Touring plan help needed

[dlong83]

Hi everyone,

I am trying to plan out our trip to Disneyland in Sept. I am a WDW vet, but a DL newbie. Anyway, I was wondering if there was a touring plan (for purchase) similar to the one that WDW has where they show crowd levels for each day of your trip as well as ideas of what order to see the attractions in. Thanks!

 

[MrsJackSparrow4Life]

I would recommend ridemax.com $15 for 3 months.

You tell the program what park, what day, what hours, and what attractions you want to see and it gives you a step by step itinerary.

The itinerary has times down to the minute so if you stop to do something spontaneous you can see where to get back on track with the plan.

I have used it and it works really well IMO.

 

[raftislander]

To answer your question, the Unofficial Guide to DL has touring plans and there is also a Ridemax program for Disneyland that can help you plan itineraries. Having said that, I would also say that planning a trip to DLR is far less complicated than WDW. You can probably do just fine with planning by reading these boards. You don't need to worry about which park to go to on a given day because there are only two parks and they are right next to each other. Everything- the parks, DTD and the DLR hotels are in walking distance and many off-site hotels are close (or closer) than some of the Disney hotels. Things to keep in mind when planning: Only DL has early entry possibilities- it happens on any day that starts with a "T" or and "S." This lets you in one hour before the normal park opening. If you buy a three day (or longer) hopper pass, you will get one early entry. If you stay on property, I think you get them for the length of your stay. DL is always more crowded that DCA. Weekends are more crowded than weekdays. Holidays are more crowded than non-holidays. DCA opens later in the morning than DL. Like WDW, get to DL early in the morning. When it gets too crowded at DL walk over to DCA. As for nighttime entertainment -Fireworks and Fantasmic are at DL- ELP is at DCA. It is possible to do all three in a single night if there are two showings of F!, but expect to be tired. Depending on when you are travelling, you might find that there is neither F! nor fireworks showing on a weeknight. Be sure to see Aladdin at DCA if you are going over a weekend. It is a fabulous show.

 

[HydroGuy]

Ridemax has been mentioned for touring plans. But there is no crowd calendar like the UOG website has.

 

[krash2501]

what is the website address for UOG website?

 

[MrsJackSparrow4Life]

For the UOG website google touringplans. However it is only for WDW not DL. DL doesn't have a crowd calendar because it isn't really needed. If DL is too crowded you just pop over to DCA. The parks are right next to each other and it only takes 5-10 mins to parkhop.

 

[HydroGuy]

For the UOG website google touringplans. However it is only for WDW not DL. DL doesn't have a crowd calendar because it isn't really needed. If DL is too crowded you just pop over to DCA. The parks are right next to each other and it only takes 5-10 mins to parkhop.

I would add that the lack of a crowd calendar at DLR is not because DLR is not as crowded. It is because there is less of a demand for planning resources.

Most people going to WDW are on a longer vacation from out of the area. DLR as a resort draws less than half the visitors as WDW and on top of that a much higher percentage of visitors are SoCal locals on day trips. Hence the demand for planning resources in general is much, much lower.

Does that mean you do not need to plan for DLR? Well, I do think it is true that DLR requires less planning. But some level of planning is worthwhile IMO.

As far as dealing with crowds, what MrsJackSparrow4Life said above is good advice. The distance from the DL gate to the DCA gate is less than 100 yards so parkhopping is easy.

If you want to gage crowd levels that Disney is expecting you can do that by looking at the park hours. Longer park hours means more expected crowds.

o 8AM-Midnight hours at DL means maximum expected crowds (equal to 8-10 on the touringplans website)

o 8AM-11PM means crowded (equal to 7-8)

o 9AM-10PM or 11PM (moderate crowds 6-7)

o 10AM-9PM (light crowds 5-6)

o 10AM-8PM (least crowded 3-5)