10 Tips For Returning to Disneyland
Are you ready to return to Disneyland? After observing the first week of Disneyland’s reopening, we offer ten smart tips for how to manage your next visit to Disneyland. These insights will help you to not only navigate your stay at Disneyland and Disney California Adventure, but will offer you thoughts on when you may want to pull the lever and head to Anaheim. These same principles are also important ones to remember as well if visiting Walt Disney World or any other Disney theme park in the months to come as COVID comes to a close. Get ready to relive the magic of visiting the “Happiest Place on Earth” as we share 10 tips for returning to Disneyland.
Key notes, images and videos can be found below, but our podcast carries narrative of the entire experience. You can find the podcast here on Podbean, iTunes, Spotify, MyTuner, and ListenNotes. Please subscribe!
1. Reserve, Reserve, Reserve
- Reserve your reservation to visiting the parks.
- Reserve your hotel room if needed.
- Disney’s Grand Californian Resort & Spa Available
- Disney’s Paradise Pier to reopen on June 15th
- Disneyland Hotel yet to be determined
- Reserve dining experiences early.
- Reserve unique experiences like Savi’s Workshop: Handbuilt Lightsabers.
2. Prioritize What Matters
- Rise of the Resistance–Virtual Queues
- Haunted Mansion and Snow White’s Enchanted Wish
- Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure–June 4th
- Disneyland Railroad has strange times–other attractions may as well
3. Determine Value in Park Hopping
Issues regarding park hopping:
- Best park to park hop with the exception of Disneyland Paris
- Can’t hop until after 1:00 pm
- Availability of priority attractions
- Can’t get into Magic Kingdom many days without a park hopper
- Can you fill a day at Disney’s California Adventure?
- Pricing makes the experience expensive
4. Getting There Early Always Matters
Key Concepts:
- Yes…you wait in an additional line before but you more than make up for it in the first two hours
- Get on attractions that have lower capacity or higher popularity first thing
- Stay focused the first few hours–don’t shop or dine
5. Don’t Be Fooled by the Size of the Queue
Disneyland and Disney California Adventure have more rides combined than all four parks at Walt Disney World. Managing your time by being on the rides at the right time matter. It’s not the size of the queue but its capacity to board guests in a given time frame. Consider the following:
- New attractions like Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run, Web-Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure, Haunted Mansion and Snow White’s re-do will be popular from the start of the day to the end of the day.
- Low-capacity favorites like Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan’s Flight should be attended to early in the day.
- All-time favorites like Radiator Springs Racers and Indiana Jones Adventure will always have a line, but not necessarily as much at the beginning of the day.
- Attractions like Pirates of the Caribbean and Under the Sea: Journey of the Little Mermaid and “it’s a small world” has solid capacity and can be enjoyed mid-day.
- Old-time favorites like Mark Twain and Enchanted Tiki Room can be enjoyed at the height of the day.
6. Utilize Mobile Order In Advance
- This saves time for having to wait in line.
- Mobile order far in advance, especially on busy days at very popular locations
- When permitted to enter, have someone go get a seat while the other picks up the mobile order
7. Manage Marvel
Issues to consider:
- Crowds are expected to be heavy come June 15th.
- Those crowds will move in on Marvel at the beginning of the day.
- They will get busier after 1:00 pm when park hopping is allowed.
- PYM Test Kitchen may be busy. Mobile order early.
- Consider shopping at Downtown Disney for Marvel merchandise
- Be sure to check it out in the evening when it’s darker.
- May be the best attraction to re-board two minutes before closing.
8. Get In Line 2 Minutes Before Closing
Get in line a couple of minutes before closing in an attraction that typically has a long wait. Make sure it isn’t a pivotal priority attraction, but still one you would very much like to visit.
9. Make Use of Downtown Disney for Shopping & Dining
Lots available at Downtown Disney. Consider the following:
- Breakfast before lining up at opening
- Taking a break during the day
- Doing your shopping or evening dining after park hours
10. Manage Expectations
Consider the following:
- Park hours are limited
- Attractions not available–See list here!
- FastPass and MaxPass are not available
- Entertainment not available
- Dining & shopping not available
- You have to wear a mask and more!
There is nothing more incredible than visiting the “Happiest Place on Earth”. This little commercial toon, written in the 1970s (perhaps by Robert Moline?) shares that sentiment.
Remember when you were a kid, and the happiest thing you did was Disneyland…Disneyland.
Come and live it once again. It’s the happiest part of growing…growing up.
Disneyland…Disneyland, come and live it once again.
It’s the happiest part of growing…growing up.
The Wayfinder Society: A Patreon Site for Disney Fans
We are offering a new program where you have the opportunity to enjoy exclusive offerings from Disney at Play and Disney at Work. Join us as we introduce our new Patreon program, the Wayfinder Society, intended to give you new insights to all things Disney, whether its work or play. I am truly excited to share this new opportunity with you and look forward to creating new experiences that you will enjoy whether at home or at the Disney parks. There are a variety of options for joining, depending on your interests:
When you join, you will be given access to unique, interactive apps that explores the parks in new ways, offering stories, photos, videos and more.
Here are some of the interactive apps we share with members of our society:
- Pandora: World of Avatar: This is an expansive and detailed look at every aspect of this land. You can’t find any source that has covered this entire land with its attractions, retail and dining more in depth.
- Pirates of the Caribbean Across the Globe: We not only compare this attraction in parks world-wide, but we deep dive into what makes each unique. Currently we’ve covered Tokyo Disneyland and Magic Kingdom. More to come!
- Coming Soon! S.E.A. Assembled! The Society of Adventurers and Explorers are coming to the Wayfinder Society. We’ll document their whereabouts and showcase their imprint on Disney attractions world-wide.
- Disney at Work Interactive Tour: Disneyland. For our upper tiers, we have an interactive business tour of Disneyland to include more than fifty attractions spread throughout the park. These are best-in-business ideas you can apply to your own organization.
- Coming Soon! Disney at Work Interactive Tour: Walt Disney World 50th Anniversary. Looking at the heritage of Most Magical Place in the World, we draw best practices from over the years that you can again, apply to your organization.
As you see, we have so much to share. And when you donate, a portion of your contribution goes to Embrace Celebration, dedicated to helping Disney Cast Members and others in this area who are unemployed during this pandemic. To learn more, visit our site to discover our offerings and various tiers. Join us!
