Disneyland advice June 18-21.

[auralia]

We are DVC members and Disney world pros. We Went to Disney once before we had kids 20 years ago. Kids are 13 and 16 and we are taking a trip down the coast of California after an alaska cruise. Hitting Santa Cruz, Monterey, driving route 1 if it is reopened by then (we lived in monterey 20 years ago) spending a weekish seeing the sites along the coast. We will then go to Disneyland for 4 days staying In the Disneyland hotel DVC June 18-22 (checking out on the 22nd. I’m trying to decide between 3 and 4 day military tickets. We will get the tickets with genie plus. It is 359 for a 3 day ticket and 435 for a 4 day ticket With genie plus. There are four of us so the extra day ends up being 304$. I am not sure that we need it. We could take a down day to go to downtown Disney and enjoy the pools/resort/take a break.

Additional information: We will be renting an air BNB for four days after Disney and will be doing six flags magic mountain (my son is a coaster nut hubby and I went 20 years ago) and we have six flags season passes and six flags all park express pass that we bought in our home state at our home park. We are doing 2 days just so we don’t run ourselves ragged. I was then considering spending a day at universal studios and doing the VIP tour. This is expensive at 1800$ for the day we could go, but sounds like it would ensure we did everything and got to do Mario kart (huge video game nerds) with express pass. It is only about 500 more total than just an express pass ticket that only lets you skip the line once, doesn’t include parking or food, and doesn’t include Mario kart at all Or the extended backlot tour. I am on the fence about this part due to the expense… anyone highly recommend it or think it’s not worth the price?. The 304$ saved on the Disney tickets if we do 3 days instead of four would help cover some of the vip experience at universal.

Thoughts? Opinions? Suggestions for any of the trip? Thanks!!!

 

[alleighboo]

Ohh we'll be at the Disneyland Villas the 18-24th! We live on the east coast and were Disney Worlders before we went to DL in October 2022 and now we've become Disneylanders! I don't have a ton of advice except I would get park hoppers if you haven't already. Our first trip we did 3 days, the next trip we did 4 days, and this June trip we're doing 5 days. Three days are honestly plenty but especially since the 18th and 20th are Pride Nights and DL will have shorter hours, I would definitely recommend park hoppers!

I'm no help on Universal Hollywood...just Orlando!

 

[Iceman93]

Maybe do the 3-day Disney tickets which would allow you a day to visit Knott's Berry Farm. Your coaster enthusiast will appreciate it! Or, depending on where your AirBNB is located, you could do that instead of Universal Studios.

 

[Pluto468]

I always think more is better at Disneyland, so I'd go with the 4 days.

 

[wench]

I can never get enough of DL, so I would do the 4 day tickets myself. Downtown Disney is tiny compared to Disney Springs, so it will not take very long to explore. Even with pool time added in, I think you’ll wish you could access a park that day.

As for Universal, you can pay $20 per person to get into Super Mario Land an hour before the park opens. I’d do that to ride Mario Kart. Then with Express Pass you shouldn’t need to pay for VIP.

 

[Dr.Mickey]

I agree with those that say more days is better, and I like Wench’s idea above about getting on Mario earlier (I’ve never been so can’t confirm how that works).

We are also east coast dwellers who fell in love w DL in 2019 on a three day park trip. We did five days this June, and I was never bored. It’s nice not to feel rushed. Yes, it’s so compact compared to WDW (which is good!) but I swear there is just as much to do. I wouldn’t hesitate to do four in your case. But…you will still be happy with three I’m sure.

By the way, your trip sounds awesome! My kids would be jealous. We rode right by Six Flags MM on our way to Sequoia and Yosemite in 2019 and my teens STILL randomly mention how close we were

 

[LKing]

Additional information: We will be renting an air BNB for four days after Disney and will be doing six flags magic mountain (my son is a coaster nut hubby and I went 20 years ago) and we have six flags season passes and six flags all park express pass that we bought in our home state at our home park. We are doing 2 days just so we don’t run ourselves ragged. I was then considering spending a day at universal studios and doing the VIP tour.

I would consider doing this before Disneyland. Both Magic Mountain and USH are north of Disneyland. Instead of wasting time backtracking, stop at those parks on the way down, finish at Disney and fly out of SNA or LGB.

 

[shosh1530]

Agree with the PP to do Magic Mountain and Universal first. We just did a trip staying at the Disneyland Hotel followed by Universal and I feel like it would have felt more magical to end at Disney.

My son and I did do the VIP tour at Universal Hollywood and really enjoyed it. It felt like a decent value in that it included the price of admission, the unlimited express pass, breakfast snacks, lunch, and valet parking. Plus we were there during the busy week right after New Year's so we got to bypass the Express Line as the park got busier and busier (so basically never waited more than 3 minutes to get on a ride during the portion with the guide).

I was a bit disappointed in our extended studio tour, but I think this was mostly because our tour time was 12:30 and it was already dark by the time we got to the studio tour. This made it hard to see some of the areas where we could stop and get of the tram (but would be less of an issue in the summer).

Also check the park hours for when you are going. Although we loved the tour, we felt like we didn't get as much time in some of the areas as we would have liked (Harry Potter and Mario). This is largely because my son insisted on spending 3 hours in Springfield before the tour and we didn't do the early entry. We headed back to Super Nintendo World after the tour wrapped around 7:30 but had a reservation at Toadstool Cafe that took forever and by the time we were done the park was closing.

We've also been to Universal with just the Express Pass and had a great time. Like others have said if you do the early entry for Mario then you should have plenty of time to hit it all.

For your Disneyland portion, we usually do 3 days and find that to be enough to ride everything we want. I could also see doing 4 since it is your kids first time though and you probably won't make it out this way again for a long while.

 

[auralia]

I would consider doing this before Disneyland. Both Magic Mountain and USH are north of Disneyland. Instead of wasting time backtracking, stop at those parks on the way down, finish at Disney and fly out of SNA or LGB.

I had to take the Dvc reservation I could get. So the other things are built around that

 

[LKing]

Hitting Santa Cruz, Monterey, driving route 1 if it is reopened by then (we lived in monterey 20 years ago) spending a weekish seeing the sites along the coast.

How do you have this planned out? Does the week include seeing SF/Bay Area? If Hwy 1 is not open, will you be taking 5 or 101? Are you thinking of taking 101 and stopping in SLO, Pismo, Santa Barbara? Will it really take a full week or will you have a couple of days for Magic Mountain and USH?

 

[auralia]

How do you have this planned out? Does the week include seeing SF/Bay Area? If Hwy 1 is not open, will you be taking 5 or 101? Are you thinking of taking 101 and stopping in SLO, Pismo, Santa Barbara? Will it really take a full week or will you have a couple of days for Magic Mountain and USH?

Plan is road closure dependent. We get off the cruise ship on the 14th and plan to escort my parents to the airport in San Francisco and rent a car. We are doing three days in San Francisco before the cruise so that will be done. Main reason for Santa Cruz’s is my son wants to hit the coaster on the boardwalk and because hubby and I used to go there when he was stationed in Monterey in the military. Will stay the night somewhere around there. We plan to take 1 from Santa Cruze to Monterey and will stay at the military hotel in Monterey for two nights. We will do the aquarium, cannery row, 17 mile drive. All the things that we used to do before kids to show them. Last time we were there I was pregnant with my 16 year old. Plan to take 1 to Burbank if it’s open after 2 days in Monterey if not open we will take the highway inland. Will stay someplace in Burbank then check into the Dvc early in the morning for our 4 nights. I had to do lots of piecing the Dvc reservation to get 4 nights stalking it for a month. Then we have an air bnb that is about half way between magic mountain and universal. We have six flags season passes from the local park with nation wide express pass and 2 meals per day at six flags covered with our season pass plans. I bounced between doing knots berry farm or universal. My kids would be over the moon if we could use express pass repeatedly on Mario. My son loves Mario. He’s 13 and people make fun of him at school because it isn’t cool to like Mario at 13 but he doesn’t care lol.

This trip is huge for us. It all started because my dad’s (73) bucket list is an Alaskan cruise. They never ever travel mom hates traveling and I got it in my head one day that I would book the cruise and try to get her to let him go too. I picked an 11 night out of San Francisco because if I was flying across the country that was where I wanted to go. We loved going there on the weekends when we were young. Long story short. It worked and my folks are booked in a room just down the hall from us for their first real vacation ever. But once I flew out to California I figured we should just make a big trip of it. My parents fly home after the cruise. It’s well outside our normal budget but nothing overtime couldn’t fix. Our daughter will be in college soon so we thought what the heck let’s go big. Saved vacation for 2 years, overtime was abundant, and it’s going to be a crazy month.

 

[auralia]

Ohh we'll be at the Disneyland Villas the 18-24th! We live on the east coast and were Disney Worlders before we went to DL in October 2022 and now we've become Disneylanders! I don't have a ton of advice except I would get park hoppers if you haven't already. Our first trip we did 3 days, the next trip we did 4 days, and this June trip we're doing 5 days. Three days are honestly plenty but especially since the 18th and 20th are Pride Nights and DL will have shorter hours, I would definitely recommend park hoppers!

I'm no help on Universal Hollywood...just Orlando!

I didn’t even realize it was pride nights! Thanks for the heads up!