tkhongdisney
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2020
We have a family tradition of doing 2 days at Disneyland/California Adventures before Christmas. It is usually a great way to get into the Holiday spirit. We flew down Thursday evening and rope dropped Disneyland on Friday and California Adventures on Saturday. Overall we were very surprised by how much we were able to get done in two days. We had tried to keep our expectations very low--assuming huge crowds and no maxpass or Genie +.
Friday
We timed it just right, getting to the rope drop area in Tomorrowland 10 minutes before it rope drop. We had reservations at Plaza Inn for the character breakfast--so we wanted to get in a Space Mountain ride before breakfast. We basically did walk on at Space Mountain--and still made it to Plaza Inn at about 8:20. This was one of my main disappointments--I guess it was my fault because I didn't do any research. I did not realize that the characters were not interacting--but just character calvacading. We had such great memories and pictures of all the characters spending time and teasing our children. I did not feel like it was worth the amount of money we spent for breakfast--without having the character interaction. The food was as expected--they did have fried chicken--which we had not seen in the past.
After breakfast we just started to do rides--we really didn't wait for more than 30 minutes (Indiana Jones) and most rides were basically walk on. I checked in with the CM at the back of the Rise of Resistance line at about 11AM--the line was showing 120 minutes. His advice was to come back about 12:30--the lines typically were much shorter right before park hopping started. We came back at 12:30 after doing 15 minutes at Millenium Falcon. We ended up waiting in line for less than 45 minutes which was great.
The rest of the day was really nice--the parade was a bit crazy. We grabbed a bench right after first parade ended. We grabbed some food and kids did some rides, then we watched the parade.
After the parade we park hopped to California Adventures. Radiator Springs was showing 60 minutes--that line ended up being about right (most other lines were overstating wait times).
Saturday
We were a little late for rope drop--so ended up waiting about 60 minutes in Spiderman standby line. My expectations were low--based on reviews I had read--but I was pleasantly surprised by how much fun it was. We had some great Holiday Food and enjoyed a nice sunny day. Incredicoster was super short--my kids did it twice in a row and it was basically walk on. We bounced back to Disneyland in late afternoon. My kids stayed until midnight to close out the park--all the rides were basically walk at that point.
So overall very pleasant surprise for us. I am glad Genie+ did not launch before we went (just announced for this Wednesday). I feel like it would have been a waste of money for us--we were happy without it and would have wasted money. I am guessing that crowds were not as much as we were used to because of park reservations and so many locals being blocked out from using their annual passes.
Friday
We timed it just right, getting to the rope drop area in Tomorrowland 10 minutes before it rope drop. We had reservations at Plaza Inn for the character breakfast--so we wanted to get in a Space Mountain ride before breakfast. We basically did walk on at Space Mountain--and still made it to Plaza Inn at about 8:20. This was one of my main disappointments--I guess it was my fault because I didn't do any research. I did not realize that the characters were not interacting--but just character calvacading. We had such great memories and pictures of all the characters spending time and teasing our children. I did not feel like it was worth the amount of money we spent for breakfast--without having the character interaction. The food was as expected--they did have fried chicken--which we had not seen in the past.
After breakfast we just started to do rides--we really didn't wait for more than 30 minutes (Indiana Jones) and most rides were basically walk on. I checked in with the CM at the back of the Rise of Resistance line at about 11AM--the line was showing 120 minutes. His advice was to come back about 12:30--the lines typically were much shorter right before park hopping started. We came back at 12:30 after doing 15 minutes at Millenium Falcon. We ended up waiting in line for less than 45 minutes which was great.
The rest of the day was really nice--the parade was a bit crazy. We grabbed a bench right after first parade ended. We grabbed some food and kids did some rides, then we watched the parade.
After the parade we park hopped to California Adventures. Radiator Springs was showing 60 minutes--that line ended up being about right (most other lines were overstating wait times).
Saturday
We were a little late for rope drop--so ended up waiting about 60 minutes in Spiderman standby line. My expectations were low--based on reviews I had read--but I was pleasantly surprised by how much fun it was. We had some great Holiday Food and enjoyed a nice sunny day. Incredicoster was super short--my kids did it twice in a row and it was basically walk on. We bounced back to Disneyland in late afternoon. My kids stayed until midnight to close out the park--all the rides were basically walk at that point.
So overall very pleasant surprise for us. I am glad Genie+ did not launch before we went (just announced for this Wednesday). I feel like it would have been a waste of money for us--we were happy without it and would have wasted money. I am guessing that crowds were not as much as we were used to because of park reservations and so many locals being blocked out from using their annual passes.
