How many days do I need to devote to really experience Disneyland?

[rhettreaux]

My family is like yours in that we are WDW experts, and Disneyland amateurs.

I was in Disneyland/CA last week, on Thursday and Friday.

Thursday we walked onto everything with less than a 10 minute wait, many times they were waiting for us when we walked to the loading area. (Seriously, on Thursday the longest line we waited in was at the bakery on main street. I "needed" a Matterhorn Macaroon). Friday, our wait times were more like 20-30 minutes.

In the two days we were able to go on every ride once, many twice, see WOC, Wishes, Fantasmic, a parade, and the Aladdin show; however we got to the park near opening and essentially closed the park each night. Each day we did a sit down meal in the park (so you can assume 2 hours were lost from touring).

If you can, I would strongly recommend visiting with at least half your trip Monday-Thursday during a non-peak time of year, then you can enjoy the park without the crowds. Also, it is unlikely that your kids, due to their ages, will be able to keep up with the pace we had going.

I would think 3 full days, would be a minimum requirement to try and experience everything; more days required if you are going on weekends, school holidays, or you have particularly pokey kids with long nap requirements.

One really nice thing about Disneyland is that everything is so close together. The Magic Kingdom is much more spread out, so the required walking is a bit less at Disneyland. Also Disneyland seems to have a bench or a seating area everywhere. This came in handy for me, as I am 31 weeks pregnant. [I did not ride the "thrill" rides, I instead rode benches and bathrooms. My husband rode Matterhorn, Big Thunder, Space Mountain, Indiana Jones, TOT, & the California Adventure Screaming thing (I think those are the only things I skipped); he of course rode "the good" rides at least twice each so our time estimate is still valid for a non-pregnant family].

I'm glad that you said that about visiting Mon-Thurs. The points per night for a VGC room were less midweek anyway, so we booked our 5 days from Sunday to Friday.

 

[aubs04783]

I would say 3 at the least to experience everything!