This weekend, 12/29 & 12/30

[KatieJoy]

We are headed down to DLR tomorrow, staying in the Grand, going to parks 29 & 30. 29 is my 40th birthday, so this has been planned for at least a year. We’re doing walk in Walt’s footsteps on Saturday.
Can anyone tell me about max capacity and the chance if we leave, we won’t be able to get back in?
We were just discussing maybe doing one park a day, rather than park hoppers, but I’m so used to switching between parks, and going back to the hotel for breaks.
Just wondering if the park hopper is worth it, and whether we’ll be able to go back to the hotel at all during the day, or there’s a real chance we won’t be able to get back in.

 

[ArchOwl]

There are lots of levels to how Disneyland manages capacity crowds. It’s hard to say for certain what could happen, since it usually starts with suspension of one day park tickets for DL and escalates until they don’t let anyone in the park. Being on-site guests help, one of the levels allows on-site guests to enter the park when it is closed to others. But the final level is no entries at all. Generally speaking, this would only be for a couple of hours usually.

Personally I’ve gone back to the hotel myself on days like New Year’s Eve, one of the busiest days of the year. But that’s because I was ok with hopping to DCA if needed.

I think the park hopper well worth the investment as it is very very rare for DCA to be completely closed off to entries. And so you could hop to DCA if DL is closed to entries. Even if closures don’t happen, sometimes it’s nice to switch between parks when one is too crowded. I don’t like knowing I have to stay in one park when the other is so close!

 

[taaren]

There are lots of levels to how Disneyland manages capacity crowds. It’s hard to say for certain what could happen, since it usually starts with suspension of one day park tickets for DL and escalates until they don’t let anyone in the park. Being on-site guests help, one of the levels allows on-site guests to enter the park when it is closed to others. But the final level is no entries at all. Generally speaking, this would only be for a couple of hours usually.

Personally I’ve gone back to the hotel myself on days like New Year’s Eve, one of the busiest days of the year. But that’s because I was ok with hopping to DCA if needed.

I think the park hopper well worth the investment as it is very very rare for DCA to be completely closed off to entries. And so you could hop to DCA if DL is closed to entries. Even if closures don’t happen, sometimes it’s nice to switch between parks when one is too crowded. I don’t like knowing I have to stay in one park when the other is so close!

Thanks ArchOwl! We don't have APs at the moment (I'm going on this trip too), but our biggest priority other than Walk in Walts Footsteps is the ability to go snack at the Festival of Holidays at DCA, so as long as we'll be able to get into DCA from the Grand to eat all the snacks at will, the hopper will definitely be worth it for us!

We hit DL on NYE over a decade ago before I owned at the VGC and then we just stayed in DLR all day so we could watch the fireworks at midnight from the top of Space, but haven't braved the crowds since. Different goals that trip, I think we're planning on MaxPass-ing our top priority rides and spending the rest of the time at the resort/eating snacks, so if there are closures for DLR we'll be fine as long as we get out beignets!

 

[ArchOwl]

Thanks ArchOwl! We don't have APs at the moment (I'm going on this trip too), but our biggest priority other than Walk in Walts Footsteps is the ability to go snack at the Festival of Holidays at DCA, so as long as we'll be able to get into DCA from the Grand to eat all the snacks at will, the hopper will definitely be worth it for us!

We hit DL on NYE over a decade ago before I owned at the VGC and then we just stayed in DLR all day so we could watch the fireworks at midnight from the top of Space, but haven't braved the crowds since. Different goals that trip, I think we're planning on MaxPass-ing our top priority rides and spending the rest of the time at the resort/eating snacks, so if there are closures for DLR we'll be fine as long as we get out beignets!

Yay! Have fun! I think you have exactly the right attitude about going during this busy time. We got a lot done during the early mornings and kinda just cruised through the rest of the day. Definitely think parkhoppers are worth it for you as maximum flexibility is helpful during busy times.

I haven’t done NYE at DL in ages because it is just too crowded for my tastes. But DCA has always been fun, and I actually preferred it because they used the fountains for WOC and did fireworks. Obviously this year might be less awesome with WOC offline, but the fireworks at DCA will still be going. But yeah, snacking your way through the parks sounds like a ton of fun!

 

[katyringo]

Agree with the above. There are different levels.

There are some tips. If your going to hop for the day- start with Disneyland because one of the first levels is not admiring new guests to the park.

You have the best attitude! We went 12/27-29 last year and had an amazing trip! Realistic expectations and a game plan is key!

 

[taaren]

Trip turned out great. We just started at 7a in Disneyland, got 5 E tickets and beignets done before 9. Felt like the lines were reasonable for all the snacks we wanted at the Festival of Holidays, so that was a bonus too. Maxpass helped a lot we FP'ed 3 things in the evening before we left the park for midday, though when we came back to use the FPs the FP lines were over half an hour, so we only used 2 of them. Overall, I'd prefer September but given that it was a special occasion it was worth it!
On Saturday and Sunday crowds never seemed to get above about 94 so Thursday and Friday were worse than Sat/Sun.