Park plans 5/21 - 5/25

[Launchpad5077]

This is my family's first (and maybe once-in-a-lifetime) trip to Disneyland. It is my wife and me, 12 year old son, 10 year old daughter. We are arriving Saturday, May 20th to Disneyland Hotel. No parks on that day.

We will be at the parks with 5 day Park Hopper tickets May 21-25.

We will have early entry on May 21-23 from Disneyland Hotel. No early entry on 24/25. We will be rope dropping every morning.

I have some questions.

-With five days in the parks, including three with Early Entry, do we need Genie+?
-If using Genie+ for part of the trip, would you combine it with Early Entry or use it on the days we don't have Early Entry?
-We'll start with a fairly full day at each park, and then possibly do some park hopping the last three days, depending on what we haven't seen yet or want to do again.

-Our son's favorite movie is Cars. Carsland is a huge reason for this trip. We'll want to spend time there during the day and at night and probably have multiple rides on Radiator Springs Racers. I'm open to buying the ILL probably once at most, though I probably could be persuaded pretty easily, especially when we get to the last day and he wants to ride it one more time. Are there any times other than lining up at rope drop that are good times to ride in standby?

-Can someone help with touring itineraries? We've been to WDW a few times and I've typically had very detailed plans, but I've been struggling to figure out the timing at Disneyland Resort.

Rough Park Plans:
5/21 Disneyland -
Early Entry
We want to do everything but Peter Pan's Flight in Fantasyland. How much can we reasonably get done in Fantasyland during early entry?
We're not going to do Rise of the Resistance, but might do Smuggler's Run.
We won't be doing Haunted Mansion.
We're planning to do most other Disneyland attractions.
We want to do the parades and nighttime shows.

5/22 DCA
Early Entry
We want to do most things in DCA except the Pixar Pal Around, Golden Zephyr, Silly Symphony Swings, Little Mermaid, and Redwood Creek Trail.
We're interested in the nighttime entertainment there as well.

Thank you very much, everyone.

 

[chezcurrie]

With 5 day hoppers you don’t *need* G+, but you may want to utilize it on one of your DL days. The parks can get very crowded by mid day and it is nice to be able to stack LL for your evening during a mid day hotel break.

Fantasyland should be easily conquerable during EE if your forgo PP.

Touring itineraries I find unreliable at Dland because of ride closures and seasonal stuff. I use the personal rule of 3’s when we visit (3 top priorities, 3 snacks, 3-hr break!) so we tend to focus on our must do rides and everything else is gravy.

With EE and your interests you can get a lot accomplished at DCA first thing in the morning. For Racers I would suggest using the single rider line for your son when he wants to re-ride. You won’t be together but if you have purchased the LL for a group ride it won’t feel like he is missing out. Unfortunately I have rarely seen the standby line under 45 minutes and even single rider can get to that length of a wait. In the morning single rider can be practically walk on. My sons love single rider on smugglers run as well and will ride it 4 or 5 times in a row. You aren’t likely to get pilot that way but again for re-rides they don’t care.

Have a great trip! One of the great things about Dland vs wdw (esp with 5 days) is you can go at a relaxed pace and still accomplish so much.

 

[theluckyrabbit]

Agree that with 5 day hoppers, G+ isn't necessarily a must. But 5/21 is a Grad Nite, so DCA will close at 9 for non-grads -- which means DL might get more busy in the evening. 5/25 is the last day to use the Southern CA promo ticket, so the weekdays leading up to that might be busy. Just some things to keep in mind. Have a fun trip!

 

[By-Tor and Snow Pup]

A voice for having Genie +: it does help get a lot more done. For a big Disneyland trip, I'd say for sure have it.

I wouldn't worry about the itinerary too much; particularly with Genie + and with ILL. Go to where the masses of people aren't. If more people seem to be moving right... then go left. Disney miracles happen. If you have a tight itinerary you may miss them. We walked on Mickey's Runaway Railway in the middle of a Saturday afternoon recently. Though, I would advise against racing all the way across the park if you see a low wait time, because that is what -everyone- else is doing and that wait time will explode quick. Do keep an eye on rides that are down. If they are testing ride vehicles and you get the vibe it's going to reopen soon, that can become a Disney miracle.

Forget sleep. Get up. Do rope drop. Use your early entry. On weekend nights I swear it's more busy at 11pm than it is at 11am. You definitely want to see the nighttime shows, but if energy is limited, I'd say focus more on the early hours rather than later hours.

 

[Launchpad5077]

With 5 day hoppers you don’t *need* G+, but you may want to utilize it on one of your DL days. The parks can get very crowded by mid day and it is nice to be able to stack LL for your evening during a mid day hotel break.

Fantasyland should be easily conquerable during EE if your forgo PP.

Touring itineraries I find unreliable at Dland because of ride closures and seasonal stuff. I use the personal rule of 3’s when we visit (3 top priorities, 3 snacks, 3-hr break!) so we tend to focus on our must do rides and everything else is gravy.

With EE and your interests you can get a lot accomplished at DCA first thing in the morning. For Racers I would suggest using the single rider line for your son when he wants to re-ride. You won’t be together but if you have purchased the LL for a group ride it won’t feel like he is missing out. Unfortunately I have rarely seen the standby line under 45 minutes and even single rider can get to that length of a wait. In the morning single rider can be practically walk on. My sons love single rider on smugglers run as well and will ride it 4 or 5 times in a row. You aren’t likely to get pilot that way but again for re-rides they don’t care.

Have a great trip! One of the great things about Dland vs wdw (esp with 5 days) is you can go at a relaxed pace and still accomplish so much.

So for EE in Fantasyland, I read through the Rope Drop plans in the pinned Disneyland post.

What would a reasonable amount of time be to get to Alice in Wonderland, Dumbo, Snow White, Mr. Toad, Pinocchio if we start with Alice right at EE start?

We're used to WDW where even the quickest walk-on still take around 10 minutes to get through the queue and load and unload.

 

[chezcurrie]

So for EE in Fantasyland, I read through the Rope Drop plans in the pinned Disneyland post.

What would a reasonable amount of time be to get to Alice in Wonderland, Dumbo, Snow White, Mr. Toad, Pinocchio if we start with Alice right at EE start?

We're used to WDW where even the quickest walk-on still take around 10 minutes to get through the queue and load and unload.

They are literally adjacent to each other so much less walking. Each ride is appx 3 min give or take, so I would say you could theoretically be in line for your last ride by the end of EE. To minimize any backtracking if you’re starting with Alice I would do Dumbo or Mr toad next (across from each other), Snow White then Pinocchio. Snow whited lines always seem longer than Pinocchio which is why I suggest that. There also are the storybook canal boats and Casey junior train in fantasyland, which don’t tend to get too long of waits until later in the morning.

P.S. Alice and dumbo are two of my faves to ride at night as they have an outdoor portion.

 

[sophy1996]

So for EE in Fantasyland, I read through the Rope Drop plans in the pinned Disneyland post.

What would a reasonable amount of time be to get to Alice in Wonderland, Dumbo, Snow White, Mr. Toad, Pinocchio if we start with Alice right at EE start?

We're used to WDW where even the quickest walk-on still take around 10 minutes to get through the queue and load and unload.

We completed 4 of those during EE and were out in the Hub in time for rope drop.

 

[Narcoossee11]

5 days is a long time for Dland. You should have plenty of time . Too much time IMO

 

[Kit Jackson]

5 days is great. You will plenty of time to do everything, and even take a break/nap in the hotel in the afternoon if you want or need to. Depending on how much you care about pictures, especially character photos, I would consider Genie+ for the PhotoPass perk. The PhotoPass photographers are amazing.

If you are thinking about multiple rides on Radiator Springs Racers, consider during one after dark. The ride is a different experience at night. Radiator Springs in general at night is its own special kind of retro neon magic.

 

[overplanningMom]

Be sure to experience Carsland at sunset. That's when they play Sh boom and turn on all the neon lights just like in the movie. Pure magic!