I can give you my expirence from a Christmas break trip in 2017 on capacity closure days including a power outage during one of them...
There are different levels of closures that they follow. I think the first is not admiting new guests/ stop selling 1-day tickets. Then no re-entry. Then they get to where they only let those with dinning reservations in. Then it’s no one in. Or something like that.
On our first park day- the day the power went out. We still got tons of stuff done and had an amazing time. We used maxpass like a boss- started very early- about an hour before park opening, and had dinning reservations to avoid ohuge food lines. We did leave for an afternoon break and when we left the had the big area roped off between
Disneyland and DCA and people were lined up there to get into Disneyland. We asked before we left if we would be able to get back in and luckily we had fantasmic blue bayou reservations so they said yes. We had no trouble showing our reservation (they also had a big binder) and getting back in the evening. I think by around 6-7pm they were readmiting Guests. More typically I think it’s earlier that they can open back up, but the power outage that day really impacted it.
Our next couple of days weren’t nearly as bad, but we decided not to take afternoon breaks. We ALWAYS arrived before park opening. We used maxpass every single time we were able to book another fastpass.
We did 3 chracter meals- which was worth every penny because lines for characters where enormous unless we got lucky or made a point to be at a meeting place before the chracter arrived. We also used dinning packages for shows. It was wall to wall people for shows so unless you have time to waste saving spots.. you can dine at Minnie’s before the park opens on magic morning day. During Christmas break they run Disneyland magic morning every single day. So we did this a day after we had already used magic morning. Got us in the park early, having breakfast, using maxpass. I’d be curious to see if they do this once Star Wars opens- magic morning everyday for awhile..
We didn’t have a parade package and managed to see the parade just fine by getting a snack and sitting about an hour before on Main Street.
Rides- this was the one area that once we went at a different time I really saw the difference and I want to take my kids back since the only expirence that have had is the Christmas break. If we didn’t have maxpass or we couldn’t catch it in the morning- it didn’t happen. Dumbo had over an hour wait, the dark rides had over and hour wait, etc. with Littles that just wasn’t happening. We caught little shows, snacked, and bounced between fastpass rides and watched the app for low wait times. We rode mermaid and Winnie the Pooh a few times lol. Even fastpass lines were 20-30minutes sometimes.
So was it worth it? Well it was our first ever time to Disneyland. We went again less than a year later and are planning our third trip for next spring. Sooooo... we deff fell in love with Disneyland during that trip regardless of crowds. And it’s funny because now I really don’t care about crowds during a trip because I know I can navigate them with a little planning. That being said, now that I’ve expirenced Disneyland during a different time, I would probably only go during that time again if it was absolutely the only time I could go because it is a less relaxing trip. We could go Christmas break again in 2019, but are choosing to wait until April 2020 instead.
If you go I’d shoot for July or as late and you can past the projected opening days of mid June. Then at least some of the bloggers, and dis fokes will have started posting information.
