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Disneyland Resort (DL, DLR, DCA) Discussion Thread

p. 393 - Pixar Place Hotel transformation will be completed on January 30th, 2024!

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I was at California Adventure today and I have to say Hollywood backlot is horrendous. I can’t name a single attraction there. A lot of people flock the area because they just spent $135 to get in the park yet there is not one attraction worth being there. Yes, I understand that guardians is back there and previously TOT but seriously this may be the worst Disney “land” of all time. The muppets building is unused and so is the millionaire building. It’s always a topic of how valuable the Anaheim space is yet I see a lot of unused land. And now throw in the AMC theater, rainforest and espn zone restaurants just sitting there. Disney needs to stop complaining about no land and start doing something with the land they got!!

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I was at California Adventure today and I have to say Hollywood backlot is horrendous. I can’t name a single attraction there. A lot of people flock the area because they just spent $135 to get in the park yet there is not one attraction worth being there. Yes, I understand that guardians is back there and previously TOT but seriously this may be the worst Disney “land” of all time. The muppets building is unused and so is the millionaire building. It’s always a topic of how valuable the Anaheim space is yet I see a lot of unused land. And now throw in the AMC theater, rainforest and espn zone restaurants just sitting there. Disney needs to stop complaining about no land and start doing something with the land they got!!

 

Disney just finished up spending $1 billion to transform DCA and another $1 billion to build Star Wars. I never once heard a complaint of being landlocked.

 

I also suspect you will see the end of the Hollywood backlot in the next wave of expansion after the under construction replacement for bugs life is done.

 

In the short term, they usually do overlays of the area with night time entertainment to keep it interesting.

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Disney needs to stop complaining about no land and start doing something with the land they got!!

I'm with you on Hollywood Land but I wouldn't expect a replacement for a long while, at least until after the new Avengers land is finished.

 

As for the unused buildings at Downtown Disney District? The whole reason those buildings were closed in the first place was for the then-upcoming fourth resort hotel. When the city said, "nah, no tax breaks for you", Disney pulled the plug. That was very recently, you can't expect Disney to come up with a completely new plan overnight.

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Even if you don't have early entry access to the rides (they make you show your hotel ID for those), they let you into the park

 

Does anyone know if this is the case with both extra magic hour and magic morning? I didn't realize until now that these are two different things but apparently Friday is just an extra magic hour day.

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I learned the hard way there was a distinction between them during my visit 2 weeks ago. I was all set for an early morning at California Adventure before realizing Magic Morning only worked at Disneyland.

 

On the bright side, they did start letting people into Disneyland 15-20 minutes early, so it seems like they open the gate a little early anyway which still let me get a FastPass ready for use at opening.

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Even if you don't have early entry access to the rides (they make you show your hotel ID for those), they let you into the park

 

Does anyone know if this is the case with both extra magic hour and magic morning? I didn't realize until now that these are two different things but apparently Friday is just an extra magic hour day.

The basic difference is that the Magic Morning is only at Disneyland. If you have a three-day or longer ticket, you can get in once. Early Magic Hour is just for resort guests, and is offered at both parks, alternating between the two. On days that have Magic Morning, Early Magic Hour is offered at the same time. They should scan your ticket and allow you to get in for Magic Morning if you have a qualifying ticket. They'll ask you for a hotel key only if you try to get into an Early Magic Hour and not a Magic Morning, or if your ticket doesn't qualify.

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Okay, without an early entry ticket, you have two options: 1) Go to DCA first; you can get in there 30 minutes early (just to the Carthay Circle area until rope drop) and theoretically should be able to get a Maxpass reservation. I say theoretically because last time I was there was before Maxpass, but from what I read, it should be possible once you're through the gates. 2) Get a breakfast reservation for the Plaza Inn. They'll let you in the gate early and you go straight to the restaurant, where again, theoretically you should be able to make a Maxpass reservation.

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Okay cool. What time do they generally open the gates at the other park (assuming I don’t reserve breakfast)?

 

If it’s about the same time I’d imagine that I’m better off just going there, rope dropping something and reserving Radiator Springs Racers on the way to whatever we’re rope dropping, right?

Edited by coasterbill
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Okay cool. So is it super stupid to go to DCA to activate Maxpass, reserve Racers as soon as I get through the gate and if my reservation time isn’t right near opening just walk right out and rope drop Space Mountain or something at the other park?

 

Sorry for the dumb questions, I know nothing about Disneyland. Nothing...

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It's fine. Although there is certainly such a thing as a dumb question, none of these are dumb questions.

 

You can reserve Maxpass for both parks from either park as soon as you activate your ticket at either park. You get a handstamp when leaving one park and going to the other, that part's easy. I've never left DCA before opening then stood in line for Disneyland...not sure how they'd feel about that or if you'd have to stay in DCA until official opening.

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Alright then. I’ll just stop overthinking it and start at the other park and reserve Radiator Springs while rope dropping Space or something.

 

If you do want to do the low capacity, non-Fastpass Fantasyland dark rides, I'd recommend starting with those. But I totally don't blame you if the allure of superior rides like Space Mountain win out.

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Alright then. I’ll just stop overthinking it and start at the other park and reserve Radiator Springs while rope dropping Space or something.

 

If you do want to do the low capacity, non-Fastpass Fantasyland dark rides, I'd recommend starting with those. But I totally don't blame you if the allure of superior rides like Space Mountain win out.

 

I'll chime in and say, yes, they are low capacity, yes they are not the "best" rides at DisneyLand. . but absolutely hit Fantasyland early, and make sure you take a spin on Mr. Toad, and (especially) Alice in Wonderland.

 

they are considered classics for a reason, and who doesn't like going to hell (mr. Toad) on a bright and sunny morning at Disneyland.

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I would suggest to you, to go through the castle, and hit the three dark rides on the right: Peter Pan, then Toad, then around the corner is Alice...and after that, you are just a few steps away, from the queues for The Matterhorn! Btw... Left side > Right side.

 

The other two dark rides, Snow White and Pinocchio,

were basic walk-ons when I was last there.

But the others had long lines.

 

And beyond The Matterhorn, is Tomorrowland!

IMG_2113.JPG.b0ffe98d0130b57e0d5638295ac5b40f.JPG

After Alice, this is all that... ahem .... Matters. (o; (Sept.13/16)

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Thanks for the tips everyone! Disneyland was awesome! I'll have a trip report on the way during the later half of this century but just a few notes:

 

- Cars Land is stunning and Radiator Springs Racers was amazing. Shout-out to Goofy's Sky School. We reserved it 10 minutes before our ride time, it broke and we got a multiple experience pass that was valid for Radiator Springs Racers so we got two rides in (one at night). We later got another Fastpass for Goofy's Sky School 10 minutes before it was time to ride, bypassed a 45 minute line and rode that too.

 

- Indiana Jones was amazing. It's one of the best rides I've ever experienced anywhere. Aside from the Harry Potter rides I don't think I can come up with a better dark ride in the US.

 

- MaxPass is possibly the single best deal in the theme park industry. Anyone who goes to Disneyland and doesn't get MaxPass is flat out stupid and I can't be kind about this.

 

- I don't want to play the "Orlando vs California" game on everything and in most cases each ride has pros and cons but I love Thunder Mountain at Disneyland. I love the queue, I love how close it comes to the midway, I love the end scene and I love the ride. It's placement is great and the ride is excellent. Space Mountain was also pretty damn awesome. I also liked how Small World threw in so many Disney characters.

 

- I don't give a crap about the Star Wars brand but the land looks insane and after seeing it from the Thunder Mountain lift I absolutely can't wait.

 

- Fantasyland is adorable. I love how small everything feels compared to Disney World (mainly in Fantasyland). It's probably tough from a logistical standpoint when the park is so insanely busy but it's really cool. We rode most of the Fantasyland dark rides and they were cute. They're not amazing rides but thanks to having such limited queue space it was fun riding all of them with 10-20 minute waits for each. We did not ride Peter Pan's Flight (because it's Peter Pan's flight) or Alice in Wonderland because it kept going down but we'll be back and we'll check that one out eventually.

 

Overall we loved the park and we had an awesome time. I recommend it to anyone. I'm also in love with Maxpass.

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^ I agree 100% on MaxPass. The value is there for the convenience, but it's an even bigger steal considering it includes unlimited on-ride photo downloads for the day as well.

 

I prefer it to Florida's system since I can easily get 10-15 FastPasses per day.

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It's insane. We went on a "regular" day and it cost us $358.00 for one day (for 2 of us). It could be as much as $398 on a "peak day". For an extra $30 ($15 each) we probably rode twice as many rides than we would have with the traditional Fastpasses.

 

As soon as we went through the gates I reserved Racers while on the way to Space Mountain. As soon as we would scan into a Maxpass ride I would reserve another one while still waiting in line and if we had to wait until a certain time to make another reservation I just set a phone reminder real quick and did it right away once the phone buzzed. We rode a TON of sh*t and between the unbelievable convenience, multiple experience passes delivered right to the phone if something went down and the ability to reserve things in either park from other ride lines (or wherever) 30 minutes sooner than you could without Maxpass.

 

I know every Fastpass system is great, but at Cedar Point (for example) when you tell someone that bought a four pack of $35 tickets on Black Friday to pony up $600 for a family of 4 for one day of Fastlane plus on a summer Saturday then it's a tough sell. It's over 4 times the cost of the actual ticket. It's an awesome product but it's priced accordingly.

 

Meanwhile, Maxpass was about less than 10% of the ticket price and less money than we spent on our reasonably-priced counter service lunch in the park. The fact that there were so many people walking around without it honestly blew my mind. It's amazing and it's ridiculously cheap.

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^ Yeah considering the price of admission, it's baffling why someone wouldn't spend that little extra to ride way more rides. But Disney does still have the paper fastpasses if that is what floats their boat.

 

Toy Story Mania was my savior on my trip. That thing kept breaking down and churning out Magical Experience FastPasses.

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Glad you had a good time! And I agree on the reasonable prices at Disney. The food, merch, etc. is all around prices you'd expect to pay outside the park. The tickets are high but not overpriced; they give you your money's worth.

 

Big Thunder Mountain is a great coaster, and I love the themed queue and the way the train goes over it. Disneyland is maybe the one place I actually want to wait in the queue; so many things to see.

 

I don't know why anyone complains about Maxpass; it's so cheap, so easy, and it doesn't affect anyone who doesn't use it. Disney did this one perfectly.

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I'm a total and complete Cheapskate, but I too have no idea why someone wouldn't get Maxpass. It doubles the number of Fastpasses you can get, eliminates the requirement to physically walk to the attraction(including across parks), and also gives you PhotoPass, which is like over a 100 dollars at Disney World. Just one on ride photo at any park is $15 bucks. I think it would have to be in the $60-70 range before I would even be on the fence.

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