trip depending on waiting for the next monorail.

So it can be done, but you are likely going to be losing 30 minutes to an hour getting to your destination and back on average. Of course, if you were going to go "earl of sandwich" which is right outside the gates (until they get rid of it at that location), then you would lose only a small amount of time if you were close the entrance of the parks.

If you are in DCA, you can consider going to the GCH hotel restaurants, as well.

Getting back into the park (either one) after park opening during the day or evening is usually not difficult (less than 5 minutes), unless you are going when park hopping starts, or there is a special event going on that is starting at that time.

 

[Howry]

Honestly DTD is pretty much like part of the park other then you will need to go through the turnstiles again.

 

[LKing]

It is very easy and very close. There is a possibility that you will need to wait in line to go through the park turnstile, but if there is a line, it doesn't usually take long.

Below is a map. At the top right are the Disneyland turnstiles. The bottom right are DCA turnstiles. The red line is DTD. The yellow circles are where security is located. If you leave DTD and go past security, you will need to go through security again when you re-enter DTD. Sometimes there are lines for security, but usually just in the early morning.

If you enter the GCH, you will need to go through security when you re-enter DTD or to use the GCH entrance into DCA.

 

[JerrodDragon89]

If your going to Disneyland and your eating wayyyy down in DTD, I'd take the Monorail if its opened to skip any big lines at the park gates

 

[lalasmama]

As others have said, DTD is right there next to the turnstiles for DL and DCA. Any sit-down restaurant will have you out of the parks for 60-90 minutes. We had never done a sit-down until this last June, mainly because we had always done the counter service from Tortilla Jo's... but this time, it was closed, and we had the pickiest of our picky-eater grandkids, so we had limited choices, lol. Seriously, we were there for 5 days, and I believe that dang kid ate pizza or chicken nuggets for lunch and dinner every.single.day. We ended up at Black Tap (I think that was it) on our travel day and dinner took 90 minutes. We definitely weren't expecting that! But it was also a Saturday evening. Any other time I wouldn't expect it to be so bad.

Getting back into the parks will be no big deal if it's after mid-morning. Those rope-drop to mid-morning turnstile lines can be a little rough due to all the people who are arriving with their tickets for the first use, meaning tons of people needing to get their pictures taken. Once you get past those first few hours, the turnstile lines move substantially quicker; I don't know that I've had to wait more than 5-10 minutes to get in if it's past 11:00 am. Side note: there is usually an increase in the length of lines right around 11:00 am when park hopping starts.