Oh the magic and joys of Disneyland. People are everywhere. Some are complaining. Some are yelling at their spouse for not answering the cell phone. Strollers as far as they eye can see. Children who can hardly contain their excitement. Parents who are trying to take deep breaths (that cost how much?!) while maintaining their sanity (we have to wait in that line for how long?!) and enjoying the smiles on their kids’ faces. Lines and lines and lines everywhere. Music. Cast members who are empowered to exceed customers’ expectations. Fireworks. Park re-entry hand stamps. Walking – step after step after step. Characters. Rides. Squeals of delight followed by fits from exhaustion. Hidden Mickeys. It’s not an experience I’d recommend that often. It’s sensory overload! Today is my first day back in the real world, and before I forget all of the things I vowed to never forget, I wanted to jot them all down and share my tips and best practices with you.
First things first – I’m a complete and total Disney newbie. I’ve always enjoyed Disney movies. I know the power of the “magic” but I’m new to it. This was my first ever visit to Disneyland – and I’ve got the pin to prove it. I visited Disney World as a child. I had no idea what my parents went through navigating the park with 4 kids of various ages and sizes. Total respect to my parents who survived it. I just took one kid with me this time – I had it easy compared to trying to wrangle 4 kids. Please note that I’m sharing my opinions as a first-timer. This is the first time I, as an adult, have planned a Disney trip like this.
My absolute favorite experience of the entire trip, is that I got to share my favorite ride as a kid – Space Mountain – with my son who is 11.
Memories are odd things. Our minds are filled with life’s experiences and there’s really no way to say which memories we’ll hold onto and why we do. I don’t remember every detail about Disney World when we visited. I have flashes of several things we did. I remember the ocean. I remember fire ants at my Great Uncle’s house. I remember a cousin that went with us on some of our adventures. Some of my memories are shaped by the photos that my dad took – he took a lot of 35 mm film photos that trip. I vividly remember Space Mountain. I got to ride it over and over and over. And it was awesome.
Space Mountain awaits!
Disneyland has a version of Space Mountain in the park’s Tomorrowland. I’ll freely admit that Tomorrowland doesn’t feel as exciting to me today, as it did to me 25 years ago, mostly because today is my tomorrow from back then, and Tomorrowland is largely unchanged. It feels a little underwhelming to me now, but my son still found it to be pretty amazing. They have a Star Wars attraction called Star Tours that was pretty cool. There were Storm Troopers walking around being mean like you’d expect them to be – and that was pretty neat to see.
We tried to ride Space Mountain on our first afternoon in the parks, and the line was crazy long (good sign to me that people still love it!) but because I told my son how much I liked it, he agreed to wait in the line with me. We waited for a bit, and progressed but became pretty tired of the line right away. Then a cast member came out and said the ride was going to be closed for an undetermined amount of time, and that everyone was welcome to wait to see if it got fixed, or we could get out of line. We opted to get out and go do something else. I was still trying to figure the Fast Pass thing out at that point, and so we decided to come back and do the Fast Pass thing at another time.
Thankfully, the attraction was functioning the next time we were in that park and we got our Fast Passes to come back and bypass the line. Man, that’s the way to go. Definitely! So we zipped right up to the loading area and waited a short time for our cart. And it was worth the wait and anticipation. He LOVED it, and I loved sharing it with him.
I had my fingers secretly crossed the entire time, hoping that he wouldn’t think it was lame. I knew that he liked the thrill rides, and from what I recalled it was going to be cool to him. Thankfully, he thought it was awesome. This photo – courtesy of Disney’s Space Mountain camera system – cracks us up every time we see it. I instantly knew that I had to purchase it. I love it. 
Photo courtesy of Disney, 2014
There are so many things I’d do differently next time. I wanted to share them here, so that any Disneyland newbies might learn from my mistakes.
Here’s my list of top tips and some things I’ll do differently next time. And I apologize in advance if you have to incorporate waiting in the lines to meet Disney princesses and characters. 11 is a great age – we had zero interest in “meeting” any Disney characters. Thank goodness. So we didn’t have to fight to see Elsa and Anna from Frozen. Thank goodness. We got our character fix just from walking by and seeing the characters meeting others. And there’s the parade too – if you must see characters that is a great place to do it. But we didn’t have any time for parades either – we just didn’t want to sit still while all those people were OUT of our ride lines!
Amber’s #1 Tip – Read up and prepare in advance. I tried to prepare in advance, but I’m telling you now I came up short. I bought two books, downloaded a few line tracking apps on my iPhone, and did internet research. I asked a friend for some tips and tricks too. But I was totally unprepared. Make a plan. Stick to the plan. Don’t let the wide eyes of your children looking up at you sweetly with those Puss in Boots eyes – you know the ones – don’t let them change your plan. Next time I’ll know the ins and outs a little better but.
Amber’s #2 Tip – Magic Hour Rocks! Stay in a Disney Resort property if you can and get into one of the parks early. If you stay in a Disney property and have the valid room key to prove it, you get one hour in one of the parks BEFORE it opens. This one hour is a glorious time. Go every day. Be there at the gates ready to go at 7:45 at the latest. That one hour was AMAZING for us once we figured out how to handle it properly. I had the opportunity to school one couple in line behind me as I heard them complaining on how the Magic Hour was anything but magic. They were doing it wrong. Totally. We did the Magic Hour at Disney’s California Adventure both mornings that we could – so we became experts over there. Here is my secret knowledge.
Leave your hotel at 7:30 and walk over to the gates. You’ll go through the bag check line, and then you’ll wait at the actual turnstile gates until about 7:45 when you’ll be allowed to enter the park. Now you can proceed to the area of the park that you want to hit first. You’ll then have to wait once more until the cast members give you the go ahead that it’s 8 a.m.
Here’s the key – there are two places where everyone will jam up and wait – the most popular is at the entrance to Cars Land. If you are a newbie, you’ll follow the crowd like we did and then have no idea what you’re even in line waiting for. Don’t make that mistake. If you are in that line with all those people, you’ve sucked the magic out of Magic Hour. Totally. We did that for a few minutes. I’m not one to stand in a random line without knowing what it was for, so I walked over to the side and was able to see that I was waiting behind a rope in the street. I overheard another guest talking and could tell she had been there before, and I started talking to her. She told me we were in the line to wait to enter Cars Land. We didn’t want to do that, so we high tailed it over to the Hollywood Tower Hotel – my son’s favorite ride. He would have ridden it all day if I would have let him, but we stopped at two rides that morning so we could do other things. But he got to ride it again a few times, the next Magic Morning we spent in California Adventure. Magic Hour is totally worth it.
The second place that everyone will jam up will be at Grizzly Peak – guests at the Disney Grand Californian have an entrance over there – and that line was pretty crazy too.
Enter the park with everyone and head down Buena Vista Street toward the fountain and then turn left to Hollywood Land. Spend at least one morning over in Hollywood Land and take in the line-free magic! We walked right up to my son’s favorite ride, the Hollywood Tower Hotel, at 8 a.m., and rode it twice in the first 10 minutes. With zero waiting. He was THRILLED. Let everyone else go fight it out to get in to Cars Land. Go check out Hollywood Land when no one is there! Then go over to Soarin’ Over California in Condor Flats.
If you have someone in your party who is willing to go wait in the line for Radiator Racers fast passes – then I highly suggest that you do that early during the Magic Hour. Or you could have someone wait in the line to ride Radiator Racers – I didn’t want to waste my entire Magic Hour waiting in line with my son, doing that when I knew I could get the Fast Pass and have a better experience.
Our next Magic Hour morning we waited over with the Grizzly Peak crowd to get to Paradise Pier – that wasn’t so bad at all, because at 8 a.m. everyone dispersed and we were the very first ones to get to ride California Screamin’ – the roller coaster – my son’s other favorite ride. And so we rode it twice back-to-back and then got on the Mickey’s Fun Wheel ride with no waiting.
Amber’s #3 Tip – Obtain and Use Fast Passes. Always. Fast Passes aren’t available for every attraction in the park, but when they are available GET THEM AND USE THEM! They are amazing. I wish you could make an appointment for every single attraction in the park, but you can’t. The Fast Pass machines are usually right beside the attraction (except for Radiator Racers – that one is right at the Bug’s Land exit and Cars Land entrance due to the crowd I can only assume.) Based on your child’s interest, you’ll know which rides you want to ride – if a Fast Pass is available, get them and then ride the other attractions until you are able to get your next Fast Pass (the bottom of your Fast Pass will tell you when you can get your next one). AMAZING to redeem your Fast Pass to walk right in and get to the front of the line.
Amber’s #4 Tip – Hidden Mickeys – Play the Hidden Mickey game while you wait. We didn’t start this til later in the trip, but it’s a lot of fun to be on the lookout for hidden Mickeys throughout the park. We got really into it and it’s great to do while you are waiting in the lines for some of the non-Fast Pass attractions. There’s a book and a web site that offers guidance on it. Look it up.
Amber’s #5 Tip – Disney Allowance. If your children are old enough, give them a Disney allowance to spend during your trip. This is a great lesson on how quickly money is gone and children will be overwhelmed at all the magical Disney goodies they want to have in their lives. Teach them how far the dollars go – and ask them to start prioritizing and making decisions based on the amount of money they have.
This is my son’s favorite pin trade from the trip! An avid Alice in Wonderland collector asked my son if he’d trade with him. We couldn’t wait get rid of that pin and get this cool one! You never know who’s collecting what!
Amber’s #6 Tip – Pin Trading. Amazing for older kids. Tyler visited Disney World in 2007 or 2008 and he has a lanyard with some pins from that visit. We took it along, and he wore it in the park. More than one of the cast members saw his pins and stopped him to talk to him about them. He felt really special. But he didn’t want to trade any of his pins. One of the cast members told us a little more about the pin trading thing. Several of them have a black over-the-should pin display thing on their hip, and these are pins that they trade with anyone who wants to trade. Many of these pins aren’t very cool, but once you figure out which sets you like and want to collect, it becomes an adventure!
One word of caution to beware of is that many of the pins could be "fake" (not made by Disney at all, but acquired on eBay) or "scrapper" pins (made by Disney but they were acquired after they have been discarded because of an error or quality concern). Just know that if you trade there's a chance you could trade your real pin for a cheap imitation. That's fine if your child loves the pin they are ending up with, but it has become something we look out for. On a real Disney pin the details are very high quality. You can feel the detail lines on the pin's surface - it's not smooth. The Mickey print on the back of the pin goes completely off the edge with no border. The edges of the pin are smooth. The pin is heavy and feels high quality. The eyes of the characters are sharp and detailed. The words on the back aren't misspelled. Check out YouTube for some video tutorials. But just beware.
We learned that you can purchase less expensive pin packs that are “hidden” in the package – you can’t see which pins are inside until you open them – and then your child can trade the ones he or she wants to trade with Disney cast members! Several of the shops also have a pin board or a stuffed animal wearing a pin lanyard behind the counter. Trading pins was one of my son’s favorite pastimes between attractions. He decided to collect all of the Nightmare Before Christmas pins he could find as well as the Duffy Teddy Bear pins. And it became a lot of fun once he narrowed down his focus.
WARNING – They sell a LOT of pins that are a bit more expensive – you can buy a pin for each ride or each character. There are TONS of pins. And they are cute and nearly irresistible. See the aforementioned Disney allowance tip on how to handle that.
Amber’s #7 Tip – Disney Resort Express. I went to Anaheim, CA without using a rental car and it was amazingly easy. I highly recommend the Disney Resort Express – a full-size bus that is colorfully wrapped in a Disney themed exterior. Ours had Lightning McQueen and Cars Land on it. The bus picked us up at the airport right outside of the baggage area, and dropped us off right at our Disneyland hotel with ease. Same for our return trip from the hotel to the airport. It was easy. It was awesome. It was affordable (children under a certain age ride for FREE) and I didn’t have to worry about getting lost, parking, paying for parking at Disney, dragging luggage to the airport, etc. Use the Disney Resort Express. It’s great!
Our Disney Journal
Amber’s #8 Tip – Disney Journal. I bought a Mickey themed journal before we went on our trip with plans to give it to my son at some point. I hadn’t really settled on exactly what I was going to do with it until our trip home. I didn’t want to leave Disney and my son didn’t either. But we were tired and were both ready to stop walking so many miles per day. At the airport when we got settled and were waiting for our plane to board, it hit me – the Disney journal should be a place to write down our Disney memories after each and every trip there. I’m big on asking my son “what was your favorite part of the day” or “what was your favorite part of the movie” right after an experience ends. Ever since he first started talking, I’ve always enjoyed hearing his perspective on things. I consistently ask him to tell me about his day, and talk to him to hear his memories. So, I got out the maps of the parks and started interviewing my son about his favorites. Unfortunately, he wasn’t in the mood to write (I’m off from school, mom!)
First we talked about all the attractions that we did and we circled them all on our maps. That started a discussion about the things we didn’t do – and there were a few of them that we skipped intentionally due to other priorities at the moment, but we talked about the next trip and what we’d do that time. Then we started talking about our favorites. Not just favorite attractions – but also favorite experiences, memories, foods, hotel perks, etc. We started lists of all the “top” things we could think of. We spent about an hour doing this, and it was a lot of fun. Bonus that we passed the airport wait time. Get a Disney journal and talk about the trip so you won’t lose the memories.
Amber’s #9 Tip – Visit Radiator Springs aka Cars Land at night to see the neon lights! It is beautiful. Go see it. I can’t speak highly enough about Cars Land. It feels like you are IN THE CARTOON. The shops are amazing replicas. The atmosphere is electric. The excitement around Radiator Racers attraction is overwhelming, but totally worth waiting in line to experience. Cars Land was our favorite! It is absolutely beyond cool to see Mater and Lightning McQueen DRIVE DOWN THE STREET and greet you! Then they park and people line up to get their picture taken with them. I can’t even tell you how well done it is. Go see it. Trust me.
Amber’s #10 Tip – Make Friends in Lines. There are Disney experts EVERYWHERE. And they’re waiting in the lines with you. I finally figured this out, and started to identify them and start a conversation with them. Find the Disney experts all around you and strike up conversations! You’ll learn so much just by starting a conversation. Well how will I know who is a Disney expert, you might be asking yourself. It’s easy. Just watch for a few minutes. I GLADLY stood in line for 30 minutes for my Radiator Racers Fast Passes. I passed by the line several times thinking it was too long to wait in, and then when I saw how long that line ACTUALLY GETS things were put into perspective. You have to get in line for the Radiator Racers Fast Passes at 8:30 – park opens at 9 – so you can be ahead of everyone who will enter the park at 9 when the park opens and the passes are actually distributed. Got it. No problem. I watched as an angry wife yelled at her husband for not answering his cell phone when she tried to call him. They were panicked over the length of the line that I knew for a fact was NOT long yet. These people fall into the category of NOT being a Disney expert. But in front of me was a young man who was wearing a Disney shirt, had a Disney backpack, hand a nice and intentionally selected collection of Disney pins on his Disney lanyard. And he had no kids in line with him. DISNEY EXPERT! You will be able to easily spot them. Just watch, listen and wait. The Disney experts will make themselves known. And then when you start to talk to one, the others will chime in. It’s great! I wish I had done this sooner in my trip. But now you know my secret!
As I think of other tips and tricks, I’ll likely add to the list. I’ve got a million of them swimming around in my head. And some might be as general as my top 10. Overall, we had a GREAT time. I would do it again in a heartbeat. I hope my son remembers the trip when he’s my age and gets to take his family back. And I hope he will tell them how awesome their grandmother is and what a great time he had when he visited Disneyland back in 2014 when he was 11.
I’m by no means a Disney expert, but I hope to become one! What tips and tricks did I leave out? Comment below and let me know!
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