We just finished three days at Disneyland Resort (2 at DL and 1 at DCA) and I thought I’d share a few things I learned as a newbie (hadn’t been in more than 30 years) in case it helps someone else.
We had an amazing experience. It was my kids’ first time at a Disney park and they absolutely loved it. We’re huge Marvel and Star Wars fans and got to meet a lot of the characters, which made their day. I was glad I took the time to do my research and read through all these message boards. Had we just bought tickets and shown up, we would have been completely lost. I know people complain about the cost, but you can tell they invest in their parks. There’s never trash sitting around, everything is clean, rides run efficiently and there are cast members everywhere willing to answer questions or help.
- Get Genie+. Don’t even question it. It was invaluable. Not only for the LL on rides, but the free photo downloads were great. I loved that they had professional photogs at designated spots to take photos of us all together and all I had to do was show them my QR code and then download them later. We also had a DAS pass for my son. Between the two, we rarely had to wait long for any rides and were able to walk right on to most of them. If we hadn’t had either pass, I hate to think how much we would have missed out on standing in lines.
- Using the map in the app to figure out where to go since it would show where you were and what direction you were heading save us several times from ending up at the wrong area of the park.
- Take the pop socket off your phone. I found out when I went to scan for my LL the first time that my phone wouldn’t go all the way into the scanner with the pop socket. Luckily, mine is magnetic so I could just slide it off, scan, pop it back on, but if you have one that is glued to your case, you might consider a different case for the trip.
- Get there early!!! Doing the rope drop is the best idea ever!! We only made it for rope drop once but were there and through security by opening every day and it couldn’t believe the difference in crowds at that time vs. 10 or 11 and after. It never did die back down later in the day.
- Take a break during the day. We would leave the park around 3 every day, ride back to our hotel to eat dinner, maybe nap, and recuperate before heading back around 6 or 7. I don’t think we would have made it as late as we did without that.
- Schedule days between park visits. We had our first two days consecutively and it was brutal getting up and going early that second day. We had one day off between the 2nd and 3rd because we wanted to skip grad night and we had more energy for that 3rd day.
- Take advantage of the ART busses if you aren’t staying at a Disney hotel. Our hotel was about a mile away. I thought we could either walk it or walk over to the Toy Story bus. My son got a foot infection right before so we wanted to cut his walking down as much as possible as we thought we might have to get him a wheelchair. The hotel suggested ART. It was so easy – download the app, buy passes, they pick you up right out front. You can use the app to see where it is on the route and they tell you exactly where they will pick you back up.
- Find a spot early for parades and fireworks. We got there 30 min before for fireworks at both parks and couldn’t see much beyond the fireworks (had very limited view of the projections). We found a spot earlier for the parade and the Galaxy’s Edge fireworks and enjoyed it much more. We tried to get from GE to the later Fantasmic but it was too much of a zoo by then so we skipped it.
- Do not try and ride Big Thunder Mountain during or near the end of Fantasmic. We got all the way to the point of just waiting for people to get off the train and open the gates for us to load when they shut it down. Emergency alarms went off, they told everyone to reverse direction and vacate the ride. We had smelled smoke when we were in the loading area and it smelled like fireworks smoke. Cast members wouldn’t tell us anything but firemen did come in. Having googled it, it seems this has happened several times recently around the time Fantasmic is ending with pyrotechnics. Might be setting off the smoke detectors. They didn’t give us any kind of replacement LL or compensation.
- Listen closely to the announcements as you’re loading into a ride. My husband was helping my son get buckled and didn’t hear them say to store belongings in the net on Indiana Jones so he set his backpack on the floor. When the ride was over, his backpack (with wallet, ID and rental car keys) was gone. They said they wouldn’t shut the ride down to get it unless it had necessary meds in it so we had to file a report and wait until the end of the day when they finally found it and took it to lost and found.
We had an amazing experience. It was my kids’ first time at a Disney park and they absolutely loved it. We’re huge Marvel and Star Wars fans and got to meet a lot of the characters, which made their day. I was glad I took the time to do my research and read through all these message boards. Had we just bought tickets and shown up, we would have been completely lost. I know people complain about the cost, but you can tell they invest in their parks. There’s never trash sitting around, everything is clean, rides run efficiently and there are cast members everywhere willing to answer questions or help.
