Question about park strategy re: early entry days....

[KingLlama]

First Disneyland trip coming up in July!

We don't have park hopper tickets OR tickets with early entry. Two days, one park per day, and we're limited to the posted park hours.

So as a WDW vet, I know that a popular strategy is to avoid the parks that have extra magic hours on certain days, because those crowds will be larger.

Does the same hold true at Disneyland? For example, if DLP has early entry on Thursday, does it make sense to go there on Wednesday, and save DCA for Thursday?

Since we only have two days, I want to make sure we make the best use of our time.

Thanks!

 

[mom2rtk]

EMH doesn't impact parks the same way at DLR that it does at WDW. The parks are close enough together that it could almost be considered one big park. If one is too busy, most have hoppers and will just switch to the other park. It's nothing like the time commitment to hop at WDW. In fact, at WDW we never get hoppers, but always do at DLR.

That said, on any days that you don't have early entry, it's best to do the park without early entry just so that people will not have a one hour head start on you.

 

[chickapin parterre]

So, the above info correct, but what if the dates were different....you would want to avoid, on a one park a day, Disneyland on Monday or Friday. You will bump up against the weekend folks in the morning more than you would the folks in the park on early entry on Tuesday. And on Friday, bumping into folks who flew in on Thursday night as that is great rate to fly. The only time that you will miss entering a park on Tuesday or Thursday an hour behind folks all ready visiting is Peter Pan and Space Mountain. And being that this is you first visit to Disneyland, why focus on attractions when you should be focusing on the overall ambience of the lands. Areas west of the hub are always empty on Thursday and Tuesday and once the park opens, everyone has an even start to accumlate fastpass, eat and enjoy the morning in the west end of the park. As for entering an hour behind on non-"T" days into DCA, you have no concept of how to manage your time, so you will go directly to RSR, gather FP, then spread out from that area, accumulating FP thru out the day for RSR, returning, leaving, returning, leaviing.

The good news, is that Wednesday is the best morning of the entire seven days to visit Disneyland.

 

[agamble]

The last time we went we had APs, we could park hop but we did not have early entry. We almost always started the day in the non early entry park because we didn't want to be an hour behind in the ride queues, this is more important at DCA since they open almost every popular attraction or early entry. At DL they only open Fantasyland and Tomorrowland. However, if you plan to go to Fantasyland the first hour is the best time, nothing there has FP.

 

[chickapin parterre]

The beauty of the one hour head start that resort guests have in DCA is that they are checking RSR off their daily list and that one adult is waiting to gather the first set of fast pass for RSR. The number of folks in DCA is a set number, it can’t be any higher. Whereas the folks in Disneyland on Monday and Friday morning has no limit and is a very unknown number, especially when visiting off season calendar and late openings, to the point that it is actually disturbing that arriving early has only one advantage, Peter Pan.


Sure, it is correct planning to enter opposite of the early mornings, if you know how to manage the morning. But as first time visitors you are not going to join the crush to Fantasyland, but by accident, get pushed into the west side of the park, on regular opening or to the east on early opening

As a first time visitor to DCA on a non-“T” day, you will be entering the gate and joining that RSR fastpass line and then planning your one very loooong day around the RSR fastpass gathering. The major reason that folks will discourage first time visitors to enter DCA on Monday is that RSR has a nasty habit of not running and that creates the nightmare of the whole DCA experience. The hidden upside to opening DCA, is that everyone is at Disneyland gate, because of the myth that not having first hour at DCA is disastrous to the whole day.

Rope drop is also the other factor. If you arrive early at the DCA gate and they wish to expedite the criminal photography, then you will be inside , at the rope drop and will save time to join the Fast Pass line for RSR . Rope drop at Disneyland is a significant contributor to Fantasyland being crowded. It creates that crush that in deed deflates the magic and for many of us veterans contributes to the idea that the park is crowded, whereas in the old days, when we trickled in from the gate, it was never crowded by the time we finished the must dos in fantasyland and off to other lands.

 

[dshimel]

For me, park closing time and socal blockout days were the bigger factor in deciding which park on which day. Can't do DL until midnight closing, then be at DCA at 7am for 8am opening the next day.... but we can leave DCA at 10 closing and be at DL at 7am the next morning.

 

[chickapin parterre]

very good dshimel!!!!

 

[Sagginit]

I did a trip with early entry every day and the previous trip with early entry only one day to DL. As for DCA we did in fact get a ton done in that first hour with the early entry (we skipped RSR completely that trip since I was pregnant and husband preferred other rides) but by about an hour after park opening we were done with the popular attractions and working our way through the little rides in the pier area, as were a lot of the other resort guests. So with DCA I would not avoid on a day it has early entry, in fact it may help to go there for that reason.

Now DL is a whole other situation. There are plenty of people in addition to hotel guests that have early entry there and it was always congested. In order to ride Peter Pan we did like two rides and then got in line before rope drop, so if you were going in at rope drop you would find popular Fantasyland attractions with long lines already which is why it helps to perhaps avoid this park.

I would say what will help is to have park hoppers and the App so you can move about around crowds at different times of day rather than just on different days. You could go to DCA on its early entry day for reasons mentioned above and then DL on its early entry day. I would start outside of Fantasyland as that is crazy congested picking up fast passes as you go on rides and then moving around it until lunchtime when your lines may be shorter as so many people rushed there first thing. The parks are much smaller than in WDW so you can more easily jump between lands and a militant touring plan is not needed as much, rather we did much better using the App to check line times as we went and sometimes would scoot back to a land when a line finally died down. Keep in mind you can get FP in both parks so this is where the App is really helpful, you can also see that so you can decide which FP to pick up (do you want one to use in an hour, or prefer one for later in the day when you can hop back after visiting the other park?).