July 2023 planning and chat thread!

Under 30 days now and getting excited!
- Have a late lunch at carnations cafe for lunch on our Disneyland Day
- WOC Dessert Party for our California Adventure Day (planning to do a late lunch in Pacific Wharf Area)
- Storytellers Cafe Character Breakfast on our last day before heading to San Diego.

I do have a couple housekeeping questions as a Disneyland Newbie.
- should everyone in my party have the app downloaded for ease of scanning into the parks? It seems using your phone is the easiest way to scan into rides with Genie+ and enter the parks.
- Mobile Ordering work essentially the same way as WDW?
- I saw some rumors a few months back that Electrical Parade was possibly returning this summer, but didn't see anything recently...if it did return, what time would it typically run? Right after the fireworks?
 
Philsfan77 said:
Under 30 days now and getting excited!
- Have a late lunch at carnations cafe for lunch on our Disneyland Day
- WOC Dessert Party for our California Adventure Day (planning to do a late lunch in Pacific Wharf Area)
- Storytellers Cafe Character Breakfast on our last day before heading to San Diego.

I do have a couple housekeeping questions as a Disneyland Newbie.
- should everyone in my party have the app downloaded for ease of scanning into the parks? It seems using your phone is the easiest way to scan into rides with Genie+ and enter the parks.
- Mobile Ordering work essentially the same way as WDW?
- I saw some rumors a few months back that Electrical Parade was possibly returning this summer, but didn't see anything recently...if it did return, what time would it typically run? Right after the fireworks?
Click to expand...

First of all, your plans sound great!

On to your questions.
1. It is easiest for everyone to have the app so you can scan into the parks and onto rides with G+. Because I am the organizer in our family, I have everyone's tickets loaded into my app and I scan everyone in, it is really quick to just swipe through the 4 tickets. You can have multiple people logged into the same Disney account on different phones, my sister (and pretty sure my husband as well) just log into my Disney account on their phones.

2. From what I remember, yes. I don't think there have been any big changes in how mobile ordering is done.

3. I have no info on this at all. We have seen the MSEP but it was quite a few years ago so I don't remember when it was.
 


Aladora said:
First of all, your plans sound great!

On to your questions.
1. It is easiest for everyone to have the app so you can scan into the parks and onto rides with G+. Because I am the organizer in our family, I have everyone's tickets loaded into my app and I scan everyone in, it is really quick to just swipe through the 4 tickets. You can have multiple people logged into the same Disney account on different phones, my sister (and pretty sure my husband as well) just log into my Disney account on their phones.

2. From what I remember, yes. I don't think there have been any big changes in how mobile ordering is done.

3. I have no info on this at all. We have seen the MSEP but it was quite a few years ago so I don't remember when it was.
Click to expand...
thank you for this! I am the planner, and will just have everyone download the app and use my account. I got our tickets linked for everyone in there, so that will streamline the process.
 
Aladora said:
First of all, your plans sound great!

On to your questions.
1. It is easiest for everyone to have the app so you can scan into the parks and onto rides with G+. Because I am the organizer in our family, I have everyone's tickets loaded into my app and I scan everyone in, it is really quick to just swipe through the 4 tickets. You can have multiple people logged into the same Disney account on different phones, my sister (and pretty sure my husband as well) just log into my Disney account on their phones.
Click to expand...

If we all have Magic Band +, do those work for this?
 


Aladora was saying that everyone in their group uses their phones to get on the rides, etc. I'm wondering if we can use Magic Bands instead to tap into rides so we don't have to have phones out.
 
leannak said:
Aladora was saying that everyone in their group uses their phones to get on the rides, etc. I'm wondering if we can use Magic Bands instead to tap into rides so we don't have to have phones out.
Click to expand...

Ohh, I understand now!

Yes, as long as you are using MagicBand+. MagicBands and Magicbands2 will not work at Disneyland.
 
My daughter and I will be at DL June 30-July 5!! Can't wait. I haven't been since Star Wars Land opened.

We are staying at the Holiday Inn Express & Suites......anyone have any feedback?? Never stayed there. I have stayed at all 3 Disney properties using my DVC points but do not have enough points for this trip.

This will be my first experience with Genie+ also. Hope I can figure it out! :rotfl2:

Here's our Itinerary:
Sat. July 1: DL
Sun. July 2: DCA
Mon. July 3: Universal Studios
Tues. July 4: DL
 
Snoopygirl said:
My daughter and I will be at DL June 30-July 5!! Can't wait. I haven't been since Star Wars Land opened.

We are staying at the Holiday Inn Express & Suites......anyone have any feedback?? Never stayed there. I have stayed at all 3 Disney properties using my DVC points but do not have enough points for this trip.

This will be my first experience with Genie+ also. Hope I can figure it out! :rotfl2:

Here's our Itinerary:
Sat. July 1: DL
Sun. July 2: DCA
Mon. July 3: Universal Studios
Tues. July 4: DL
Click to expand...

Welcome to the thread, I've added you to the list!

No feedback on the hotel but others might have stayed there.

Re: Genie+
Did you ever use Maxpass at Disneyland? The system is not too different so if you are familiar with MP, then you already have a bit of a baseline about how to use it.

I had a friend ask me about DL trip planning and here is what I sent him regarding G+. He has never been before so I was trying to explain it as simply as possible.



As for fastpasses, Disney changed the way those are done. I won't bother with explaining how they used to be done but here is a quick rundown on how they are now.

Disney brought online a service called Genie. This does a few things.

The basic one, which is free, helps with planning your day and rides. We never use this to be honest.
The upgraded one, called Genie +, allows you to book a time to ride an attraction with a shorter wait by going through the Lightning Lane. This LL used to be called the FastPass lane. Not all rides have a LL. I will copy the full list later on in this email.

Lightning Lanes can be booked once per day per attraction, so you cannot book the same ride twice in the same day. If you want to ride, say, Space Mountain, you can book a LL once and then if you want to ride it a second time, you will have to wait in the regular line, called the Standby line. When you book a Lightning Lane, you will get a 60 minute window to return to the ride. There is a small grace period that is, if I remember correctly, is 5 minutes before your time and 15 minutes after. So, if you have a return time for 9-10am, you should be able to scan into the ride starting at 8:55am and ending at 10:15am. We have used the 5 minute early scanning but have never tried to scan in after the one hour time so I would not count on it working!

Once you have booked a LL, you can book another one if either 120 minutes have passed since you booked the first one OR as soon as you scan into the first ride.

So, If you book a LL for Space at 8am and your return time is 10-11am, then you can book a second one either as soon as you scan into Space Mountain or at 10am, 2 hours after you booked it. Clear as mud, right?
😂


Finally, there are 3 rides that are done differently. Those are called Individual Lightning Lanes and they cost extra above the Genie+ cost. These rides are:
Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railroad
Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance
Radiator Springs Racers

The first two are in Disneyland and the 3rd is in California Adventure.

You can only book two ILLs per day, so you cannot pay for all three on the same day. Prices for these vary day to day but using today as an example, M&MRR is $18US/person, RotR is $25US/person, and RSR is $18US/person. Pricey, I know!

The rides that have regular LL are:
Disneyland Park
California Adventure
 
I’m having some doubts about dinner at Storyteller Cafe after watching some videos. Does anyone have experience to share with this?
 
PrincessKL said:
I’m having some doubts about dinner at Storyteller Cafe after watching some videos. Does anyone have experience to share with this?
Click to expand...
I'm interested to hear these responses too.

I've been so back and forth over the dessert party, storytellers and trattoria for the world of colour package. Since it's a one and done for us I'd really like to see the show. However, we really aren't huge on desserts so I'm not sure paying just for that view (for 4 people) is worth it.

I booked Storyteller's since at least we'll get to have dinner as well but I'm finding most reviews are prior to covid.
 
lovethesun12 said:
I'm interested to hear these responses too.

I've been so back and forth over the dessert party, storytellers and trattoria for the world of colour package. Since it's a one and done for us I'd really like to see the show. However, we really aren't huge on desserts so I'm not sure paying just for that view (for 4 people) is worth it.

I booked Storyteller's since at least we'll get to have dinner as well but I'm finding most reviews are prior to covid.
Click to expand...
We booked the Storyteller brunch, but I am also having second thoughts after so many bad reviews. C- food for a lot of money for the opportunity to have Chip & Dale, Mickey and Minnie come by. If we meet characters at the park, maybe we don't need to do this and should instead spend that time in the park. So I'm also interested in others sharing their recent experiences.
 
lovethesun12 said:
I'm interested to hear these responses too.

I've been so back and forth over the dessert party, storytellers and trattoria for the world of colour package. Since it's a one and done for us I'd really like to see the show. However, we really aren't huge on desserts so I'm not sure paying just for that view (for 4 people) is worth it.

I booked Storyteller's since at least we'll get to have dinner as well but I'm finding most reviews are prior to covid.
Click to expand...

We have not done Storytellers for years so no input on that one but we have done WoC dining and dessert party a few times so here are my thoughts.

We love Wine Country and are actually planning on grabbing lunch there this trip so I have nothing bad to say about their food. We have also done the WoC dining package at Carthay two or three times so I know what the experience is like watching WoC with a dining package.

We have also done the dessert package twice and even though none of us are big dessert people, we will chose the dessert party over dining package 100% of the time.

We had decent views with the dining package but there are a few negatives. You do have to hold you spot in the viewing area so when we did it, we ended up sitting on the ground for an hour or so to ensure we had a really good spot. Not a huge deal but sitting on the ground is not great. Then, everyone stands for the show which is ok if you have a spot near the front but if you are short like me and you don't get a spot early, you might not have the best view.

The dessert party, on the other hand, gets you a table and chairs. That, for our family, is worth the cost. You check in at whatever time they tell you to be there, get assigned a table, and then you can either sit down and relax or you can go on an attraction or two. We have done a combination of both, some of us sit while others went on Little Mermaid or whatever. The viewing area from the tables are really good, no worrying about whether or not you will be able to see. For us, the drinks, cheese, crackers, and sweet treats are just a bonus on top of the table and chairs, especially after a long day at the parks!

My sister has never seen WoC so we were always going to take her to the dessert party this trip. If she really enjoys it, we will probably do it again on our next trip as well.
 
We are flying in July 24th. 7 day stay with 5 day park hopper. Really wish DLR would offer more than 5. We are flying in early am, landing at LAX before 9:30am, and hope to be at VGC by noon. Currently, we have park reservations for Mon, Wed, Thurs, Fri, and Sunday. Tuesday we are hitting Universal Studios. We had left Saturday as a resort/recovery day. We are yearly WDW guests, but want to still ride just about everyone at DLR.

Question, should we stick with Monday reservation knowing we won’t make it into the park before 1ish, or bump it to Saturday, which was going to be a rest day? We have 3 days reserved at DL and 2 at DCA. Is 10 hours on a Monday better than a whole Saturday? We are planning to pass on Genie, except for maybe the last Sunday based on if we have missed anything we want to ride multiple times.
 
Rich Bastien said:
We are flying in July 24th. 7 day stay with 5 day park hopper. Really wish DLR would offer more than 5. We are flying in early am, landing at LAX before 9:30am, and hope to be at VGC by noon. Currently, we have park reservations for Mon, Wed, Thurs, Fri, and Sunday. Tuesday we are hitting Universal Studios. We had left Saturday as a resort/recovery day. We are yearly WDW guests, but want to still ride just about everyone at DLR.

Question, should we stick with Monday reservation knowing we won’t make it into the park before 1ish, or bump it to Saturday, which was going to be a rest day? We have 3 days reserved at DL and 2 at DCA. Is 10 hours on a Monday better than a whole Saturday? We are planning to pass on Genie, except for maybe the last Sunday based on if we have missed anything we want to ride multiple times.
Click to expand...

Welcome to the thread!

So, with 5 day hoppers you should be able to get everything you want to do, even with a shorter day on Monday. The one thing to remember about DL/DCA is that they are much more compact than WDW so it is easier to do more in a day. Getting G+ will definitely make it easier to make sure you get to do everything but even without it, you should be fine!

We are flying into LAX, getting to DLH around 2ish and plan on checking in then grabbing some food quickly before heading to the park. Typically we head to the parks the day we arrive so we are used to doing this. Mondays can get busy but then again, so can Saturdays!
 
tlovesdis said:
We did Storyteller's dinner a few years ago and weren't impressed at all. It was pretty pricey and not that great. Haven't been back since.
Click to expand...

I tend to feel this way about Disney Buffet Dinners in general (haven't been to DL yet, but it's definitely my feelings about the ones we have done at Disney World). We tend to stick to a breakfast Buffett if we are doing one, so I was happy to see storytellers offers character breakfast. Paying a premium for the Characters on our last day, but we don't have to devote as much time in the parks now to seeing some of them.
 
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