Is 2.5 days enough for first time?

[irlandaise]

Since you guys do WDW you can save time by potentially skipping Star Wars. That’s identical to Florida. Consider which duplicate rides you can cut out as well.

Although they do need to look closely at the "duplicate" rides, because some really aren't. Jerrod mentioned Pirates, which is much, much better at Disneyland. And newcomers have to at least view the outside of Small World even if the inside is the same. (Is it?)

 

[Epicnemesis]

Although they do need to look closely at the "duplicate" rides, because some really aren't. Jerrod mentioned Pirates, which is much, much better at Disneyland. And newcomers have to at least view the outside of Small World even if the inside is the same. (Is it?)

Agreed, but if the choice is doing Indy or doing jungle cruise, skip jungle cruise.

 

[Philsfan77]

We have a wedding out in Malibu next summer, and were considering extending our trip and doing a few days in Disneyland. My initial thoughts were to drive down to Anaheim the Sunday after the wedding, and then do 3 full park days and fly home on Thursday. But the more I think about it, I'm wondering if we can get enough out of the trip if we do a half day on Sunday, then two full days, and fly out on Wednesday.

It'll be myself, my husband, and our almost 2 year old. My husband and I frequent WDW, and our son will have done WDW once before this trip. My husband doesn't get paid vacation days, so we could save around $400 on hotel/food by shortening the trip, plus a day's worth of salary for him. We could likely afford three full days, but it is a good chunk of change I'd love to save. Is 2.5 days feasible? Or will we be kicking ourselves for not having 3 full days?

We were in a similar situation...Wedding in San Diego with a 4 year old and 2 year old. We did 2 days in the parks (swam on the half day we arrived and did character breakfast on our way out of town). We bought genie+ and ILL, did early entry as we stayed at GCH. It was very doable with DL day 1 and DCA day 2. We even took a break each day to swim, did a sit down lunch (Cafe Orleans at DL) and did WOC Dessert Party. At DL, the only rides we didn't do were - Astro Orbiter, Autopia, the Star Wars Rides (didn't see the need as we do WDW) and Davey Crocketts Explorer Canoes...for shows we skipped Abraham Lincoln and Tiki Room. We did everything else via some combination of Rider Swap or my in-laws watched our little guys if they didn't want to do a ride. At DCA we skipped - Goofy's Sky School, Pixar Pal around and Silly Symphony Swings. For Shows we skipped Dr. Strange, Five and Dime and Turtle Talk with Crush.

The biggest thing for us (especially at DL) was how much we got done during early entry (we did Peter Pan, Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo x2 - didn't even have to get off the ride as there were only 4 people waiting, Mad Hatter and Alice and as we walked off Alice we went back to Toontown right as early entry was ending and were one of the first people in line to see Mickey at his house). We did ILL for Runaway Railway and then we used Genie+ for a lot of the other rides the rest of the day, which is way easier to use and do at DL than WDW.

You might want to opt for the park hopper (looking back I kind of wished we did this) as there wasn't enough at DCA for our 2 year old. We ended up leaving around 1 and went back around 530 after swimming and naps. If we had the park hopper, we probably would have went over to DL and redid some of the rides there instead of doing some of the kiddie rides (Golden Zephyr, Jessie's carousel and Inside out). They are fine for what they are, but we have these same rides at our local theme parks. It would have been more fun to do small world and some of the fantasyland rides again over at DL. For Early entry there, we did Spider-Man and Guardians before walking back to Cars Land. We then did Spider-man and Guardians again that night when we went back (stacked them for the evening with genie+ while we were swimming).

 

[3monkeys4me]

I think 2.5 days will be fine, especially if you focus on the unique to Disneyland things. If it were me I'd do CA on Sunday and DL Monday and Tuesday.

 

[Disneyhanna]

2.5 days is plenty for Disneyland/DCA imo. You won't be able to do EVERYTHING but you can still do plenty if you go in with a plan and do a little research before. My first two trips to Disneyland as a kid, we only did one day, and I have plenty of great memories from those trips!

 

[Malcon10t]

DCA is more friendly to kids than people expect. The Redwood Trail is a big kid area. Depending on how tall your 2yo will be, there are more be more rides than you will expect. At 2.5yo, my granddaughter was 40". Also, be aware, Mondays are sometimes the busiest day of the week.

 

[irlandaise]

I think 2.5 days will be fine, especially if you focus on the unique to Disneyland things. If it were me I'd do CA on Sunday and DL Monday and Tuesday.

It sounds like Winnieofpooh and her family haven't been to DLR before. If that's the case, I would urge them to go to Disneyland first. I would find it unbearable if I were *this* close to Walt's original park and couldn't begin my first-ever visit there!

 

[3monkeys4me]

It sounds like Winnieofpooh and her family haven't been to DLR before. If that's the case, I would urge them to go to Disneyland first. I would find it unbearable if I were *this* close to Walt's original park and couldn't begin my first-ever visit there!

Just personal preference, I guess, but I would still prefer to save the full days for Disneyland. I would prefer to have 2 full Disneyland days with a 2-year-old vs. a day and a half at Disneyland and a day at California Adventure. Hoppers would change that plan, but with single-day tickets, I would save the full days for Disneyland, especially for a summer trip.

 

[SpaceMan5]

It sounds like Winnieofpooh and her family haven't been to DLR before. If that's the case, I would urge them to go to Disneyland first. I would find it unbearable if I were *this* close to Walt's original park and couldn't begin my first-ever visit there!

Couldn't agree with you more irlandaise! In all of our trips we have always started with DL. I like CA and all but I have always really enjoyed starting our trip where it all began. I realize it is just our opinion and others may not feel the same nostalgia about DL. I still say do what is best for you and it will be a great vacation

 

[SOCALMouseMommy]

Although they do need to look closely at the "duplicate" rides, because some really aren't. Jerrod mentioned Pirates, which is much, much better at Disneyland. And newcomers have to at least view the outside of Small World even if the inside is the same. (Is it?)

IASW is different at Disneyland. We have the Disney character dolls in our version.