How far in advance?

[SunshineCoast]

Hi!

I've just been given the okay to plan a family's tip to Disneyland for May 2015. This would be for both our anniversary and my youngest sons birthday. My first question(s) is how far out is it "normal" to start booking? And is it better/easier to go through a TA? I know this last question is highly debatable. This will be our second trip (we are doing a DCL trip to Alaska this September.


I've looked around and there seems to be so much information/planning compared to how easy it was to do the cruise. I know we want to do 2-3 days at Legoland (not sure how many is good to see the whole park) and 3-4 days in DL. It seems significantly cheaper to book offsite? But I'm worried about transport to/from both DL and Legoland as we are flying?

Any thoughts/recommendations?

Thanks

 

[sechelt]

I start looking as soon as I know a trip is planned but don't actually book until less than a year out. Sometimes, if I think I've got a great price, I'll book early but at least once I've booked the month before I left. I've never used a travel agent because the researching and planning is half the fun for me. I've never been disappointed or felt like I made a wrong decision. I've booked a package through Disney and I've bought/booked the individual pieces on my own. You have lots of time to explore and research before making final decisions, and you can always book one place and change as the time gets closer.

Yes, there is a huge savings by staying off site and, because DL is so close to the hotels on Harbor, there's very little reason to spend the extra for a Disney hotel. Here's a link showing where some of the closer hotels are:
http://www.accommodationsneardisney.com/Disneyland/default.asp

Have you considered flying into SNA? It's quite a bit closer to DL than LAX is. We've always rented a car to get around. It will also make it easier to get to Legoland. Lots, and I mean lots, of people arrange a car service or take a taxi/shuttle.

How much time you spend at each place will depend on your own likes and dislikes. Our daughter's family went last year when their boys were 3 and 5. They spent only one day at Lego Land and 5 days at DL.

Something to consider when planning is that Grad Nights start mid May and continue through June. If you don't want to be in the park at the same time, go in early May.

 

[Phoenixrising]

If you are travelling during non peak times (Peak times are Spring break, Halloween, Thanksgiving/Christmas and any other American Holiday), then I find that 5 months is enough time to book the hotel you want and then find airfare. I do it myself, and find personally it's cheaper than going with a TA, but it's really what you are comfortable doing. There are lot's of great offsite hotels close to the parks, and personally find it alot cheaper to stay at one of the offsite hotels versus a DL hotel. I can recommend, the Best Western Park Place Inn (right across the street from the parks and is a good, decent basic hotel, that's less than a 5 mins walk to the park). Howard Johnson's Anaheim is also good, as well as the Candy Cane Inn. I love flying into SNA airport, as it's much closer to the parks as well as cheaper to get transportation to your hotel from there. It's a smaller commuter airport, but is very easy to navigate. If you can find a good seat sale at Westjet for this airport, I would highly recommend flying into SNA over LAX, which is much farther from the parks and will cost you more for transportation. Westjet's prices for both airports are very close in price, so if you can find a deal to fly into SNA I'd go for it. Westjet basically the only CDN airline that's willing to land their larger planes on SNA's shorter runway's. Hope this helps.

 

[PrincessKimmy]

We book around a year out, maybe a little less. And we plan ourselves. I`ve only done WDW tho, not DL

 

[Hockeychic]

If you book now for 2015 you will be paying rack rate and you can't do it online you have to use a TA or call Disney directly.

Usually around Aug/Sept the room only and dining deals become avail so I would personally wait unless you are planning to go during high season.

Kim