Pls help..which parks Oct 28 and 29

[dorchrislen]

Hey experts, I have one-park/day 2-day tix, no EMHH. Going Fri, Oct 28 & Sat Oct 29.
DCA has EMHH both days, so I gotta work with that. DL has EMHH neither day. Halloween party at DL on Sat., but we start early and usually finish by 5pm anyway. The So CA annual (legacy) and Select (new) passports have Sat blocked.

I am wondering which day DL will be less crowded in the morning and afternoon, since there’s more I want to do there than DCA. I initially was planning Fri at DL since I thought it’d be less crowded than Sat, but now seeing the AP block on Sat, I’m not so sure. Any advice?

 

[smartlabelprint]

I'd upgrade to parkhopper. Have you been to dlr before? We tend to start in dl, leave for a break and then come back in afternoon to DCA.

 

[dorchrislen]

I'd upgrade to parkhopper. Have you been to dlr before? We tend to start in dl, leave for a break and then come back in afternoon to DCA.

I originally considered purchasing park hoppers from way.com, but decided against it because of the expense and extra walking. And probably the biggest reason is I didn't want to spend the time to go get the upgrade done and waste rope drop time. I'm hoping to avoid it, but if you all think it's the best option, then I'll have to figure it out.

 

[ktlm]

I would say get hoppers. DLR is not like WDW. The walk between parks is shorter than the walk where the WDW buses drop you off to the park gate. It is just a very small plaza. You can google map Disneyland and zoom in on the earth view and see how small it really is. It is about the same length as walking from the ticket gate to the end of town square once you enter DL or MK (before you hit the main street stores). Bag check is on the outskirts of the plaza so you do NOT go through bag check to hop. It literally takes 5 minutes to be out of one park and in the other. We have been from the back corner of DL to the back corner of CA in 10 minutes. We are WDW vets and at DL/CA, we hop at least a few times a day. It is very simple to look at the wait times on the app and if the line are shorter in the other park to hop over there for a while. As far as the AP block, I can't speak to October, but when we have gone at the beginning of June, the blocked weekend has always been significantly less crowded than the non-blocked weekdays.

I see you said you usually end by 5:00p.m., but if you can, you should go see Carsland after dark. It is really impressive! RSR has a single rider line and it is a whole different ride at night- we always have to ride it during the day and at night.

 

[dorchrislen]

I have been to Disneyland dozens of times, sorry for any confusion. We just usually do one park per day because I can't walk more than about seven or eight hours anyways, and I start at opening and use fast passes and crisscrossing strategy to get the best bang for our buck.

I'm so used to doing my touring plan for one park a day, but I will consider hopping this time. Thanks!

 

[figment_jii]

As the others have said, with such a limited time frame, I would also consider getting the park hoppers to give yourself more flexibility and not constrain yourself to a single park per day.

I generally think that DLR imposes AP blockouts on days when they think there will be enough other AP and non-AP holders in the parks to make up for those that are blocked out. Both days also have the same one-day ticket price. So overall, I'm not sure you'll notice a huge difference in the crowds between the two days.

Personally, my guess is that Friday morning will be less crowded that Saturday morning just because a lot of people work and/or go to school on Fridays and might not be able to get to the parks until after work or school. There are some out-of-state school breaks (e.g., Nevada Day) which might drive up crowds, but weekends during HalloweenTime are busy regardless.

 

[dorchrislen]

As the others have said, with such a limited time frame, I would also consider getting the park hoppers to give yourself more flexibility and not constrain yourself to a single park per day.

OK, you've all convinced me to get the hoppers. Now, I've never upgraded tickets before. I have paper tickets. Can I go the night before to upgrade them, to the ticket booth? I probably wouldn't be able to get there until around 830 at night though. Not sure they'd still be open at that time on a Thursday evening.

It'll be fun strategizing with hoppers. I've never done that before.

 

[theluckyrabbit]

You can do this the night before. At least one ticket booth will stay open until one hour after park closing.

 

[dorchrislen]

Thanks, and I've read that you can even start your day out and then decide if you want to hop and go to the ticket booth at that time. So that would be an option so we don't have to just make the trip the night before to get upgraded. Right?

 

[figment_jii]

Yes...but...depending on how busy the ticket booths are when you hop, it might take a bit of time to do the upgrade.

 

[dorchrislen]

OP here... reporting back that after much agonizing, I have gone back to the plan of doing one park per day. Hear me out...

First, on the day of the party, Saturday, DL is going to be much less crowded in the early hours. We will start at 8 AM and be done by five, so it really makes sense for us to maximize that day, as leaving early won't be a problem for us. we also have an ADR for Café Orleans at 5:40.

Second, on Friday DCA is going to be less crowded than on a party day when everyone transfers over. With fast passes and a good strategy, I'm confident we can do everything we want there by four or five.

Last, I guess I'm just not convinced that hopping is that much better. You waste valuable time switching parks and then fast passes are probably gone anyways. I've always been able to do everything I wanted to at Halloween time by one park per day, but got nervous because this time I would be going to DCA on a day that has early entry and I don't have it. I will let you know if it works well sticking to my tried-and-true plan.