Weekend Trip advice

SamFaniam

DIS Veteran
Joined
Apr 8, 2019
We will be in California next March and are hoping to spend a couple of days at Disneyland. We have done Disneyland before but it’s been 6 years. It looks like our dates would probably be a Saturday and a Sunday. Does it make sense to get a park hopper ticket or should we just focus on doing one park per day? I would guess Maxpass would be helpful on weekend days.
 
Depends on what kind of pace you are looking at keeping and what’s important to you.

The hopper gives you flexibility. DL in the morning, DCA in the afternoon, DL again in the evening. Or whatever you like. Pretty easy to do, especially with Maxpass.

Maxpass isn’t a requirement. You can still get FP the old fashioned way if you want. Maxpass saves you time. That’s all. You don’t have to cross the park to get a FP if you don’t want to.

Are you trying to hit all the attractions or have specific ones in mind?
 
RSR, GotG, Star Wars, Mr Toad. Definitely want to see Fantasmic, and maybe World of Color. I anticipate we will spend all day in the parks, but no need to see everything! I do like the idea of Maxpass so we don’t have to run around getting paper fast passes.
 
If you can swing Maxpass financially, DO IT. A wonderful trip can still be had without it, of course. A few years ago right after they introduced Maxpass, we skipped it and still really enjoyed ourselves. But this year we purchased Maxpass and we will never go back to running to the machines for fastpasses. This year was our first 2-day trip (we've previously always done 3+ days). We had park hoppers and park hopped multiple times each day. Again, if you can afford it...I say get the hoppers. It will give you more options for your time. Have a great trip!
 


I’ve used Maxpass on every trip since it was introduced and loved it each time. it saves a lot of time. It’s just whether or not the time you save is worth the cost or not. For me it is.
 
Also if ROTR is anything like it was before Covid, then you might want to consider park hoppers because if you don’t get a BG on your first day, you can always try again the next day.
 
We typically do 2 day trips, and very frequently they end up being weekends. I would 100% get MP, because it's very helpful. I would also get PHs if you can. We once did 2 day one park, DL then DCA, and had a great time, but agreed that we'd rather have hoppers. With the parks being so close together - really just like one big park, especially since you don't have to go through security again once you're in the esplanade - I think PH is worth it for the flexibility. I especially love making MPs from one park for the other park and then hopping over for them.

Last thing - rope drop! It matters more at DLR than it does at WDW, especially on weekends. The local APs don't show up very early.
 


MP + parkhopper will give you maximum activities and maximum flexibility in those two days. Definitely worth it if your DLR trips are few and far between.
 
I dont think the park hopper is a necessity but I would start at rope drop so, you get to experience all that you want to being there for only 2 days.
 
Obviously maximum flexibility is best, parkhopper included. But if I could only afford one or the other I'd get the MaxPass. MaxPass plus doing one park per day really eliminates a lot of walking.

(If boarding groups are still a Thing) If you are worried about a boarding group and don't originally have parkhoppers, do DL the first day. If you can't get a boarding group on day 1, you could then consider upgrading to parkhoppers so you could enter DL again on the second day.

PHXscuba
 
Thanks for all the great tips. I know that people who stay at the Disney resorts get early entry to the parks. Is that true for day guess also? Do you have to have a certain type of ticket for that?

The nice thing is since will be traveling to be on Pacific time, getting up early will not be an issue!
 
Thanks for all the great tips. I know that people who stay at the Disney resorts get early entry to the parks. Is that true for day guess also? Do you have to have a certain type of ticket for that?

The nice thing is since will be traveling to be on Pacific time, getting up early will not be an issue!

haha the reverse is how we've felt at WDW doing late night events at the beginning of our trip coming from CA - well, we're still on Pacific time, so it's not that late!

If you get a ticket with 3+ days, you get one Magic Morning at Disneyland. The mornings are Tues, Thurs, and Sat.
 
I'm a big WDW fan, DVC owner at Copper Creek. But I'm from CA and there is nothing like early mornings at Disneyland. That said, early risers get so much bang for their buck if you buy a Maxpass. We like park hopping and first Maxpass we always get is Radiator Springs Racers. With Rise of Resistance open, we would go into the park and hope to get a boarding group, and set up our first Maxpass while we wait. Who knows what it will be like once they reopen though.

Once you get your first fastpass, the Maxpass system (on the app) will let you know when you can get your next one, and so on. There are times when we have had 3 lined up in a row. And unlike WDW, you can set up fastpasses with Maxpass at both parks.
 

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