Hi — I’m Tabiiku. I travel around Japan with my daughter on the principle that experience is the best thing you can give a child. This is the parks half of our trip to Disneyland Resort in California. The hotel is a separate post.
Buying tickets
Buy online before you go. One thing that surprises people coming from Japan: the official site is the most expensive option and its tickets are non-refundable. I compared several resellers and KLOOK was consistently cheapest — and KLOOK tickets can be cancelled.
Important: buying the ticket is not enough. You also need a park reservation. The instructions come through in the confirmation email and it is not difficult, so do not panic.
On Multi Lightning Lane: it is good value and I would buy it even in a quiet period. Park Hopper I would skip — spending a full day in one park and working through it with Multi LL is the most efficient use of your time. Each attraction can only be booked once on LL, so think about where you spend them.
Where we stayed: Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa
Check rates and availability on Agoda
Check rates and availability on Booking.com
Disneyland: how to plan the day
Whoever wins the morning wins the day. That said, it is not the frantic first-ten-minutes race you get in Japan: waits stay low until about 11am, and even the headline rides run at around twenty minutes.
Early park entry is worth more than Lightning Lane, in my view, which is why I would stay at one of the resort hotels.
Here is exactly what to do with early entry. At that hour Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance is not yet operating, so you have time for one or two other things — and if you like roller coasters, go straight to Space Mountain. Ride it with a five to ten minute wait, then head for Star Wars. You will arrive just as that area opens.
One tip that saves a lot of walking: approach Rise of the Resistance from the right side, not the left. The queue extends to the right, so from the left you walk its entire length looking for the end.
After that, nothing has much of a queue until around 11am, so work through the rides that get busy later:
- Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway
- Big Thunder Mountain
- Space Mountain
- Haunted Mansion (when the seasonal overlay is running)
- Matterhorn Bobsleds
- Tiana’s Bayou Adventure
- Indiana Jones Adventure
A warning about Tiana’s: it is the Splash Mountain equivalent, but unlike the Japanese version you get spectacularly wet. Bring a poncho. We did not know and came off looking like we had showered fully clothed.
Indiana Jones goes down for adjustments more than anything else at Disneyland. Being released from the standby queue partway through is miserable, and a Lightning Lane here becomes a special pass usable on any attraction, so ride it on LL during the day.
On Lightning Lane timing: Japanese instincts say grab one first thing. Resist. In the morning LL and standby waits are almost identical. Wait until the afternoon slots are released, because by then the popular rides run close to sixty minutes.
Disney California Adventure: how to plan the day
The one I had most looked forward to, Radiator Springs Racers, was closed for refurbishment, so this plan excludes it.
Like Disneyland, it stays relatively quiet until about 11am. Some sites claim the Grand Californian hotel entrance is only usable by hotel guests during early entry; when I went, nothing was checked there. Once inside, early entry guests are held behind a different rope, and that is where they check your room key.
If you like thrill rides, start with Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT!, which carries one of the longest waits from open to close. Then Web Slingers next door. After that work through whichever of these appeal:
- Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue!
- Grizzly River Run
- Goofy’s Sky School
- Toy Story Midway Mania!
- Soarin’ Around the World
Surprisingly, by average wait, Toy Story Midway Mania is the busiest ride in the park. Incredicoaster is a thrill ride but shifts people quickly, so you can usually get on without much of a wait even in the afternoon.
Nothing here reaches the 200-minute waits you see in Japan, but sixty minutes is normal. Set your expectations there and you will have a good day.
Restaurants
Night one: Carnation Cafe, in Disneyland. Walk-up waits were already sixty minutes at around 5pm, so book ahead. It is famous for breakfast, but dinner was excellent too. I had the chef’s salad; a lot of people around us were ordering the beef stroganoff. The children’s menu is a main plus two sides.
Night two: Carthay Circle Restaurant, in California Adventure. Also extremely popular, with walk-in waits of about an hour. The dress code is casual but the service is properly polished. Walking through the ground floor there was a wonderful smell of garlic and my daughter announced she wanted to eat whatever it was. The menus differ between floors, but our server said she would tell the chef to go heavy on the garlic in the garlic pasta, and my daughter was thrilled. Americans are so consistently kind to children, and that culture is one of the reasons I love visiting.
It was so good I forgot to photograph it, but we had the Spanish potato croquettes and the pork chop. Our server said the croquettes were her favourite and she was right. The pork chop is absurdly thick — plan to share it.
Other things worth knowing
Character meet-and-greets happen at random all over the parks, and unlike Japan there is no long queue — wait for two or three groups and you get your photo.
On MagicBand: I do not think it is necessary in California. In a large group it makes entry and Lightning Lane slightly smoother, and that is about it. At Walt Disney World in Florida it doubles as your room key and handles payments; California does not support that. I bought one without realising.
If you lose something, file a Lost and Found report online. We lost something and were contacted that same evening to say it had been found, which astonished me.
That is the parks. And do buy your tickets through KLOOK.
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