Disneyland Resort (DL, DLR, DCA) Discussion Thread

[ytterbiumanalystWhy do I still have a donkey title???]

It's fine. Although there is certainly such a thing as a dumb question, none of these are dumb questions.

You can reserve Maxpass for both parks from either park as soon as you activate your ticket at either park. You get a handstamp when leaving one park and going to the other, that part's easy. I've never left DCA before opening then stood in line for Disneyland...not sure how they'd feel about that or if you'd have to stay in DCA until official opening.

[coasterbillWhy do I still have a donkey title???]

Alright then. I’ll just stop overthinking it and start at the other park and reserve Radiator Springs while rope dropping Space or something.

[ytterbiumanalystWhy do I still have a donkey title???]

Yeah that works too. Hard to have a bad day at Disneyland.

BTW, there's a Trader Sam's here too. It's at the Disneyland Hotel, and you have to go through Downtown Disney to get there. Have fun!

[Canobie CoasterWhy do I still have a donkey title???]

Alright then. I’ll just stop overthinking it and start at the other park and reserve Radiator Springs while rope dropping Space or something.

If you do want to do the low capacity, non-Fastpass Fantasyland dark rides, I'd recommend starting with those. But I totally don't blame you if the allure of superior rides like Space Mountain win out.

[bert425Why do I still have a donkey title???]

Alright then. I’ll just stop overthinking it and start at the other park and reserve Radiator Springs while rope dropping Space or something.

If you do want to do the low capacity, non-Fastpass Fantasyland dark rides, I'd recommend starting with those. But I totally don't blame you if the allure of superior rides like Space Mountain win out.

I'll chime in and say, yes, they are low capacity, yes they are not the "best" rides at DisneyLand. . but absolutely hit Fantasyland early, and make sure you take a spin on Mr. Toad, and (especially) Alice in Wonderland.

they are considered classics for a reason, and who doesn't like going to hell (mr. Toad) on a bright and sunny morning at Disneyland.

[NrthwndBAYSIDE STATION!!!]

I would suggest to you, to go through the castle, and hit the three dark rides on the right: Peter Pan, then Toad, then around the corner is Alice...and after that, you are just a few steps away, from the queues for The Matterhorn! Btw... Left side > Right side.

The other two dark rides, Snow White and Pinocchio,
were basic walk-ons when I was last there.
But the others had long lines.

And beyond The Matterhorn, is Tomorrowland!

[coasterbillWhy do I still have a donkey title???]

Thanks for the tips everyone! Disneyland was awesome! I'll have a trip report on the way during the later half of this century but just a few notes:

- Cars Land is stunning and Radiator Springs Racers was amazing. Shout-out to Goofy's Sky School. We reserved it 10 minutes before our ride time, it broke and we got a multiple experience pass that was valid for Radiator Springs Racers so we got two rides in (one at night). We later got another Fastpass for Goofy's Sky School 10 minutes before it was time to ride, bypassed a 45 minute line and rode that too.

- Indiana Jones was amazing. It's one of the best rides I've ever experienced anywhere. Aside from the Harry Potter rides I don't think I can come up with a better dark ride in the US.

- MaxPass is possibly the single best deal in the theme park industry. Anyone who goes to Disneyland and doesn't get MaxPass is flat out stupid and I can't be kind about this.

- I don't want to play the "Orlando vs California" game on everything and in most cases each ride has pros and cons but I love Thunder Mountain at Disneyland. I love the queue, I love how close it comes to the midway, I love the end scene and I love the ride. It's placement is great and the ride is excellent. Space Mountain was also pretty damn awesome. I also liked how Small World threw in so many Disney characters.

- I don't give a crap about the Star Wars brand but the land looks insane and after seeing it from the Thunder Mountain lift I absolutely can't wait.

- Fantasyland is adorable. I love how small everything feels compared to Disney World (mainly in Fantasyland). It's probably tough from a logistical standpoint when the park is so insanely busy but it's really cool. We rode most of the Fantasyland dark rides and they were cute. They're not amazing rides but thanks to having such limited queue space it was fun riding all of them with 10-20 minute waits for each. We did not ride Peter Pan's Flight (because it's Peter Pan's flight) or Alice in Wonderland because it kept going down but we'll be back and we'll check that one out eventually.

Overall we loved the park and we had an awesome time. I recommend it to anyone. I'm also in love with Maxpass.

[Canobie CoasterWhy do I still have a donkey title???]

^ I agree 100% on MaxPass. The value is there for the convenience, but it's an even bigger steal considering it includes unlimited on-ride photo downloads for the day as well.

I prefer it to Florida's system since I can easily get 10-15 FastPasses per day.

[coasterbillWhy do I still have a donkey title???]

It's insane. We went on a "regular" day and it cost us $358.00 for one day (for 2 of us). It could be as much as $398 on a "peak day". For an extra $30 ($15 each) we probably rode twice as many rides than we would have with the traditional Fastpasses.

As soon as we went through the gates I reserved Racers while on the way to Space Mountain. As soon as we would scan into a Maxpass ride I would reserve another one while still waiting in line and if we had to wait until a certain time to make another reservation I just set a phone reminder real quick and did it right away once the phone buzzed. We rode a TON of sh*t and between the unbelievable convenience, multiple experience passes delivered right to the phone if something went down and the ability to reserve things in either park from other ride lines (or wherever) 30 minutes sooner than you could without Maxpass.

I know every Fastpass system is great, but at Cedar Point (for example) when you tell someone that bought a four pack of $35 tickets on Black Friday to pony up $600 for a family of 4 for one day of Fastlane plus on a summer Saturday then it's a tough sell. It's over 4 times the cost of the actual ticket. It's an awesome product but it's priced accordingly.

Meanwhile, Maxpass was about less than 10% of the ticket price and less money than we spent on our reasonably-priced counter service lunch in the park. The fact that there were so many people walking around without it honestly blew my mind. It's amazing and it's ridiculously cheap.

[Canobie CoasterWhy do I still have a donkey title???]

^ Yeah considering the price of admission, it's baffling why someone wouldn't spend that little extra to ride way more rides. But Disney does still have the paper fastpasses if that is what floats their boat.

Toy Story Mania was my savior on my trip. That thing kept breaking down and churning out Magical Experience FastPasses.