Disneyland and California Adventure Visitor Tips!
Disneyland App
This app is essential for your trip! Find ride wait times, make food reservations, order food for mobile pick up, shop and also sign up for virtual queues (info later in this post). Screenshot of the official Disneyland App included for reference.
Fast Passes
Not available, but lines are not bad!
Character Photos
Characters are available for pictures and are pretty easy to get to. They are roped off for zero contact. There are no lines and staff are present and make it possible to get a picture of the characters. We found that we were able to see more characters than usual (pre-Covid) and were able to get more photo opportunities, also saving time with this new process.
Autographs
No character autographs at this time. Skip buying an autograph book for now.
Masks
Required for individuals non-vaccinated ages 2&up. Although, we saw several families with children who were not wearing a masks…
Food
Mobile orders are encouraged and time slots fill up quick! If you plan to order your food or make a reservation, do it first thing in the morning or days in advance.
The parks opened with limited staff and a lot of the vending carts as well as restaurants do not open until 11 AM.
Pack nutritious and filling snacks. Always good to have them throughout the day!
Hydration
If you have a stroller, pack extra bottles of water. Food and beverages are OK to bring into the park.
For an added boost of hydration, use Pedialyte or low sugar sports drink packets to add to your child’s water.
Virtual Queues
For Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance in Disneyland & WEB SLINGERS: A Spider-Man Adventure in California Adventure:
Log on to the Disneyland App a few minutes early (first chance to register for a queue is 7 AM and the last chance is 12 PM) and keep refreshing. Queue spots disappear within seconds. There are only two times during the day available to register for the queues.
We logged on at 6:58 AM and kept refreshing the Disneyland app. First chance we saw that the queue opened we registered very quickly and we were already group number 75.
Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure
Located on the left side in California Adventure, between Hollywood Land and Cars Land.
Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge
Located towards the back left of Disneyland with access through Critter Country, Frontier Land or Fantasy Land.
Galaxy’s Edge has many shops, places to eat and other rides and attractions.
We were able to get onto Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance and it’s important to note that the height restriction is minimum 40 inches.
Child under 40”?
If you are traveling with a family and have children under 40 inches, ask the staff at the front of the line, for a “rider switch” and one person will remain back with children too short to ride, the rest of the group will go through the line which is about 45 minutes wait, go on the ride, and once off the ride will do a rider switch. Then the second half of your party will go straight to the front of the line. Anyone waiting with the child for the first group to go through will be able to bring two guests back with them for a second chance to go on the ride. It is a win-win.
Cell phone Battery
Make sure you charge your phone before you go to the park! We experienced a situation where somehow one of our phones completely drained the battery in the first couple hours of our trip.
Always carry a back up battery to give your phone a boost at some point through the day.
If you forget your back up batteries or don’t have one, there are vending machines available throughout the park and some of the larger stores have cell phone accessories. One battery vending machine is located just outside of the Star Trader store in tomorrowland. Batteries come fully loaded but they do cost $30, and they might only give you about a 50% boost. But worth it if you need it!
Wishing you a magical trip!
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