We were in the parks May 18th through the 21st. Had a great time overall, but this was the first time with a 1½ year old and it definitely made a difference in how and what we did this trip. Since I always get so much from this board, I wanted to share a few comments in case they're helpful to someone --
Undercover Tourist – We bought the promo tickets in late December from UT (saved us about $500 overall). Printed off the paper vouchers they emailed us, then had them scanned at the gate to get our actual park tickets. Quick and easy, no problems. Had to wait to get the actual tickets, though, before entering them in the Disneyland app to assign names and purchase our MaxPass.
Ticket Barcodes – Thanks to advice from posters here, I took a picture of each ticket barcode as soon as we got in the gate the first day. I also entered them into the Disneyland app. Good thing, because on day 2 we lost one of the paper tickets. We didn’t get a replacement ticket, but the barcode picture and/or app ticket worked for gate entry and to get FPs with MaxPass.
MaxPass – We used MaxPass only 2 days out of the 4, because it was $75 per day for our full 5 tickets. On Sunday, we didn’t get to DL until 9 am (rain delay!), so were already an hour behind the early risers. We FP’d Indy, BTMR, Splash Mountain and Buzz Lightyear in the morning, then stacked Haunted Mansion and Matterhorn for the p.m. As busy as it was, by early afternoon many attractions had FP return times into the evening or were out entirely. On Monday, we were there at CA opening so we got RSR first thing, did Soarin’ as a walk-on, then FP’d TSMM, Goofy’s Sky School, Grizzly River Rapids, and GOTG later in the day. We weren’t able to stack more than a couple at a time. But as busy as it was, and with young ones in our party that limited our speed and timing, we still pulled more FPs than if we would have had to walk to get the physical FP, and we could justify a more leisurely pace our other park days. The PhotoPass pictures were a nice plus.
Rider Swap -- We had a 1½ year old so we rider-swapped the big rides. Even with FPs, the rider swap is a time suck – you have to do a full exit and enter again every time -- which was a big hit on how much we could get done in a day.
However, rider swap gives you rides for up to 2 extra riders on top of any other FPs, so other riders can benefit big time. Where we had 5 FPs total for a ride before the rider swap (and a ride-timid 6 year old) it played out like this: Grandma, Mom and 10 year old went on first ride; Mom, Dad and 10 year old went on rider-swapped passes for the second ride; Dad and 10 year old went on remaining FPs. Needless to say, the 10 year old was loving it!
Crowd Levels – As mentioned by others here before, predicted crowd levels are guesstimates at best. Touring Plans predicted levels at 3-6-4-3 for our four park days – actual levels ended up being 9-6-8-6! The 6 (Sunday the 19th) probably would have been even higher except for the morning rain.
Wait Times – Neither the Disneyland app wait times or those posted in front of an attraction are all that accurate. 10 minutes on the app for Jessie’s Critter Carousel ended up being 30 minutes in real time. It helped a little to “refresh” the app (close the app and then reopen it) to update the wait time each time we were deciding on something, but we were often stuck longer than expected. Once we committed to a standby wait of 30 minutes per the posted time just outside of Roger Rabbit, but it ended up being 45+ excruciating minutes at the end of the night – it looked like a suddenly long FP return line stalled the standby line. Obviously a lot of factors affect standby wait times so patience is a good thing.
Even with 3½ days in the parks we did NOT do World of Color, Fantasmic, or any of the shows (I'm especially sad we missed Frozen). We did catch a few of the street performances which were fun, and part of the DL parade. But balancing the big rides, the "kid" rides, character visits and photo ops etc. with back-at-the-hotel rest times really cut into the time for other things. Guess I need to plan another visit after SWGE settles down
Questions? I'll be happy to share if I've got an answer.
Undercover Tourist – We bought the promo tickets in late December from UT (saved us about $500 overall). Printed off the paper vouchers they emailed us, then had them scanned at the gate to get our actual park tickets. Quick and easy, no problems. Had to wait to get the actual tickets, though, before entering them in the Disneyland app to assign names and purchase our MaxPass.
Ticket Barcodes – Thanks to advice from posters here, I took a picture of each ticket barcode as soon as we got in the gate the first day. I also entered them into the Disneyland app. Good thing, because on day 2 we lost one of the paper tickets. We didn’t get a replacement ticket, but the barcode picture and/or app ticket worked for gate entry and to get FPs with MaxPass.
MaxPass – We used MaxPass only 2 days out of the 4, because it was $75 per day for our full 5 tickets. On Sunday, we didn’t get to DL until 9 am (rain delay!), so were already an hour behind the early risers. We FP’d Indy, BTMR, Splash Mountain and Buzz Lightyear in the morning, then stacked Haunted Mansion and Matterhorn for the p.m. As busy as it was, by early afternoon many attractions had FP return times into the evening or were out entirely. On Monday, we were there at CA opening so we got RSR first thing, did Soarin’ as a walk-on, then FP’d TSMM, Goofy’s Sky School, Grizzly River Rapids, and GOTG later in the day. We weren’t able to stack more than a couple at a time. But as busy as it was, and with young ones in our party that limited our speed and timing, we still pulled more FPs than if we would have had to walk to get the physical FP, and we could justify a more leisurely pace our other park days. The PhotoPass pictures were a nice plus.
Rider Swap -- We had a 1½ year old so we rider-swapped the big rides. Even with FPs, the rider swap is a time suck – you have to do a full exit and enter again every time -- which was a big hit on how much we could get done in a day.
However, rider swap gives you rides for up to 2 extra riders on top of any other FPs, so other riders can benefit big time. Where we had 5 FPs total for a ride before the rider swap (and a ride-timid 6 year old) it played out like this: Grandma, Mom and 10 year old went on first ride; Mom, Dad and 10 year old went on rider-swapped passes for the second ride; Dad and 10 year old went on remaining FPs. Needless to say, the 10 year old was loving it!
Crowd Levels – As mentioned by others here before, predicted crowd levels are guesstimates at best. Touring Plans predicted levels at 3-6-4-3 for our four park days – actual levels ended up being 9-6-8-6! The 6 (Sunday the 19th) probably would have been even higher except for the morning rain.
Wait Times – Neither the Disneyland app wait times or those posted in front of an attraction are all that accurate. 10 minutes on the app for Jessie’s Critter Carousel ended up being 30 minutes in real time. It helped a little to “refresh” the app (close the app and then reopen it) to update the wait time each time we were deciding on something, but we were often stuck longer than expected. Once we committed to a standby wait of 30 minutes per the posted time just outside of Roger Rabbit, but it ended up being 45+ excruciating minutes at the end of the night – it looked like a suddenly long FP return line stalled the standby line. Obviously a lot of factors affect standby wait times so patience is a good thing.
Even with 3½ days in the parks we did NOT do World of Color, Fantasmic, or any of the shows (I'm especially sad we missed Frozen). We did catch a few of the street performances which were fun, and part of the DL parade. But balancing the big rides, the "kid" rides, character visits and photo ops etc. with back-at-the-hotel rest times really cut into the time for other things. Guess I need to plan another visit after SWGE settles down
Questions? I'll be happy to share if I've got an answer.
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