What time of day do you usually start your DL trip? How early is your flight?

[imjen]

This is our first time flying out this early. We have a 7:50 am flight and it takes about 45 min to get to the airport from here, so we'll leave here around 5:45 am. The next flight wasn't until around 11:50 am and that is much too late of a start. So, we'll get there and still have more than half the day to play. Yay! Hope we're not too tired though. When do you usually leave?

 

[SnoWhite]

We have taken flights as early as 8am, but this time we are going around 10am. It takes us 45-1 hour to get to the airport, and we have to be there at least and hour and a half early, so it's still a pretty early start!

When we get there we usually go straight to DL and walk down main street, through the shops, to Pirates. Our first meal is almost always at the Plaza Inn, we split the chicken pasta! Yum.....

Only a few more weeks till we are there!

 

[disney-super-mom]

We always leave early, early, early!

Our direct flight from Spokane to LAX leaves at 6:00am, so we'll have to get to the airport by 4:30am!

We land at 8:40am, then get our car rental, and we'll be on our way. Luckily it'll be Sunday, so no heavy traffic.

We'll be walking through the gates of DL by 11:00am and have all day and half the night for FUN.....if we don't pass out from being exhausted first.

 

[DLR29]

We almost always go to DTD on our first night and not a park so we aren't in a rush. We usually drive and leave our house in the mid morning and arrive around dinner.

 

[RuthieT]

we will be flying from Portland Oregon to SNA and I believe our flight arrives at SNA just after 9AM. We will get a rental car and head start for DL!! Take it easy and head to the hotel early to check in and relax and head to DTD for dinner and shopping.. At least that is a guess no set plan as for right now.

 

[Master Mason]

If I am going on the weekend I leave at 3am, puts me in line when the gates open. If I am going on a weekday, I leave at 1am, puts me on harbor about 6 so we have breakfast and wait, but if I left later we would be stuck in traffic.... Sometimes I have to take an afternoon power nap, but would rather be there at opening than get there later...

 

[BecBennett]

We're flying from Australia, so we'll be leaving around the middle of the day, and we'll end up there theoretically on the same day (after a 20 hour flight of course), at about 2:30pm just in time for check in. We'll be there for 10 days, so we're not planning on going into the parks until the next day. We may just not be able to contain ourselves though and we'll head into DTD...

BTW, yes I know this really has very little to do with what you were asking, and is really no help to you what so ever, but I'm just excited, so I had to join in...

 

[bouncy54]

Our direct flight from SeaTac to SNA leaves at 6:40 AM so our exclusive Shuttle Express van is picking us up at 4:25 AM.

We arrive at SNA at 9:26 AM, gather our luggage and head for Super Shuttle where we have an exclusive van reserved to take us to BWPPI. We should arrive at the hotel no later than 11:00 AM.

We don't plan on either of our rooms being ready, so we'll stash our luggage then head for the park.

This is where the planning gets murky. Last year they closed the park to re-entries over Veteran's Day weekend because they reached capacity. I'm hoping that won't happen this year now that they've pushed the official opening of the holiday season to Nov. 16. (I'm hoping a lot of the locals will wait for the 16th to go to the parks. No offense to you locals..you lucky people, you.)

However, if City Hall thinks they may reach capacity, we may not get our luggage from storage at the BWPPI until after midnight. Saturday could be one very long day for us.

You see...I am determined to watch the Remember fireworks that first night, weather permitting. I've never seen them and they are top priority this visit.

 

[XTinabell]

We're flying from Australia, so we'll be leaving around the middle of the day, and we'll end up there theoretically on the same day (after a 20 hour flight of course), at about 2:30pm just in time for check in. We'll be there for 10 days, so we're not planning on going into the parks until the next day. We may just not be able to contain ourselves though and we'll head into DTD...

BTW, yes I know this really has very little to do with what you were asking, and is really no help to you what so ever, but I'm just excited, so I had to join in...

Same with us, except we're flying in from Scotland. Our flight leaves at 11am to London. And that's a 2 hour flight, then we leave london at 3pm and get to LAX at 6pm HOWEVER we're actually travelling through time. What appears to be a 3 hour flight is in fact a 14hour flight. So I will get to see 6 pm twice if I don't change my watch until we land in LA.

I will be tired so we're definately not starting our day at Disneyland until the next.

 

[Perfectenemy123]

This time, we are flying in the night before, This way I only have to miss one day of work, instead of two. We fly in late thursday night. Lounge around on Friday day. Go out for an early evening Friday night. Then its DL on Saturday and Sunday!

What I hate most about weekend trips is as your leaving, you feel as though you just arrived. But this way we can spend all Friday just getting into the mindset, that we are, where we are.

 

[Pezalicious]

I fly in the night before so I can get settled into my hotel and have a good rest before getting up first thing the next morning. Unless I'm flying to WDW. Then I suffer through a red-eye, getting pretty much no sleep and letting my excitement and adrenaline carry me through a day in the parks. Then I crash hard in the hotel and wake up the next day as perfect as can be.

 

[BillyFan]

OMG tht red eye to Orlando is brutal! We did this last October. We were at the Wilderness Lodge by 7:30 and at Animal Kingdom at opening. By 4:00, we were exhausted!!!!
Anyway, on to the original topic. When we drive down to Disneyland, we like to leave at about 6 am, getting us to the park by about noon and avoiding rush hour traffic in LA. When we fly down this November, our flight leaves at 7 am, getting to to park nice and early!

 

[DisneyJamieCA]

We've flown at all sort of different times. Last Christmas, our flight was at 8am, this last trip our flight wasn't until 1pm, and for our upcoming trip our flight is at 10am. I think the 10am works best for us because it allows our girls to get almost a full night's sleep and be ok that first day. It's about an hour to the airport, so we'll leave here at about 7:30am. And the flight is a little over an hour, so we'll still have half a day there. If we drive, we leave at about 4am to avoid the commute traffic through the Bay Area.

 

[pixiewings71]

Well if we fly it's generally late the night before or early the first morning. But we usually drive so we usually leave early the first morning...not sure what we will do next month, it's just a weekend visit so we will probably drive and leave early, unless I can get us a killer deal on a flight.

 

[VWCat]

we can only go for 4 days this time so we are leaving at 7:53 pm Friday night from Vancouver and arrive at nearly 11:00 pm so then we will just go to the hotel and unpack have some room service and then go to bed and be all refreshed for the Saturday!!hee hee

 

[Mommy2PrincessAbby]

We are an hour from the airport, and have a 7 am flight... so we plan on leaving the house at 4 am, to be there at 5 am... we'll be at LAX at 9 am... coming home we have the 2nd to the last flight out, so we'll do the reverse leave at 5:30 pm to arrive at LAX ~6:30 pm for a flight that leaves at 8:30 pm. Since we are carrying-on we only really need about 90 minutes at the airport... so we should be doing good!

--Lisa

 

[wvnative]

When we fly, it's not a very long flight. We usually head for the airport around 8 am and can be in the park by noon or 1 pm.

We're driving this time around though. I'm not planning to go to the park on our first day. I think we'll just do dinner in DTD. I'm guessing we'll leave between 10 - 11 am. Since we may have someone else tagging along this trip, I'll have to discuss it with them anyway.

 

[abby]

we will be flying from Portland Oregon to SNA and I believe our flight arrives at SNA just after 9AM. We will get a rental car and head start for DL!! Take it easy and head to the hotel early to check in and relax and head to DTD for dinner and shopping.. At least that is a guess no set plan as for right now.

We are actually on this same flight (same day as well) Our plan is to get to PP check in (or at least our luggage) hit the concierge lounge and go off to the parks. I figure we will hit the parks by 11 or 12, and have a few hours......I just have to go to DL when we first get there.

We ususally take later flights, but what the heck, I thought we'd try this. The worst that will happen is we will all crash early that night.

 

[Kokobebe]

We have learned our lesson with this one--we fly from the Bay Area, and would rather just leave at 11:00 in the morning or so. That way the kids sleep well the night before, and we have plenty of time to get to the airport without stressing out. I also don't like to get there too early, because we always stay at either the Disneyland Hotel or the Grand California--and we always have to wait for our room (usually ready around 3ish). I know we can store our luggage and go to the park, but I find that we all like to head up to our room, wash up, change if we need too, go potty and rest for a few minutes before heading off to the park.

The kids always want to stay and watch the fireworks, and when we have left too early in the morning in the past, they either fall asleep or are very cranky waiting for them. I would rather have us all be well rested rather than exhausted from waking up too early.

If we drive, that is another story--as leaving from the bay area is a challenge. We always leave about 5:00 a.m. in order to beat the traffic, and the kids sleep on the way. This way it is only mom and dad who are exhausted!

 

[kc10family]

We drive down first thing. We drop the dog off the night before, load the van before bed, and after we wake... we shower and go.
We get breakfast on the road (we call it the Disney drive breakfast...Mc Donalds, we never eat it for breakfast so it's like a treat I guess).
After a few pit stops for the call from nature and a food fill up we get to DL about 6.5 to 7.5 hours later. Check into the hotel and take a nice slow stroll down Main street. (just thinking of it, I can smell it )