Disney World veteran visiting Disneyland with wuesrions

[jodywgirl]

My adult daughters and I will be visiting end of July for 4 days. Staying at Paradise Pier

1. Best way to get here from LAX?

2. Can you pool hop to GCH and DLH?

3. Do I need to make dining reservations If I want to go to a table service restaurant? Any recommendations at parks, DTD and Hotels.

4. Do you recommend early morning entry and magic mornings?

5. Should we get max pass do popular rides run out of fast passes early in day?

 

[Malcon10t]

1. Cab/Uber/Supershuttle
2. No, exception is when the pool at your hotel is under refurb.
3. If there is some place you MUST eat, then I recommend it. But you can usually book something day before or day of also. Hard to recommend without knowing your likes.
4. Yes and with staying onsite you get it every day.
5. Sometimes they do. I'd suggest Maxpass at least one one day.

 

[disneychrista]

1. Best way to get here from LAX? - can't help you.

2. Can you pool hop to GCH and DLH?- Only if you hotel pool is closed.

3. Do I need to make dining reservations If I want to go to a table service restaurant? Any recommendations at parks, DTD and Hotels. - If you want to dine at a place that takes reservations, then you yes you'll want to make them. The only place I dine at that takes reservations is Carnation Cafe. Yummy Baked Potato soup & Fried Pickles.

4. Do you recommend early morning entry and magic mornings? - YES!

5. Should we get max pass do popular rides run out of fast passes early in day? - I am not big on FP in general, so for me NO I would not spend the extra. Since you are all adults you could do single rider.

 

[gottalovepluto]

1. I prefer Uber/Lyft. There are also a variety of shuttles.

2. No

3. Yes you need reservations that time of year. You can sort the restaurants online by types to get an idea of what you might like. Blue Bayou, Carthay Circle & Napa Rose would definitely need reservations.

4. OMG ABSOLUTELY. Get yourselves up and be at the park when EMH starts each day. It’s the quietest time each day!

5. MP is great, FPs last through mid afternoon for all attractions. RSR seemed to go fastest when we there in Mar. We were still pulling DL FPs at night so definitely felt like we got our money’s worth with MP.

 

[HydroGuy]

The newbies sticky thread has answers to some of these.

1. Best way to get here from LAX?

See "Airport Proximity to DLR and Ground Transportation Information" by @3TinksAndAnEeyore www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2318297

2. Can you pool hop to GCH and DLH?

Nope.

3. Do I need to make dining reservations If I want to go to a table service restaurant? Any recommendations at parks, DTD and Hotels.

See "What WDW Vets Need to Know About Dining at DLR" http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2914467

4. Do you recommend early morning entry and magic mornings?

Definitely yes. Much more so than EMH at WDW.

5. Should we get max pass do popular rides run out of fast passes early in day?

With two people I think MP is a no-brainer.

See https://www.disboards.com/threads/m...er-differences-from-dw.3681878/#post-59205835

and

"A DLR Guide for WDW Vets" www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1162599

 

[Amysita]

1. Best way to get here from LAX? I've only used super shuttle, and it works well for me.

2. Can you pool hop to GCH and DLH? Same policy as WDW...no pool hopping unless your resort pool is closed for refurb.

3. Do I need to make dining reservations If I want to go to a table service restaurant? Any recommendations at parks, DTD and Hotels. YES! But, do not need to make ressies at the 1st opportunity you can like WDW...if there is some place you REALLY want to eat, that is REALLY popular, I wouldn't wait less than 1 week prior. Other than that, if it's a less popular restaurant, or if you're flexible on where if your 1st choice isn't available...you can wait and make ressies 1 - 2 days in advance.

4. Do you recommend early morning entry and magic mornings? YES!!! They are far less crowded than the ones @ WDW... take advantage of this.

 

[theluckyrabbit]

This thread will have lots of good info for you: A DLR Guide for WDW Vets.

All DLR menus (in parks, hotels, DTD) can be found at allears.net -- look them over to see what interests you. Make reservations for anything that looks like a must-do for you. Ask any questions here!

Transportation from LAX: Airport Proximity to DLR and Ground Transportation Information ~ 3TinksAndAnEeyore
As pp stated, most people here use taxi, Uber, Lyft, Super Shuttle, Lansky Car Service, Disneyland Express Bus.

Definitely take advantage of your EMH/EE perk. The morning hours are when you can get so much done in the parks!

 

[figment_jii]

1. I've used SuperShuttle in the past and it was fine, but time consuming. The drive itself is about 45 minutes from LAX to Disneyland, but it took about double that to get to DL because of the time it took to get out of LAX and then the shuttle had to drop off other guests and area hotels first. So, if time is an issue, then I'd consider one of the ride sharing apps (e.g., Lyft or Uber) or a non-shared shuttle.

3. Yes and no...but I'd lean towards yes. It is, sometimes, possible to get a walk-up, but if you know you want to eat at a specific place or at a specific time, I would make a reservation. It's not uncommon for the walk-up wait times to exceed an hour during the peak dining periods. If you want to do one of the dining packages/dessert parties or eat at Blue Bayou, then I would definitely make a reservation. Those are least likely to be available for walk-up. That being said, it's not that hard to get dining reservations; you can often find fairly prime dining reservations only a few weeks out. In terms of favorite places, I really like Cafe Orleans, River Belle Terrace, Carnation Cafe, and Ralph Brennan's Jazz Kitchen.

4. If you have access to EMH/MM, then I would go ahead and use them. It's a good way to do a lot of rides (I would skip any ride that already had a fairly lengthy line when you got there, so as to maximize the number of rides you'd do during EMH/MM).

 

[dkdaisy]

My adult daughters and I will be visiting end of July for 4 days. Staying at Paradise Pier

1. Best way to get here from LAX?

2. Can you pool hop to GCH and DLH?

3. Do I need to make dining reservations If I want to go to a table service restaurant? Any recommendations at parks, DTD and Hotels.

4. Do you recommend early morning entry and magic mornings?

5. Should we get max pass do popular rides run out of fast passes early in day?

I can't speak to 1-3, but we are WDW vets who just got back and here's my answers for 4 and 5:

4. YES! We had one day without MM and one day with and with was so much better. We did all of Fantasyland (except Peter Pan) and Buzz Lightyear twice in that hour. I was with my 3-year-old, so we didn't do Star Tours, Space, etc, but the lines were short and we could have done them multiple times. We also were able to get our MaxPass going and get FP for Indy for pretty early that morning.

5. we were there Wed and Thur last week and we noticed that the big rides ran out of FP for the day in early to mid afternoon both days. Those were Radiator Springs, GOTG: Mission Breakout, Toy Story Mania (when it was open), Space Mtn, Indiana Jones. We used MaxPass both days and would totally recommend them. The only thing that frustrated me was that I kept wanting to look for FP for a specific time and forgetting that you can't do that. You just get the FP that is the time being dispensed at the time you look. So, if we wanted to be in DCA at 6 pm and ride some rides, I had to keep checking back to look for a FP in the 6-7 window for something, rather than just picking a later FP time. Does that make sense? But otherwise, I'd totally recommend getting and using it.

 

[Napoleon Dynamite]

We have used the Disneyland Resort Express bus, and it was fine. Made it feel kind of like DME! lol. I think there were like 4 people on the bus last year. No ressies needed, just hop on and pay at the airport. We are using it again this year.

Last year we made dining ressies as we went, everything was wide open. This year that doesn't seem to be the case. Nothing is really coming up for our dates now.

We are WDW veterans also....we have been there over 20 times (east coasters). Made our first DLR trip last year for son's graduation and we loved it so much we are going back this month!