Spring break questions

[mad hatter fan]

We need to schedule our next Disneyland trip around our kids' spring break which is March 30 - April 3rd. We plan on having the kids miss a few days of school the week before also so we can have about 12-13 days in California. We usually like to spread out our Disney days and fit in visiting family and seeing the ocean and exploring tide pools, etc.

Except for our first trip which was in July, we have only visited in Jan. and Dec. I know it will be much more crowded. I am hoping it will help a little bit to have our trip over a whole week before Easter. I would love some advice on how to have a great trip during spring break! Thank you

 

[Brady's Mom]

We went before spring break this year in March. It wasn't too bad. It got very busy on Thursday afternoon and very crowded on Friday. Tuesday and Wednesday were great. We didn't have a very good plan written down, so we feel like we missed some of the stuff we really wanted to see. Fortunately, we are able to go again in Dec. and I have already started a must see/must do list. And, we are going for 5 days instead of 4, which will make it nice.

 

[mad hatter fan]

bump

 

[DLR29]

Here are my top 3 tips for getting a ton done during somewhat busy seasons:

1. Arrive early early early early. #1 tip. If you can't do anything else, do this. Get to the gates 30-45 minutes early and you will not wait in any lines for pretty much the first hour. Most people show up around 9:30-10AM so if the park opens at 8AM you can have a lot of time to enjoy short lines.

2. Use FastPass as much as possible. Hydroguy has some great threads on FP. It works very much like the WDW ones, but there are some advantages to DLR FP. For one, Grizzly River Run(DCA) and Roger Rabbit (DL) are not connected to their own park's central FP system, allowing you to obtain FPs for them even while holding onto another ride's. Also the proximity of the parks from each other makes it very easy to hop and be holding FPs for both parks at the same time.

3. Understand the attractions. Know which rides have long lines, which rides have high capacities, which rides have FP or single rider lines. You don't want to be riding Pirates at 8 in the morning because that ride has such a high capacity that you can get on with a short wait almost anytime. On the contrary, you don't want to ride Peter Pan, Dumbo or Nemo at 1 in the afternoon when their lines are 60min+. Research on the DIS and other sites, maybe buy the unofficial guide, as it's very good at this kind of tip.