Hey everyone, it's Jacqueline for Pixie Dust PhD. I like to think I’m pretty close to expert level
probably at planning a Walt Disney World trip, so I thought Disneyland would be easy… boy was
I wrong. In this video I’m going to give you some perspective as a Walt Disney World goer
on planning a Disneyland trip. This will be a two-part series. In this first video,
we'll be talking about hotels, transit, and dining--stay tuned!
Thanks so much to all of you who have liked this video and subscribed to the channel. Remember
that once you're subscribed you can ring that bell icon to receive notifications whenever I post new
videos. I’m so grateful that you're here! Let's get into talking about Disneyland planning. As
the briefest of overviews, the Disneyland Resort and Walt Disney World resorts are quite different.
At Disneyland you have two theme parks: there's the Disneyland theme park and Disney California
Adventure. Also worth noting, as of right now, park hopping at Disneyland begins at 1 pm,
whereas at Walt Disney World it's not until 2 pm, so that is also different. The shopping district
in the Disneyland Resort is called Downtown Disney; it is similar to Disney Springs,
but it is much, much smaller. I’m not going to get into nitty-gritty details here, but just
wanted to give you a brief overview to orient yourself. Disneyland Resort is much smaller,
it's only two theme parks, Downtown Disney is much smaller than Disney Springs, and in general it's
much more compact. When you're planning your trip first things first, you're going to have to get
to Disneyland somehow. If you live within driving distance and want to drive, of course there will
be the cost of gas but then your primary cost is going to be where are you going to park your car.
Overnight and/or daytime parking costs at the various hotels in the Disneyland area are of
course variable. For the Disney owned and operated hotels themselves parking right now is $35
per night. And if you're going to be staying off-site and plan to drive into the theme parks,
then parking at the theme parks is $30 per day. If you live beyond driving distance and plan to
fly in there are a lot of airport options in the general LA region. John Wayne Airport, or SNA,
is actually closest to the Disneyland Resort. That being said, it is a relatively small airport,
at least in my opinion. Same with Ontario and Long Beach. You definitely can find flights into here,
and maybe you can find some deals. It's going to depend on where you're flying in from.
For many people your best option may be LAX, LA International Airport. For us there were the most
flight choices, as well as it was the cheapest by far. Now, you'll have to do the math and decide if
you want to pay a little bit extra to fly into a closer airport to save down on transit costs
to get you to Disneyland, which we'll talk about in a minute. But for us, when we did that math,
LAX just made the most sense, so that's where we flew into. Once you've picked your destination
airport you are then going to have to figure out how you'll get to Disneyland Resort.
None of the airports are right at Disneyland; that's actually fairly similar to, for example,
Orlando International Airport is not right at Disney World. I looked into a lot of options from
LAX, here's a quick rundown. You can take public transit, and it is the cheapest option by far,
but it's also going to take between two and two and a half hours most days. You can of
course rent a car, but then you're paying for the rental, you are driving in LA traffic,
and then you're paying to park your car overnight wherever you're staying. You can take a rideshare,
primarily Uber or Lyft. When I was researching this topic I found quotes for one-way trips from
the airport to Disneyland or from Disneyland to LAX for anywhere between like $50 and $150
one way. Surge pricing can definitely bump the cost up quite a bit. Additionally,
if you have a larger party you'll need to get a larger ride share, which costs more money.
Depending on how much the rideshare costs as well as car rental prices when you're looking,
it may be cheaper to rent a car. When we were doing this math it looked like it would have
been about a wash between renting a car and taking a ride share, or best case scenario we
may have saved about $30 if we rented a car. That math included overnight hotel parking,
but we were not planning to drive to the theme parks and pay for theme park parking as well.
We debated about renting a car for a bit, but at the end of the day if you rent a car it does mean
someone is going to have to drive in LA traffic and none of us really wanted to do that. So we
scrapped that option. You can of course take a taxi from the airport to any destination;
to Disneyland it is usually around $100 or so. And there are a lot of shuttle services; there's
more than I can name, but these are the few that I researched. SuperShuttle would have been probably
about $100 for three guests, this is a one-way trip again. And Primetime Shuttle would have
been about $70 or $75 for three to four people. Shuttle2LAX’s estimated rates were very similar
to Primetime Shuttle. I did find what seemed to be a very reputable company called Johnny's
California Shuttle, but you really had to call and get an official quote and I didn't want to waste
anyone's time because I probably wasn't going to go the shuttle route, so I’m not sure how much
this costs but it may be something to look into if you're interested in the shuttles. And many blogs
recommended a luxury service called Lansky; that would have been about $165 for the three of us
one way. Given that the shuttle price estimates fell approximately in the middle range of the
rideshare estimates I had found, we decided just to go with a rideshare. If rates were surging we
agreed that we could wait it out for a little bit, or alternatively we could go ahead and get on that
public transit take the green line out a bunch of stops and then recheck rideshare prices to see if
they had dropped considerably. Both ways, so from LAX to Disneyland Resort and Disneyland Resort
back to LAX, cost about $75 to $80. We did take an Uber XL because we had three adults and all
of our luggage. And each time we didn't hit any traffic, so it was only about 45 to 50 minutes.
That being said, if you do hit LA traffic it can easily be twice as long, so be prepared for that.
Flying into LAX and then taking a ride share to and from the resort area worked well for us,
but of course I encourage you to talk with your travel party and figure out what's going to work
well for you. Overall, this strategy is actually fairly similar to how we approach Walt Disney
World. We typically fly into MCO, Orlando International Airport, just for the ease.
It's a big airport, there's a lot of flight time choices, and prices are usually pretty good.
I know there's plenty of other airports people fly into, like Tampa or Melbourne or places that
are you know one to two hours away. To me, it's usually not worth it. And then when we go to Walt
Disney World I tend to prefer to rent a car, but if we decide not to do that we pretty much always
just take a rideshare down to our hotel. Speaking of hotels, Disneyland Resort has three official
Disney owned and operated hotels. That's very different than the Walt Disney World resort.
All three of these are considered deluxe levels so they are all quite expensive, there's really
no getting around that. When we were traveling in January of 2022 the main benefit of staying in a
Disney owned and operated hotel would have been really to immerse yourself in Disney and stay in
that Disney bubble. Generally, there is an extra magic hour, so early admission for hotel guests,
but that was not being offered when we were traveling, so for us it wasn't a factor.
Another cool perk is that the monorail is fairly nearby. The monorail runs from Downtown Disney
into Tomorrowland, so you can walk from your hotel to the monorail stop in Downtown Disney,
catch it into Tomorrowland pretty easily. Beyond those three Disney owned and operated hotels there
are just a ton of hotels in the area. Frankly, the sheer numbers are a little bit intimidating.
A handful of these hotels may actually be closer to the theme parks than the Disney owned hotels
also, so location is not as big of a consideration as in Walt Disney World. At Walt Disney World,
with the exception of maybe the Swan, Dolphin, and Shades of Green, really if you're staying off
property you're gonna be a bit of a ways away. At Disneyland you can stay off property and still be
incredibly close to the theme parks. And of course if you book large suites or super fancy rooms,
off-property hotels can be very expensive. But generally speaking if you're looking at
a standard room it's going to cost less money than a standard room in one of these Disneyland hotels.
If you are going to stay off-site though you do need to consider how you're going to get to
the theme parks. Depending on the location of the off-site hotel you could drive or take a
rideshare, you could walk, or there's a fairly popular shuttle type service called Anaheim
Regional Transportation or ART. ART fares are fairly reasonable. For example, when I was going
it would only be $16 for a three day pass to take the shuttle as many times as we wanted within the
three days. That being said, during peak time, so in the morning when folks are going to the
parks and in the evening when folks are coming back [from] the parks, you may end up waiting about
20 minutes for a shuttle to come, and that's assuming you're able to get on that shuttle.
In doing this prep work and research I didn't really see anyone complaining that in the morning,
when they were trying to get on the shuttle from whatever shuttle stop was closest to their hotel,
that they couldn't get on it. Seems like you could get on in the morning just fine. But I did read,
and I did see while I was there, that the lines to get on a shuttle after the parks were closed
were quite long and you may have to wait several shuttles. That's pretty similar to buses in Walt
Disney World I think. Because we were only going to be there for three days and I have no clue
when I’ll ever get back to Disneyland, I wasn't super interested in this wait if I’m being honest.
So we decided we wanted to stay at a hotel within walking distance. We were choosing
between Paradise Pier, which is a Disney owned and operated hotel, and an off-site Hilton. We were
looking at a few Hilton’s, but specifically landed on the Hilton Garden Inn Anaheim Resort. Paradise
Pier would have cost us almost twice as much as the rate that we paid for the Hilton Garden Inn,
and arguably Paradise Pier is a little bit closer to the parks but I don't think that the Hilton
Garden Inn was that far. The way Disneyland is situated is the hotels are over here,
and then you walk through Downtown Disney over to the parks, then if you keep going you're no
longer really in Downtown Disney--they called the esplanade, there's not all those shops and stuff,
it's basically just a big walkway and a lot of shuttles pick up there--and
then you run into Harbor Boulevard. Once you hit Harbor Boulevard you are just in Anaheim,
so there's hotels and chain restaurants, all that kind of stuff. Now the Hilton Garden Inn Anaheim
Resort is not on Harbor, but it really isn't too far. But if you are staying right there on Harbor,
arguably some of these hotels are closer than the Disney owned hotels to the theme parks.
At the end of the day we decided to save some money and still be walkable to the resort. We
paid under $750 for the Hilton Garden In Anaheim Resort for four nights for three adults in an
oversized room. Three adults for those same four nights at Paradise Pier would have been almost
fourteen hundred dollars. And since there was no extra morning magic hour when we were there,
just didn't really feel like the perks were worth it. And last let's discuss dining. Advance dining
reservations for Disneyland actually work fairly similarly as they do for Walt Disney World.
You can book them online or in the app 60 days in advance. The timing of this is a
little questionable though. In theory they get released at 6 a.m. Disneyland time, so 9 a.m. where I
am on the east coast, but there was more than one occasion where I would wake up and just passively
check at 8 a.m. and things were already released. Upon further investigation, it looked like some
time slots for some locations got released at 3 a.m. pacific time, but it was very unclear overall.
And generally speaking, things should be released 60 days in advance for ADRs, but there definitely
were some that were not. 60 days out I would try to book something and there would be literally no
time slots. And I would check randomly 12 days later or 17 days later and basically every time
slot was available. So I think your mileage will really vary with ADRs at Disneyland right now.
I’m not really sure what's going on… like Disney World if there's something you really, really
want to book and aren't having any luck doing it yourself, you can utilize a travel agent or
you can always use one of those reservation finder services. Something I found very interesting about
Disneyland dining is that lounges and bars take reservations, and I think they are encouraged.
For example, the Grand Californian Hotel Craftsman Bar and Grill we had a reservation at, and we
really needed it. It was full. We would not have been able to walk up to it, which is not really
how I think about bars. And same for lounges. We would book lounge portions of restaurants because
we wanted to sit outside instead of do the proper seating inside, but you still really did need that
reservation it seemed. There are pros and cons to this. I think it's awesome to be able to reserve
your spot at Trader Sam’s, so you don't have to go and put your name on the waitlist and hang out at
the Poly for two hours or however long it is. But it does also feel a little bit less flexible. If
you see something labeled lounge it doesn't mean it's walk up only; you may want to see if you can
make a reservation, and if you really want to dine there you should probably try to make that ADR.
That being said, pretty much everywhere had a walk-up wait list and it seems pretty popular to
put your name on, and I think they do get through quite a lot of that wait list. If you weren't able
to snag an ADR you really wanted, speak with the cast member at the podium, put your name on a wait
list, and hopefully it works out for you. That being said, while at Walt Disney World I feel like
a lot of the attention is on those table service restaurants and you do need to focus on your ADRs,
at the Disneyland Resort there is so much quick service. There's so many good options where
you really don't need a reservation. That was definitely a big difference in my mental planning.
And while there were ADRs that I wanted and we were successful in that, it was also really great
to know that hey, there's actually a lot of great quick service options we can grab if it doesn't
work out. And while I think most people know this, it is worth noting that alcohol is very limited
in the Disneyland theme park itself. Disneyland park is not a 100% dry park like it once was, but
you're not going to find quick service drinks. For example, the Mint Julep Bar in New Orleans Square
serves non-alcoholic mint juleps. So to me a mint julep has alcohol, and also it's called Mint Julep
Bar and bars have alcohol. And there's no alcohol. You cannot put alcohol in your mint julep. Just
something to keep in mind, it definitely tripped me up a little bit during my planning.
In the second part of the series we will talk about Disneyland planning when it comes to
attractions and technology if perhaps you're more used to Walt Disney World. But until then if you
have any questions let me know in the comments down below! I’m by no means a Disneyland expert,
so of course I will do my best to try to help you, but if you have very nitty gritty questions
I would like to refer you over to Anaheim Park Tourist and Hyperion Adventures Podcast. I’ll
leave links to their channels in the description below. In particular, Jim and Crystal over at
Anaheim Park Tourist have a wonderful video about off-site hotels in the Disneyland Resort area;
I think for many people this may be one of the most daunting parts of planning your Disneyland
trip, so I will also leave a link to that video below. Even if you're very confident about Walt
Disney World like I am I hope you've seen that Disneyland is a little bit different and you found
this helpful. May the rest of your day be magical, and we'll see you real soon at Pixie Dust PhD!