Lots of Disneyland questions

[marcida2012]

After I posted my initial post, I realized I have more questions and need lots of advice. So I will try to consolidate in this post.

Meal times: I think we've decided to take a small backpack with snacks/food in it. We'll eat breakfast at the hotel, lunch at the park (either packed or purchased). For dinner we'll play it by ear. If my 5yo needs a break, we will head back to the hotel and grab dinner on the way, then go back to the park. We would like to eat at "off peak" times so we can take advantage of shorter lines when everyone else is eating. What times should we plan to stop for lunch/dinner?


PhotoPass: Can I count on this to get the majority of our pictures? My camera is quite large and hubby doesn't think I should take it. My smartphone has an 8MP camera so I can take some photos with it to fill in but the battery life stinks. I'm not sure I understand how Photopass works.

Autograph books: Do you do them? Why/why not? I don't want to shell out the $$ for one there, any recommendations on a homemade alternative?


Souvenirs: IMO, the only "must have" for my daugther is Mouse ears with her name on it. She might have a different opinion.Anyone know how much the ears are? We are on a pretty strict budget, what are some good value souvenirs.

I think this is it for now. lol I'm sure I will come up with some more in the 2 weeks before we leave.

 

[coaches24]

Meal times I think are busy from around 12-3 or so, dinner around 5-7. Our plan on our next trip (for one maybe two of our days anyway) is to eat a late lunch at big thunder ranch BBQ and skip dinner ( breakfast at the hotel we are staying). We bring snacks and water in with us and can always get some small quick food items if we get hungry.

Photo pass is great IMO. You can get a photo pass card from any pp photographer and then just hand that card to each photographer before getting your picture done. And if you forget to give him/ her the card they just give you another which is no big deal as its the size of a credit card. Each night you can look at your photos online (directions on the cards) and you have like a month or so after your visit to go through and pick out what pictures you want, add backgrounds etc. I don't remember pricing but you can order a CD with all your pics plus a certain number of modified picks for a decent price (doesnt matter how many pics unless they changed it in the last year). I'm sure you can google Disney photo pass and get more info.

Autograph books, I've never used one before as I'm not big on autographs but this year we are getting one for my DD as I think she will love getting autographs from the characters. But you can absolutely get by without one and never miss it.

Souvineers are up to you. All depends on what you want to spend and how into DL you really are. Last trip we bought minny ears and a plush tigger, oh and a
Xmas ornament.

 

[skiingfast]

Meal Time.
Eat lunch at about 1 pm to miss the lines and find a table, this is also when the park starts to hit the busiest time.

Eat dinner either early or late. If you can eat at 4, crowd may thin slightly(not on Friday) after the parade and again at 5 when most people start to eat. If not wait until 7:30, though this can intefere with night entertainent.

Photopass.
Not the majority of your pictures. If you use them they can take a lot and are set up to do so in key locations. They are not everywhere for all pictures you may want to take. Many people survive by using a phone now.

Autograph book.
Will you be into visiting characters and collecting autgraphs? If so it's a great idea. Many people print picture with the characters and put them on the page with the signature, or opposite page. Many character location have a PhotoPass photgrapher stationed there.

Souvenires. A hat is great idea, they start at about $12 and to add the emboidered name is a few dollars upto several. All in all the price should top out at $20-$25. Attractions posters can be great. A starter pin trading set with lanyard is another idea.

 

[cgh]

I'd do the autograph book. But, look at Disney Stores before you go I got one discounted, brought it, and ran up to the room to have it waiting for DS.

We went when DS was 2 1/2 and I just got it because I wanted something for the room as a welcome gift, and others do it. Well, what would you know? a few months after going he finds it and brings it to me and asks me to read it to him, again and again. (and I haven't even filled it with pictures-our autograph book has a slot for pictures).

I would never have predicted how much joy it gives him months later.

 

[pharmjenn]

We made our own autograph book for my DS. He was almost 3yo at the time and very into Blues Clues. I bought a little 3x5 spiral notebook at the dollar store, printed a picture of Blue's footprint (clue) on the front and wrote Billy's Clue Book. He loved it, it worked great and only cost a dollar. I know many people put a lot of effort into books; this worked out well for us. This summer I will be using the Disney Encyclopedia as an autograph book as was mentioned in a thread a couple months ago.

 

[specialks]

I wouldn't just rely on photopass. You'll miss all those candid shots and ones at certain rides. If your not a "photo-taker" (we have a complete server drive dedicated to photo storage ), then you'll get the "must have" main shots by using photopass. They're at all the entrances, most character meets, and a few other classic shot locations. If you're budgeting for photopass, then go along with all their odd requests. They perform some "magic" for your photos.
We've always had autograph books. I want to say they're like $8-$12. However, as skiingfast said, some people print off photos on paper/cardstock and make their own. Last year I bought a pad of cardstock from Joann's that was 4x6 and had fun colors. Then I made a cover for each daughter, whole punched it, and ring bound it. Don't think I saved any money, it was just something different. One year we took a Disney character book.
The penny press machines make cute souvenirs.

 

[specialks]

Double post

 

[PigletSeeker]

Instead of autograph book I just bought my girls a spiral notebook from Target with the princesses on the cover. Frankly, I just want the pic with the characters, I don't care about the autographs.

 

[lalasmama]

We just got back from DLR today.

I'll be honest as far as meals... I originally planned something similar. What really happened? We overslept breakfast at the hotel 6 out of 7 days, so we walked over to 7-11 (@ Harbor and Katella), grabbed some breakfast bars, some milk, and some soda, then ate on the way to the parks. We got to the parks just after opening most days (which was 10am four out of six days we were there). So, late breakfast put us ready for lunch between 3-4pm, and dinner around 7pm (we wanted to eat dinner before leaving the parks). I'll admit we did several hot dog meals. The buns were so soft, whole wheat!, and it was a quick meal.

We didn't do a PhotoPass. The first 2 days, when I was REALLY into taking pictures, PhotoPass peeps were only found in front of the castle and when we met Tiana. In other words, they weren't there for the "looks" I wanted to remember--the spontaneous faces that happen.

We also didn't do the autograph book. DD (now 8yo) was more into the rides than meeting the characters. She met a few at a character breakfast on her bday, and a few that had short lines, but other than that, she wasn't interested. Had she asked/been interested once we got there, I would have paid $4 at the 7-11 for a basic book.

Our ears were, I think, $13.95 per hat, plus $3 for the regular writing (what I remember from when I was a kid) or $7 for other fonts. We did the very basic ears. As a PP mentioned, the penny press was a BIG hit with us. Next time, I'm taking a bunch of quarters, pennies, and dimes (the TOT one requires a dime). We came home with 2 (Frontier Land, and TOT); DD showed an interest in them the next to last day, so by the time I got cash, then got change, we had to go hunt them out, and I wasn't willing to spend all day hunting for them! That being said, I know to plan for $10 in change for our next trip. We also played Astro Blasters, which takes your picture. At the end of the ride, there's an email option, so we have several pictures of us on that (looking dorky, of course!), but much cheaper than the take-home Astro Blaster!

 

[coaches24]

The other thing I did with photo pass was download all the pictures I took myself (I downloaded after my trip was done and we were back home) and added borders or other special things to them. Many I just put the year stamp, others I had special borders added for my DD to see. For example we had a picture I took myself of DD with Tink and Vidia and I liked it better then the ones the pp took so I added a border of several fairies around the edges. I was able to add all my photos to the pp cd for no additional charge I believe.

 

[SpaceMan5]

Autograph books - we have always gone on the cheap side. In the past we have found some small $1 spiral notebooks at Target that had Disney characters on them. For the scrapbook we would put the characters autograph and picture on the same page and it looks great.