Can you help us plan?

[disEAR]

Hoping I can call on some of you to help us plan our upcoming trip. Typically we plan ahead but life has been chaotic. We will be at Disneyland in a couple of weeks, staying at GCH for three nights (Mon-Thu) with park hoppers and reservations made. We are two adults, enjoy taking in the sights, doing a few rides, don't like waiting in line for more than 45 minutes. We're not picky about food but enjoy taking part in seasonal/limited dishes. We last visited Disneyland a year ago, so nothing that I'm aware of is "new", but we haven't seen any of the nighttime shows in years and would like to see Fatasmic and World of Color if possible. Not above getting Genie+ as we used to enjoy MaxPass, but probably wouldn't pay for the ILL.

So, any thoughts or recommendations for how we should go about our days?

 

[Britrawr]

What is your morning park each day? Whichever it is I recommend rope dropping. Me and my SO do till about 12 then go for a long break after. Can get a lot done in that short time. World of color que starts at 12. Fantasmic is first come first serve unless you have a dining package. Are you going to be there during the parties? California adventure closes at six those nights

 

[mdmost]

Some questions:

What are specific days are you going to the parks and which parks on what days?

What rides do you enjoy doing?

Are you going to take advantage of the early morning hotel guest benefit? If not, are you going to rope drop?

Is there anything you haven't done at DLR that you'd like to do besides the nighttime shows? For instance, my wife and I had never had a slow day at DLR where we just rode the Main St Vehicles or gone around the park on the train first thing in the morning.

Do you care about Star Wars Land?

 

[disEAR]

What is your morning park each day? Whichever it is I recommend rope dropping. Me and my SO do till about 12 then go for a long break after. Can get a lot done in that short time. World of color que starts at 12. Fantasmic is first come first serve unless you have a dining package. Are you going to be there during the parties? California adventure closes at six those nights

Some questions:

What are specific days are you going to the parks and which parks on what days?

What rides do you enjoy doing?

Are you going to take advantage of the early morning hotel guest benefit? If not, are you going to rope drop?

Is there anything you haven't done at DLR that you'd like to do besides the nighttime shows? For instance, my wife and I had never had a slow day at DLR where we just rode the Main St Vehicles or gone around the park on the train first thing in the morning.

Do you care about Star Wars Land?

Monday thru Thursday (DLR, DCA, DLR)
We pretty much enjoy any ride that doesn’t get us wet. So no splash mtn or rapids.

We have park hoppers and will likely use them each day. No parties on the nights we are there.

Haven’t decided on early morning, what’s the consensus? Worth it? We’ve been dealing with a lot of real world stress lately and just want a break, so rest is important right now, are not worried about getting everything done.

We enjoy walking, train ride isn’t a bad idea, we have done Star Wars enough times not to stress over it.

 

[mdmost]

Good info. When we have 3 days, we typically break it up with DLR, DCA, DLR like you're doing. First day is hitting everything we want to hit. We start at Tomorrowland at Rope Drop and then work over to Fantasyland. We do/have done Genie+/Maxpass so we would then start booking Big Thunder, Indy, Haunted Mansion and fill in rides around that. We would keep riding until around 1pm and then have lunch. After that back to hotel for swimming/relaxing. Back in the parks at 5 and we do the rest of our must do rides. Same with CA the next day. Final DLR day is favorites and things we don't normally do like Mark Twain Riverboat, the train, and taking it more slowly.

We get park hoppers but it's really just to ride something in the other park at night. Mostly going back to CA since we only typically book a day there and we want to do something like ride Guardians at night or hang out in Cars Land.

 

[limace]

Are you doing a fourth day? You say Monday through Thursday but only list three days…

 

[Britrawr]

Some questions:

Monday thru Thursday (DLR, DCA, DLR)
We pretty much enjoy any ride that doesn’t get us wet. So no splash mtn or rapids.

We have park hoppers and will likely use them each day. No parties on the nights we are there.

Haven’t decided on early morning, what’s the consensus? Worth it? We’ve been dealing with a lot of real world stress lately and just want a break, so rest is important right now, are not worried about getting everything done.

We enjoy walking, train ride isn’t a bad idea, we have done Star Wars enough times not to stress over it.

I think it’s worth it to be there for rope drop. I can get so much done in those first couple hours then go rest at noonish and use the genie in the afternoon. If you do break in the afternoon and you already scanned into the park then you can book genie plus on the way back very convenient. Now if you want to stay at the parks most of the day then you don’t probably need to rope drop. I just get overwhelmed and hot easily and that plan works wells for me. I’m pretty much a Disney expert so if you need any help just ask! Have a magical time I’m going to be there sept 24th-27.

 

[disEAR]

Are you doing a fourth day? You say Monday through Thursday but only list three days…

Three nights. Thursday we check out and will just do DowntownDisney in the morning.

 

[Dr. G]

When my wife and I go without the kids we usually end up with one sleep in day. If I were you I'd rope drop the first two days (one at each park) to get rides in. Then in the afternoon go back to the hotel to rest and relax, or just relax in the parks not worrying about getting on rides and enjoy the atmosphere. The last day you can decide if you want to sleep in and end on a restful morning (though it sounds like Thursday is also a restful morning without parks), or get up early again.

Do you like evenings in the parks? Nighttime is our favorite time as the lighting is so pretty. And you said you want to hit Fantasmic and World of Color so there in the evening. If we stay until close or close to it one night we sleep in the next morning, usually. Nice thing is you can go with the flow once you are there and decide day-by-day. Have a great time!

 

[danceintherain]

I wake up sooo early at Disneyland. It's 2 hours earlier there for us, so I find it a lot easier to get up early than to stay up late.
If all I cared about were the nighttime shows, then I'd either sleep in or plan on a super long break every day (if my internal clock woke me up at dawn as it tends to do). I'd probably wait until I got in the park to decide about G+ and would be more likely to pay for ILL, because RSR is my favorite ride.

 

[mouschievous]

We are basically the same - 2 adults, stayed at GCH, we were in the parks Tues-Thurs, we won't wait in line more than 45 minutes, etc. Our strategy was rope drop, midday break, then stay until closing. We did everything we wanted to, including shows. With rope drop and single rider we were able to not wait in long lines without purchasing G+ or ILL. We also did the second shows of the night to avoid having to camp out for spots. The only thing we didn't really care about was fireworks, which we ended up watching from our Storybook Canal boat.

Generally, we were at the gates a few minutes before they opened, then were in the first wave into the parks at RD. Did rides until 10 or 11, then left to go to the hotel for lunch and a rest. We went back around 5 or so for dinner and then closed down the parks. Since DCA closes at 10, we would close it down then hop to DL to close it down. It was not necessarily a relaxing time, but it was a blast. If you wanted it to be more relaxing, I would still rope drop but go back to the hotel early to get some rest.

The most relaxing time of our trip was our last day, Friday. We did not have park tickets, so we slept in, checked out, then had brunch at Storytellers. Afterward we hung out at the pool for about 4 hours. It was so nice. If you're able to do something like that, I highly recommend it.

 

[SOCALMouseMommy]

What dates are you coming? One week days, there will be limited nighttime entertainment after Labor Day.