Disneyland- Park hopper or extra day?

[kalandlily]

We are going to LA at the end of August with 5 teens/preteens who love theme parks. They want to do all the roller coasters and headliners plus most of the dark rides. They are fine with skipping cookie-cutter flat rides. Magic Mountain and Knott's are reasonably cheap because over half the group already have Six Flags and Cedar Fair passes. By contrast, Disney and Universal seem super expensive (but also amazing).

Which do you think is the best Disney value considering that time and money are both limited? 3 days with park hopper or 4 days without (2 days for each park)? Crowds should be on the low end. I assume we only need 1 day for Universal, although it may be long, as we want a couple hours in each of Nintendo and Harry Potter lands, plus at least 2 rides on The Mummy.

We want to make sure we do it all because we've never been to LA before and probably won't be back for a long time. We live in Pennsylvania and have been to most East Coast parks because the kiddos (siblings and cousins) all love them. Our favorites are the more intense coasters, but we also appreciate theming. So, we'll do Cedar Point to hit Steel Vengeance and Maverick but also go out of our way to see nostalgic dark rides at Waldameer and Knoebels. In Florida, we've been skipping Disney in recent years since Universal, Seaworld, and Busch Gardens have the better coasters for teens, but we are excited to see the California parks and definitely want to hit things like haunted mansion and jungle cruise.

Thanks so much!

 

[AstroBlasters]

As you know, Disney is not about the coasters. So, given your preferences I would go with the park hopper.

 

[Funtimeswithteenagers]

I just got back, I also have teens who wanted to ride the big rides. This was only our 3rd time at DL and haven’t been back in 7 years.
For the first time we decided not to get park hoppers and honestly I loved it! I don’t think I would get park hoppers again. It took so much stress away not looking at the other parks times. We bought the genie plus and just focused on 1 park and it was so much better. We spent less time on our phones and enjoyed the parks so much more.

Personally 4 days would be too much for us. My kids liked California adventure rides better. But DL has more rides. We were there last week for spring break and rode everything we wanted in 1 day each park. We had 4 days but by day 4 we only went for a few hours. It’s exhausting!! But we aren’t eat in restaurants or watch shows kind of people, they just did rides. Also my teens loved the little rides! Haha! Brought out the kids in them again.

 

[Pluto468]

If it's 4 days vs 3 days I'd get that extra day and not worry about hoppers.

But, if it's at all possible to do 4 days AND hoppers, I'd recommend that. We usually rope drop at one park and go to the other one in the afternoon or evening, we don't hop back and forth multiple times a day. Hopping opens up your options for night time entertainment and dining choices, too.

 

[kalandlily]

I just got back, I also have teens who wanted to ride the big rides. This was only our 3rd time at DL and haven’t been back in 7 years.
For the first time we decided not to get park hoppers and honestly I loved it! I don’t think I would get park hoppers again. It took so much stress away not looking at the other parks times. We bought the genie plus and just focused on 1 park and it was so much better. We spent less time on our phones and enjoyed the parks so much more.

Personally 4 days would be too much for us. My kids liked California adventure rides better. But DL has more rides. We were there last week for spring break and rode everything we wanted in 1 day each park. We had 4 days but by day 4 we only went for a few hours. It’s exhausting!! But we aren’t eat in restaurants or watch shows kind of people, they just did rides. Also my teens loved the little rides! Haha! Brought out the kids in them again.

My kids also love the little rides! To a point, anyway. I am intrigued by the idea that we could do each park in one day but it seems impossible. Our list for DLR is 20 attractions! And for DCA it's 14. That sees like too much, especially when some of these have to be rope dropped or ILL'd?

Jungle Cruise
Indiana Jones
Pirates
Haunted Mansion
Canoes
Splash
Big Thunder
Runaway Railway
Roger Rabbit
Gadgetcoaster
Small World
Mr Toad
Snow White
Bobsleds
Star Tours
Buzz Lightyear
Space Mt
Finding Nemo
Smugglers Run
Rise of the Resistance
20


Monsters Inc
Animation Academy
Turtle Talk
Guardians
Webslingers
luigi's
radiator springs racers
Grizzly river run
Soarin
redwood challenge
incredicoaster
midway mania
Sky school
little mermaid
14

 

[joseph821]

We are going to LA at the end of August with 5 teens/preteens who love theme parks. They want to do all the roller coasters and headliners plus most of the dark rides. They are fine with skipping cookie-cutter flat rides. Magic Mountain and Knott's are reasonably cheap because over half the group already have Six Flags and Cedar Fair passes. By contrast, Disney and Universal seem super expensive (but also amazing).

Which do you think is the best Disney value considering that time and money are both limited? 3 days with park hopper or 4 days without (2 days for each park)? Crowds should be on the low end. I assume we only need 1 day for Universal, although it may be long, as we want a couple hours in each of Nintendo and Harry Potter lands, plus at least 2 rides on The Mummy.

We want to make sure we do it all because we've never been to LA before and probably won't be back for a long time. We live in Pennsylvania and have been to most East Coast parks because the kiddos (siblings and cousins) all love them. Our favorites are the more intense coasters, but we also appreciate theming. So, we'll do Cedar Point to hit Steel Vengeance and Maverick but also go out of our way to see nostalgic dark rides at Waldameer and Knoebels. In Florida, we've been skipping Disney in recent years since Universal, Seaworld, and Busch Gardens have the better coasters for teens, but we are excited to see the California parks and definitely want to hit things like haunted mansion and jungle cruise.

Thanks so much!

Get the park hoppers!!

 

[Funtimeswithteenagers]

My kids also love the little rides! To a point, anyway. I am intrigued by the idea that we could do each park in one day but it seems impossible. Our list for DLR is 20 attractions! And for DCA it's 14. That sees like too much, especially when some of these have to be rope dropped or ILL'd?

Jungle Cruise
Indiana Jones
Pirates
Haunted Mansion
Canoes
Splash
Big Thunder
Runaway Railway
Roger Rabbit
Gadgetcoaster
Small World
Mr Toad
Snow White
Bobsleds
Star Tours
Buzz Lightyear
Space Mt
Finding Nemo
Smugglers Run
Rise of the Resistance
20


Monsters Inc
Animation Academy
Turtle Talk
Guardians
Webslingers
luigi's
radiator springs racers
Grizzly river run
Soarin
redwood challenge
incredicoaster
midway mania
Sky school
little mermaid
14

Maybe we got lucky. I don’t know. Last week we did 18 rides at DL from 8am to 5pm
Cali adventure we got there after the initial rush and it was empty because everyone runs to cars land. Everything was a walk on for the first hour outside of cars. We did everything by noon. Cars we got lucky, it was closed for hours. I happened to look at the app and it opened so we walked quickly there and only waited 10 minutes!
We did buy genie plus at Cali adventure in the afternoon when it got busier so they could ride again, but didn’t need it at DL. We didn’t do canoes, redwood challenge or grizzly.
One thing I noticed was wait times were always wrong. Indiana jones showed 50 minutes and we were on the ride in 15. Same with Roger rabbit, runaway railroad and others. We rode runaway railroad 3 times, all 3 times it showed 60 minutes and we waited 20. Wonder if they do that do people buy the LL?

 

[kalandlily]

Maybe we got lucky. I don’t know. Last week we did 18 rides at DL from 8am to 5pm
Cali adventure we got there after the initial rush and it was empty because everyone runs to cars land. Everything was a walk on for the first hour outside of cars. We did everything by noon. Cars we got lucky, it was closed for hours. I happened to look at the app and it opened so we walked quickly there and only waited 10 minutes!
We did buy genie plus at Cali adventure in the afternoon when it got busier so they could ride again, but didn’t need it at DL. We didn’t do canoes, redwood challenge or grizzly.
One thing I noticed was wait times were always wrong. Indiana jones showed 50 minutes and we were on the ride in 15. Same with Roger rabbit, runaway railroad and others. We rode runaway railroad 3 times, all 3 times it showed 60 minutes and we waited 20. Wonder if they do that do people buy the LL?

Wow! That sounds awesome. Crowds are supposed to be low so maybe we would be ok with 2 days, especially since we'll get Genie+.

I haven't been to any Disney since Genie+ started, but we've noticed inflating of wait times at lots of other parks. At Universal Orlando they even have the two lines- regular and express- out of view of each other so you can never quite tell if paying $$$ for the onsite hotel and express was worth it. The inflation is worst in that last hour of day when they don't bother to update to reflect the fact that there's barely anyone left in the park.

 

[jenksdj]

My vote would be to do the hoppers. It gives you so much flexibility. Then you aren’t disappointed if you miss a ride (or don’t get enough of it). You can ride it every day! And remember that you only get one LL per ride per day, so if you want to ride multiple times in the same day you have to go standby. With park hoppers you have that many more rides to do with LL every day.
I think 3 days would be plenty with Genie Plus and hoppers. Two might even be enough.

For reference, I am a parent of 2 kids who have travelled to Disneyland from Canada with our teens (now young adults) several times. Our kids mostly love the big rides, but some nostalgic ones too. We are doing 3 day hoppers with genie plus at the end of April. This is our usual go to plan.

 

[chezcurrie]

Wow! That sounds awesome. Crowds are supposed to be low so maybe we would be ok with 2 days, especially since we'll get Genie+.

I haven't been to any Disney since Genie+ started, but we've noticed inflating of wait times at lots of other parks. At Universal Orlando they even have the two lines- regular and express- out of view of each other so you can never quite tell if paying $$$ for the onsite hotel and express was worth it. The inflation is worst in that last hour of day when they don't bother to update to reflect the fact that there's barely anyone left in the park.

Do at least 3 days. Trying to do all that in 2 days sounds like a recipe for disaster. Your OP said 3 days park hoppers or 4 without. Don’t drop down to 2!

With teens I would do the hoppers. This will enable re-rides if you happen to get a day where you knock lots of rides out in the am.

 

[SOCALMouseMommy]

Three-day park hoppers so you have flexibility, especially with nighttime entertainment and rides (some rides are totally different at night!).

 

[twodogs]

I hate to be negative, but crowds are never really low at all anymore. Even at traditionally “less crowded” times of year or “slower” days of the week. Disney has worked very hard to strategically block and unblock Magic Keys, have special events etc to counter low times. As well, even if they see low crowds coming based on the park reservations (because now they know in advance, exactly how many people will be showing up to each park based on the reservation system), they decrease staffing so that maybe only one side of a ride is operating etc. So that low crowd say can still mean long wait times for rides.

That said, you can still have an amazing trip and get all those rides done. However I think trying to do it all in 2 days is going to make it very stressful. Rides go down a lot lately, so the extra flexibility of PHs and G+ make a big difference. And as OPs have stated, having PHs adds significant value to your G+ price (which is the same no matter if your ticket is a PH or not) because you can get LLs at both parks each day (roughly doubling the number of rides you can book with the LL each day of a PH compared to a single park per day ticket). Remember you can only book a LL once per day per ride (no repeats like you could do with FP+). And with only a few days, nighttime entertainment probably won’t be offered every day at both parks. Having the PH allows you to go see what is available each night.

So overall I recommend the 3 day PH with G+ of the options you gave.

Have a great time!!

 

[Rich M]

Hoppers are the way to go at Disneyland. If one park is crowded then hop over to the other.

 

[godfather927]

OP didn't mention G+ but I'd definitely rather put any extra money towards that instead of park hoppers. The time saved is more important to me than the flexibility, especially for 3 or more days.

 

[bizaro86]

Are you planning to get genie+? If so I'd definitely go with 3 days and hoppers. Hoppers make Genie+ more valuable because of the limit of doing each ride only once. Not as big a deal at Disneyland but on your California Adventure days you'd likely not be making selections the whole day (either because you waited to start or because you ran out of rides before the end of the day). If you park hop you can knock off some at the other park on G+ as well.

 

[kalandlily]

I hate to be negative, but crowds are never really low at all anymore. Even at traditionally “less crowded” times of year or “slower” days of the week. Disney has worked very hard to strategically block and unblock Magic Keys, have special events etc to counter low times. As well, even if they see low crowds coming based on the park reservations (because now they know in advance, exactly how many people will be showing up to each park based on the reservation system), they decrease staffing so that maybe only one side of a ride is operating etc. So that low crowd say can still mean long wait times for rides.

That said, you can still have an amazing trip and get all those rides done. However I think trying to do it all in 2 days is going to make it very stressful. Rides go down a lot lately, so the extra flexibility of PHs and G+ make a big difference. And as OPs have stated, having PHs adds significant value to your G+ price (which is the same no matter if your ticket is a PH or not) because you can get LLs at both parks each day (roughly doubling the number of rides you can book with the LL each day of a PH compared to a single park per day ticket). Remember you can only book a LL once per day per ride (no repeats like you could do with FP+). And with only a few days, nighttime entertainment probably won’t be offered every day at both parks. Having the PH allows you to go see what is available each night.

So overall I recommend the 3 day PH with G+ of the options you gave.

Have a great time!!

Thanks! These are great points!