DLRimagineer
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2006
- Messages
- 18
So i just got back from my Los Angeles/Las Vegas vacation, and i would just like to say that it is very possible to see ALL of Disneyland in one full day. I'm gonna give a trip report on how we did it. Here are a few tips first to make the most of your day there base upon MY experience...
1) We chose a proper day of the week, ours being a tuesday (a slower day as opposed to fri-Monday where its more crowded and busy with locals)
2) We bought our tickets online so we didnt have to wait on line at the park entrance to purchase them. Instead we just picked them up at Guest services which literally had no line (we picked up our fantasmic balcony seating there too, i will touch upon that later as well)
3)Get there EARLY EARLY EARLY. I can't emphasis this enough. You want to get therewhen the park literally opens. For us the park opened at 8am and we arrived at the parking complex at approx 8:00...and got into the park at about 8:15. Don't forget you still have to park your car, hop on a tram and get to the gates before waiting on line to get your tickets checked.
4) if you're driving to the park, be sure to use the HOV lanes. Thank God for the Hov lanes, if it wasnt for that we wouldve got to the park way over an hour later than planned with all that horrendous Calif. traffic.
So here we go....we get to the park, and because we're doing great on timing we get to park our car very close to the tram stops (another perk of getting there early....the later you arrive the further away you will park making for a longer walk to the trams,and that really sucks at the end of the day on your way back home. Upon entering the park we were flooded with picture taking opportunities. We took advantage of this because 1) one of our biggest goals, besides seeing the whole park, was not to overly rush ourselves andactually enjoy the park and see what it has to offer and takefull advantage of it...2) we love taking pictures for our own memories.....3) we dont know when is the next time we'll be in Disneyland so lets make the most of it. So after taking tons of pics with the "50th and mickey flower design thingie" and a ton of Disney characters all roaming around right at the gates (hint hint for you picture taking lovers, this is the best time of the day and spot to get a lot of them in one area), we finally ventured into the park and Main Street
Here was our plan of attack: To see the Whole park, including as many shops as we wanted, taking our time eating, and taking as many photo opportunities as possible (its my girlfriends hobby). We did not want to be rushed and run from one ride to another, but at the same time keep in mind we didnt take our merry time either and wisely made decisions throughout the day based on crowds. Also keep in mind we wanted to see the whole park, not EVERY single ride as this was not our first time in Disneyland. On that note however, i'd like to mention a few things. In all honesty, it was very possible for us to have rode every single ride that day, we just chose not to so we can have some relaxation time for ourself and enjoy dinner at the Blue Bayou (which we did). On the other hand i would say we rode about 75-80% of the rides there, skipping the ones geared towards younger kids. Now if you have younger kids you'd obviously would want to ride those rides and probably skip out on the more fast paced rollercoaster type. The bottom line is, i believe if you follow a similr plan as mine you can see the whole park and do at least 90-95% of the rides....100% if you're willing to really move.
So we decided to attack the park in this manner: Work our way in a circle starting off by going from Main street to Adventureland, then New Orleans Square, then frontierland and critter country, back down along the rivers of america and into the castle into fantasyland, followed by toontown and then working our way from the back end of tomorrowland and back out into mainstreet.
We decided to work the park this way for a bunch of reasons:
1) We felt it was a systematic manner to see everything and not have torun around from one place to another to fight the crowds and snatch up fast passes. Again i cannot emphasisthis enough however, this will absolutely not work unless you come right when the park opens and pick a slow day of the week. We did use fast passes but not to the extent we would have on a high season busy day
2) Our personal favorite rides were located on the "left" side of the park in Adventureland and New Orleans Square (POTC, Indiana Jones & Haunted Mansion). SO we wanted to see those first before any lines built up. Now for those of you with kids, i'd sugest going right into fantayland and toontown first right away and work your way the oppossite direction.
3)We wanted to end our day in Mainstret to do a bunch of shopping and pick up our photos from the Mainstreet photo shop.
We did 4 rides in the first hour we got there:
Indiana Jones
Jungle Cruise
POTC
Haunted Mansion
We did them in that order and all 4 were either walk ons or had a 5 min wait time.
We then proceeded to Splash Mountain where the wait there was about 25-30 mins, so we decided to get a fastpass for it (which was valid after an hour) and went to ride on Winnie the Pooh (5 min wait) and took pictures with Pooh, Tigger & Eyore (that was like a 15 min wait in line) and did some shopping in a neary Shop (my girlfriend loves Pooh....oh and picked up some great brownies to snack on). We then walked onto Splash Mountain using the fast pass.
Strolled over to frontierland and waited for under 10 mins to ride Big thunder mountain and waited 10 mins to get on the sailing ship Columbia. By this time it was approximatley 11:15 and we decided to have an early lunch before the crowds at the Rancho Del Zocalo. I rate this place a solid 9 out of 10. We both had the Steak platter (i believe it was called Carne Asada on the menu). The portions were quite large and included, a few slices of tastey marinated steak, mexican rice and beans, sourcream and guacamole and salsa and a bunch of tortillas if you choose to make a burrito. If you're looking for a very filling lunch, this is definetly a great choice. We took 45 mins for lunch and it was a great break for our feet. So, by 12pm we did 8 rides, took a lot of pictures, did some souvenir shopping and had a relaxing lunch break. We were then off to fantasyland....
Fantasyland proposed the biggest obstacle for us because of the lines and no available fastpasses. So what we did was go through the castle and take yet more pictures, we then headed towards Its a Small World and rode that(10 min wait) and we proceeded then to Toontown and pick up fastpasses for Roger Rabit, took Pictures with Goofie and Pluto, did some more shopping and then wnt to Micky's House to meet the big cheese and takea photo (that wait was about 20-25 mins but it was indoors and a good break from the sun. By that time we were about 15-20 min away from The Parade of Dreams so we went to stack out spot on a curb right next to Small World where the parade starts and close to the end entrance of Toontown so we can go back to ride Roger Rabit after the parade. Watched the parade from a great viewing area which was entertaining but i expected it to be much longer than it actually was. This was all part of our plan to make sure we were in the right place at the right time to watch the parade (again get to the park early!!) and not have to run somewhere else to catch it then walk back to wherever we were before. We then did the one minute walk right back into toon town to ride roger rabbit using the fastpass (walked right on) and then proceeded right back to fantasyland to ride Pinnochio, Alice in wonderland, Peter Pan, Snow white's scary adventures, Mr. Toad's Wild ride, the mad tea party and the Matterhorn Bobsleds. Pinocchio, Alice, Snow White and Mr. Toad as well as he tea cups each had wait times of about 15-20 mins. Peter Pan was our longest wait of the day at a solid 45 min (that one sucked), But i noticed that Peter Pan was right across from where the Sword in the Stone ceremony takes place, so we got on line for it just about 10 mins before the start of the Sword in the stone ceremony and watched the ceremony right from the line while we were waiting. The Matterhorn was the last thing we went on in fantasyland and we took the entrance closest to Tomorrowland since that was our next destination. The wait for the Matterhorn was a surprising 10 mins (i thought it would be longer....and man it was a rough ride....they need to smooth it out).
By the time we entered through the back end of Tomorrowland after riding the Bobsleds, it was 4:45pm. We went to gt fastpasses for Buzz Lightyear and Space Mountain. Unfortunatley, the space mountain fast passes were for 9pm and that would have kinda put a dent in our fireworks plan. So we toughed it out and waited in line for space mountain. The wait was somewhere between 30-40 min, which wasnt THAT bad. If you havent been on this yet since the rehab you're missing out big time, such a great ride. Anyways, we then walked right onto BuzzLightYear using the fastpass and i scored a solid 310,000
We then proceeded to go on Star Tours and Honey i Shrunk the Audience, each a wait of about no more than 15 mins.
So that did it for the rides and we headed back to Mainstreet to do some more shopping and picked up or photos before it got crowded later in the day when people are leaving to go home. At 7pm we headed for the Blue Bayou. Now, we didn't have any reservations for dinner there and it was booked solid all day. But lets just say i talked my way into getting a seat with some persuasion of a "friendly handshake" and we were seated by 630pm for dinner there (i heard this from many guests that theyr never actually booked solid and u can persuade the CM's there to get a seat, which worked for us). I give this place a solid 9 as well. The atmosphere was very romantic, the service was perfect and the food was outstanding. Now this was the first time either of us ate there so we have nothing to compare it to. But we were very happy with it, and if you go there be sure to have the flying Dutchman for Dessert....man it was great
The Jambalaya i had was also very good as well as my girlfriend's Fillet Mignon, but dessert is more important 
After dinner at about 730 we did some shopping in New Orleans (and noticed now how much longer all the lines were...POTC was now an hour wait as well as Indie) and then proceeded to the Hub to stake our seats for Remember at about 8:15pm. When we got tothe Hub seats were already taken but we still found 2 great places to sit right in front of the castle and didnt have to "reserve" these seats 2 or 3 hours beforehand as you would need to on a weekend. We hung out for an hour until the show started and man was it a great show. Hands down, one of the bet fireworks display I've seen. If you havn't seen it it's just not fireworks blasting everywhere, it's actually choreographered and displayed with accompanying audio music and meaning. It gets a 10 out of 10 in my book.
After Remember we headed straight to the Disney Gallery for Balcony Seating for the 1030pm Fantasmic show. We picked 1030 so we can see the 9:25pm showing of Remember. Now you can see the earlier Fantasmic showing and stick around there and see Remember from there but thats not "prme" seating for Remember. In order to get the full effect of Rememberyou must see it from the Hub in front of the castle. That was our reasoning to see the Fireworks first (and get perfect seats) and then go see Fantasmic at 1030pm. As for the Balcony seating it also gets a 10 our of 10....we avoided sitting in the crowds and didnt have to run over there and find ourselves a good viewing spot. Check in was at 10pm and that leaft us with a good 30 mins to get to the disney gallery from the hub after the fireworks more than enough time). I was lucky enough to have called first when reserving our seating so we were seated first and had a great front row dead center view of the show. The deserts were exceptional....new york style cheesecake, fruit kabobs, chocolate cake, coconut tarts and small pasteries. The CM's were great with bringing us drinks that included hot chocolate,tea, coffee, sodas and lemonade. Once everyone was seated we all proceeded to the table behind us displaying the desserts and helped ourselves to as much as we liked while the CM's brought us out the drinks and any refills we needed. The show as expected was fantastic. And if you have the right camera, the Balcony seating is perfect for taking pictures of the show.
So after the show, the park pretty much shutdown except for Main Street which stays open for an extra hour after closing, and of course it was MOBBED with guests doing their last minute shopping. We already finished our shopping during the course of the day so we avoided that mess all together and hopped on a tram and went back home to get some sleep before our 10am flight to Las Vegas So to recap, in just one daywe went on 20 rides(if i counted correctly), saw 4 shows (fantasmic, remember, parade of dreams and sword in the stone), had a great lunch at the Rancho and a wonderful dinner at the Blue Bayuo, did a lot of shopping and just park exploring and took a ton of pictures.
Well thats my trip report, hope it was helpful. Disneyland can be done in one day if you only have one day available to see it (of course its better to see the whole disneyland resort in a good 3 days to spread everything out, see California Adventures and go on your favorite rides more than once as well as take advantage of all their wonderful dinning and shopping options). Just remember, go early, pick a good slow day in the week and have a plan of attack. Hope you guys have a great time at the Park.
Oh and if anyone needs advice or questions on anything including Universal Studios Hollywood or anything Las Vegas let me know and i'll be happy to help since i was just there.
1) We chose a proper day of the week, ours being a tuesday (a slower day as opposed to fri-Monday where its more crowded and busy with locals)
2) We bought our tickets online so we didnt have to wait on line at the park entrance to purchase them. Instead we just picked them up at Guest services which literally had no line (we picked up our fantasmic balcony seating there too, i will touch upon that later as well)
3)Get there EARLY EARLY EARLY. I can't emphasis this enough. You want to get therewhen the park literally opens. For us the park opened at 8am and we arrived at the parking complex at approx 8:00...and got into the park at about 8:15. Don't forget you still have to park your car, hop on a tram and get to the gates before waiting on line to get your tickets checked.
4) if you're driving to the park, be sure to use the HOV lanes. Thank God for the Hov lanes, if it wasnt for that we wouldve got to the park way over an hour later than planned with all that horrendous Calif. traffic.
So here we go....we get to the park, and because we're doing great on timing we get to park our car very close to the tram stops (another perk of getting there early....the later you arrive the further away you will park making for a longer walk to the trams,and that really sucks at the end of the day on your way back home. Upon entering the park we were flooded with picture taking opportunities. We took advantage of this because 1) one of our biggest goals, besides seeing the whole park, was not to overly rush ourselves andactually enjoy the park and see what it has to offer and takefull advantage of it...2) we love taking pictures for our own memories.....3) we dont know when is the next time we'll be in Disneyland so lets make the most of it. So after taking tons of pics with the "50th and mickey flower design thingie" and a ton of Disney characters all roaming around right at the gates (hint hint for you picture taking lovers, this is the best time of the day and spot to get a lot of them in one area), we finally ventured into the park and Main Street
Here was our plan of attack: To see the Whole park, including as many shops as we wanted, taking our time eating, and taking as many photo opportunities as possible (its my girlfriends hobby). We did not want to be rushed and run from one ride to another, but at the same time keep in mind we didnt take our merry time either and wisely made decisions throughout the day based on crowds. Also keep in mind we wanted to see the whole park, not EVERY single ride as this was not our first time in Disneyland. On that note however, i'd like to mention a few things. In all honesty, it was very possible for us to have rode every single ride that day, we just chose not to so we can have some relaxation time for ourself and enjoy dinner at the Blue Bayou (which we did). On the other hand i would say we rode about 75-80% of the rides there, skipping the ones geared towards younger kids. Now if you have younger kids you'd obviously would want to ride those rides and probably skip out on the more fast paced rollercoaster type. The bottom line is, i believe if you follow a similr plan as mine you can see the whole park and do at least 90-95% of the rides....100% if you're willing to really move.
So we decided to attack the park in this manner: Work our way in a circle starting off by going from Main street to Adventureland, then New Orleans Square, then frontierland and critter country, back down along the rivers of america and into the castle into fantasyland, followed by toontown and then working our way from the back end of tomorrowland and back out into mainstreet.
We decided to work the park this way for a bunch of reasons:
1) We felt it was a systematic manner to see everything and not have torun around from one place to another to fight the crowds and snatch up fast passes. Again i cannot emphasisthis enough however, this will absolutely not work unless you come right when the park opens and pick a slow day of the week. We did use fast passes but not to the extent we would have on a high season busy day
2) Our personal favorite rides were located on the "left" side of the park in Adventureland and New Orleans Square (POTC, Indiana Jones & Haunted Mansion). SO we wanted to see those first before any lines built up. Now for those of you with kids, i'd sugest going right into fantayland and toontown first right away and work your way the oppossite direction.
3)We wanted to end our day in Mainstret to do a bunch of shopping and pick up our photos from the Mainstreet photo shop.
We did 4 rides in the first hour we got there:
Indiana Jones
Jungle Cruise
POTC
Haunted Mansion
We did them in that order and all 4 were either walk ons or had a 5 min wait time.
We then proceeded to Splash Mountain where the wait there was about 25-30 mins, so we decided to get a fastpass for it (which was valid after an hour) and went to ride on Winnie the Pooh (5 min wait) and took pictures with Pooh, Tigger & Eyore (that was like a 15 min wait in line) and did some shopping in a neary Shop (my girlfriend loves Pooh....oh and picked up some great brownies to snack on). We then walked onto Splash Mountain using the fast pass.
Strolled over to frontierland and waited for under 10 mins to ride Big thunder mountain and waited 10 mins to get on the sailing ship Columbia. By this time it was approximatley 11:15 and we decided to have an early lunch before the crowds at the Rancho Del Zocalo. I rate this place a solid 9 out of 10. We both had the Steak platter (i believe it was called Carne Asada on the menu). The portions were quite large and included, a few slices of tastey marinated steak, mexican rice and beans, sourcream and guacamole and salsa and a bunch of tortillas if you choose to make a burrito. If you're looking for a very filling lunch, this is definetly a great choice. We took 45 mins for lunch and it was a great break for our feet. So, by 12pm we did 8 rides, took a lot of pictures, did some souvenir shopping and had a relaxing lunch break. We were then off to fantasyland....
Fantasyland proposed the biggest obstacle for us because of the lines and no available fastpasses. So what we did was go through the castle and take yet more pictures, we then headed towards Its a Small World and rode that(10 min wait) and we proceeded then to Toontown and pick up fastpasses for Roger Rabit, took Pictures with Goofie and Pluto, did some more shopping and then wnt to Micky's House to meet the big cheese and takea photo (that wait was about 20-25 mins but it was indoors and a good break from the sun. By that time we were about 15-20 min away from The Parade of Dreams so we went to stack out spot on a curb right next to Small World where the parade starts and close to the end entrance of Toontown so we can go back to ride Roger Rabit after the parade. Watched the parade from a great viewing area which was entertaining but i expected it to be much longer than it actually was. This was all part of our plan to make sure we were in the right place at the right time to watch the parade (again get to the park early!!) and not have to run somewhere else to catch it then walk back to wherever we were before. We then did the one minute walk right back into toon town to ride roger rabbit using the fastpass (walked right on) and then proceeded right back to fantasyland to ride Pinnochio, Alice in wonderland, Peter Pan, Snow white's scary adventures, Mr. Toad's Wild ride, the mad tea party and the Matterhorn Bobsleds. Pinocchio, Alice, Snow White and Mr. Toad as well as he tea cups each had wait times of about 15-20 mins. Peter Pan was our longest wait of the day at a solid 45 min (that one sucked), But i noticed that Peter Pan was right across from where the Sword in the Stone ceremony takes place, so we got on line for it just about 10 mins before the start of the Sword in the stone ceremony and watched the ceremony right from the line while we were waiting. The Matterhorn was the last thing we went on in fantasyland and we took the entrance closest to Tomorrowland since that was our next destination. The wait for the Matterhorn was a surprising 10 mins (i thought it would be longer....and man it was a rough ride....they need to smooth it out).
By the time we entered through the back end of Tomorrowland after riding the Bobsleds, it was 4:45pm. We went to gt fastpasses for Buzz Lightyear and Space Mountain. Unfortunatley, the space mountain fast passes were for 9pm and that would have kinda put a dent in our fireworks plan. So we toughed it out and waited in line for space mountain. The wait was somewhere between 30-40 min, which wasnt THAT bad. If you havent been on this yet since the rehab you're missing out big time, such a great ride. Anyways, we then walked right onto BuzzLightYear using the fastpass and i scored a solid 310,000
We then proceeded to go on Star Tours and Honey i Shrunk the Audience, each a wait of about no more than 15 mins.So that did it for the rides and we headed back to Mainstreet to do some more shopping and picked up or photos before it got crowded later in the day when people are leaving to go home. At 7pm we headed for the Blue Bayou. Now, we didn't have any reservations for dinner there and it was booked solid all day. But lets just say i talked my way into getting a seat with some persuasion of a "friendly handshake" and we were seated by 630pm for dinner there (i heard this from many guests that theyr never actually booked solid and u can persuade the CM's there to get a seat, which worked for us). I give this place a solid 9 as well. The atmosphere was very romantic, the service was perfect and the food was outstanding. Now this was the first time either of us ate there so we have nothing to compare it to. But we were very happy with it, and if you go there be sure to have the flying Dutchman for Dessert....man it was great
The Jambalaya i had was also very good as well as my girlfriend's Fillet Mignon, but dessert is more important After dinner at about 730 we did some shopping in New Orleans (and noticed now how much longer all the lines were...POTC was now an hour wait as well as Indie) and then proceeded to the Hub to stake our seats for Remember at about 8:15pm. When we got tothe Hub seats were already taken but we still found 2 great places to sit right in front of the castle and didnt have to "reserve" these seats 2 or 3 hours beforehand as you would need to on a weekend. We hung out for an hour until the show started and man was it a great show. Hands down, one of the bet fireworks display I've seen. If you havn't seen it it's just not fireworks blasting everywhere, it's actually choreographered and displayed with accompanying audio music and meaning. It gets a 10 out of 10 in my book.
After Remember we headed straight to the Disney Gallery for Balcony Seating for the 1030pm Fantasmic show. We picked 1030 so we can see the 9:25pm showing of Remember. Now you can see the earlier Fantasmic showing and stick around there and see Remember from there but thats not "prme" seating for Remember. In order to get the full effect of Rememberyou must see it from the Hub in front of the castle. That was our reasoning to see the Fireworks first (and get perfect seats) and then go see Fantasmic at 1030pm. As for the Balcony seating it also gets a 10 our of 10....we avoided sitting in the crowds and didnt have to run over there and find ourselves a good viewing spot. Check in was at 10pm and that leaft us with a good 30 mins to get to the disney gallery from the hub after the fireworks more than enough time). I was lucky enough to have called first when reserving our seating so we were seated first and had a great front row dead center view of the show. The deserts were exceptional....new york style cheesecake, fruit kabobs, chocolate cake, coconut tarts and small pasteries. The CM's were great with bringing us drinks that included hot chocolate,tea, coffee, sodas and lemonade. Once everyone was seated we all proceeded to the table behind us displaying the desserts and helped ourselves to as much as we liked while the CM's brought us out the drinks and any refills we needed. The show as expected was fantastic. And if you have the right camera, the Balcony seating is perfect for taking pictures of the show.
So after the show, the park pretty much shutdown except for Main Street which stays open for an extra hour after closing, and of course it was MOBBED with guests doing their last minute shopping. We already finished our shopping during the course of the day so we avoided that mess all together and hopped on a tram and went back home to get some sleep before our 10am flight to Las Vegas
So to recap, in just one daywe went on 20 rides(if i counted correctly), saw 4 shows (fantasmic, remember, parade of dreams and sword in the stone), had a great lunch at the Rancho and a wonderful dinner at the Blue Bayuo, did a lot of shopping and just park exploring and took a ton of pictures.Well thats my trip report, hope it was helpful. Disneyland can be done in one day if you only have one day available to see it (of course its better to see the whole disneyland resort in a good 3 days to spread everything out, see California Adventures and go on your favorite rides more than once as well as take advantage of all their wonderful dinning and shopping options). Just remember, go early, pick a good slow day in the week and have a plan of attack. Hope you guys have a great time at the Park.
Oh and if anyone needs advice or questions on anything including Universal Studios Hollywood or anything Las Vegas let me know and i'll be happy to help since i was just there.
but we have seen them at WDW so... Looking forward to a great time!!!
but we had a lot of fun doing it 
So just let me know your Vegas questions and i'll be here for ya. 
