Background
We love Disney Parks. Carter has been to 3 of 4 Disney World Parks in Florida, Disneyland in California, Tokyo DisneySea, and we are hoping to add Disneyland Paris soon. In February 2022, we spent a day at California Adventure in Anaheim. Below are some general tips and our itinerary of our day at the park.
We often try to save money on trips by using points and miles on our flights and hotels and by doing 1-day single park trips instead of multi-day park hopper tickets. If you need tips on how to get to LA and Anaheim and where to stay, see this post here
General Tips
Research: As early as possible, start researching your plans and have a rough idea of what your priorities for the day will be. Sites such as WDW news, Undercover Tourist, Disney Tourist, and the official park website will give you an idea of what the top rides are and the layout of the park.
There are also constantly changing procedures for how the lines work with names such as fastpass, maxpass, lightning lane, genie, etc. Even reading what other people have done 2 months ago may not apply to your visit, but it’s still good to get a general idea.
Get there early! I know it’s vacation and sleep is valuable, but the first hour of the park is a prime time to get as many rides in as possible, and then you can take a mid-morning break to re-group and figure out the rest of the day. If you’re staying off-site, you’ll need to add time for driving in, going through security, and making your way through the turnstiles. Also, often the parks will actually open 30 minutes before official. Again, read some of the blogs that are dedicated to staying up-to-date on current procedures.
Save time and money on dining: We packed breakfast from the hotel and ate it while walking between rides. Take advantage of mobile ordering in the park and quick-service options. Share a meal when possible, and save room and money for snacking (Both brought from home and purchased at stands)
Prepare yourself and kids for lines: Unless you’re going on a truly slow day such as a rainy Wednesday in the off-season, you’re going to experience lines. Activities and snacks and patience patience patience are so important. Phone apps and other games are nice to bring along. Also, many lines have theming that you as the adult can help direct attention to and ask to point out characters and colors.
Don’t minimize “small” rides and experiences: This is a tip for myself as well as others. Don’t be overly focused on big-name rides. Some of the characters will have minimal waits and some of the artistry shouldn’t be rushed through just to get on to the next item on a to-do list. One of our favorite things we did in Disney California Adventure was a drawing class. Soak in the magic! Listen to a band on main street. Use the Tangled themed bathroom near It’s a Small World. Sit on a bench and eat a Mickey ice cream bar. It’s the happiest place on earth!
Park Highlights and Itinerary
California Adventure
Date of visit: February 2022
Kids’s ages: 4.5-year-old Ellie and a 7-year-old Carter.
Highlights: Incredicoaster, Toy Story Mania, Animation Academy
We decided on this trip to not purchase the extra add-ons for Lightning Lane or Genie+ access. These options allow you to pay fees to skip lines either for a group of rides or individual rides. This process took the place of Fastpasses and Maxpasses.
One of the key tips for all Disney trips is to start your day on time. “Rope drop” is the term used for arriving 30 minutes early and being at the entrance turnstiles when the rope drops to mark opening. We arrived at the park at 7:45 for an 8:00 open, and this was actually a little later than I would have liked to arrive.
Because we arrived a little “late”, we decided against rushing to the most popular rides: Spiderman and Cars Racing. Although recommended by many websites to head to these rides first, we knew that we would already be too late to walk on the rides and didn’t want to start our day with a 30 minute wait even though that wait would end up being longer later in the day. Instead, we started our day with doing Toy Story Mania and other rides in the pixar area with no wait. This was a rough itinerary of all the highlights we hit:
8-10: Pixar Pier: Toy Story Mania x2 + Incredicoaster + Toy Story Carousel: The toy story ride is similar to the one at Epcot and you shoot and score points. All heights allowed. The Incredicoaster had a height limit of 48″ so we used rider switch to take turns hanging out with Ellie on the carousel. Carter loved this ride!
10-12: More Pixar Pier: Ferris Wheel, Jellyfish, Snacks, and Little Mermaid: Just because there’s no height limit doesn’t mean it’s an appropriate ride for everyone. Ben hated the ferris wheel and felt nauseated the whole time. The other rides were simple and fun. The lines were starting to get long in this portion of the day.
12-2: Redwood playground, Princess selfies, and a drawing class at Animation academy: The drawing class ended up being one of the highlights of the day. An animator goes through the process of drawing a character step by step. Carter adored this and asked to do it again later in the day
2-4: Mid-day break. Back to the hotel room for naps.
4-6: Avengers area. The Avengers area was an immersive area similar to Harry Potter World in Orlando. There’s soundtrack music, superheroes wandering around, a giant quinjet on the “headquarters” and themed restaurants. We did a quick dinner back in the Ant-man themed restaurant. There’s also a Spiderman ride that we didn’t get the chance to check out this time.
6-8: We spent time in the Cars land area. We did have to spend about an hour waiting in line for the Radiator Springs Ride. This was the most popular ride at the park and a lot of fun. It has very cool theming, and the ride itself was very quick but fun. There is a height limit of 40″ so keep that in mind. Also in the cars area part of the park, there are Cars characters to meet and several other rides in the area.
8-10: In the Hollywood land area, we did a Turtle Talk session and another drawing class. At the end of the night, wait times go down, so we were able to do the Soarin ride with no wait (Similar to the Epcot version). This would actually be a good conclusion ride as it is near the exit. We watched the app to see if the wait for Toy Story would go down, but it didn’t so instead we did a few extra Cars Land rides to finish up a fun day. Usually there are nighttime fireworks shows but there weren’t at this visit. Nevertheless, we had a wonderful end to a wonderful visit.
