Disneyland!

Ahh, yes, paying for the kids adds a whole new layer to the fun. Our friends with shorter kids were able to push the age limit quite a bit but we weren’t that lucky.

You are absolutely paying to see the parks through your children’s eyes. I don’t need to spend more than a day at any of the parks once you take them out of the equation.

So I just checked, and it’s $400 for the socal pass with all the black out dates which would be perfect if it wasn’t for the parking situation - only the most expensive passes come with free parking. Having to pay for parking each time is a big ol psychological block on going as much as you want. I know some people use uber to come from outside parking but I don’t really know how well that would work for us. So if anybody has a good solution to parking that doesn’t involve the most expensive passes I would love to hear it.

Yeah I wish the SoCal pass was an option for us. But it doesn’t include a single weekend date that isn’t blocked out, defeating the whole purpose for us.

I don’t know of a solution without the most expensive pass. Probably worth it just to get one so you get the free parking + better discount on food/merch since you go so often. Plus parking just went from $20 to $25 too.

Yea we’ve typically gotten one super pass that had parking and the other one of the cheaper passes that had weekends. But now since the Deluxe pass has been gutted in the summer we both had to do the signature pass. (Family from out of town comes in July) The Signature Plus is absolutely not worth it though. You pay 150 (250 if you don’t care about max pass) more for the privilege of going in the two weeks around Christmas and new year. I’ve been to Disneyland at that time. You don’t want to go to Disneyland at that time.

Well, my wife and I started discussing summer plans this morning and she’s thinking a trip to Anaheim might be in order. Man, summertime is the worst time to visit, right?

Yup. Hot (by socal standards). Super crowded.

It will be hot and crowded. But most passes will be blacked out, so maybe that will stabilize the crowds.

EDIT: https://www.undercovertourist.com/los-angeles/crowd-calendar/ is a decent free crowd predictor.

Heat I can deal with, or at least work around it. It’s going to be the crowds that are crazy no doubt. But what are you gonna do.

Check the Disneyland fan sites for the optimal day to go (a weekday for sure) and hope for the best! Get there when it first opens, maybe take a break during the day, then come back at night if you want to avoid some lines. There’s an overwhelming amount of resources out there to help you prep.

Also be aware of the new Star Wars land opening which will absolutely destroy your will to live if you happen to go around that time. At least, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near the parks the first month or two it’s open.

Oh crap, forgot about that! I wouldn’t mind seeing it but my kids are, oddly enough, not all that into Star Wars. Possibly we can avoid it.

I “helpfully” fixed that for you. I am excited to see the new Star Wars additions but yeah, it’s going to be a year or two before we check it out unless I hear otherwise. By then I look forward to paying $3k for a premium pass and $600 x 2 for resident passes.

HA, true enough. It’s amazing the ramp up that’s occurred the past decade or so. I fondly remember the Disney cast member parties that they’d have in December every year back when I still worked at Corporate. They’d actually close the parks down early for a couple nights, so it’d just be us for about 5 or 6 hours. No lines, no craziness, hit whatever ride you wanted over & over. Then they suddenly changed it to mix-in nights, where you’d get to go when your employee pass was normally blocked out but it wasn’t just employees in the park (i.e., crowded as hell.) Then I believe they stopped doing that altogether once I left back in 2011. I think the block out dates for the silver pass kept getting squeezed also. Then they changed the terms on the 2x/year park hoppers they’d give out to all employees, adding expiration dates, cracking down on people trying to trade them to other employees, etc. Fun stuff. All in the name of trying to reduce crowds while maximizing profits at any cost.

Greed thy name is Disney!

I’m not sure that’s clearly the take-away, here. What is Disney to do, beyond building more parks? I, for one, find them overcrowded, even at the elevated price points.

I guess one could argue that they should just keep prices down while limiting daily access to the parks. But I don’t think they’re a charity.

They’re definitely not a charity and certainly have the right to make money. But they really need to stop marketing the Disney magic bullshit to families that have no real chance of ever going. Hook their kids on Disney but then keep cranking up the prices so they can’t actually afford to go.

The problem really comes down to the fact that season passes exist. Disney would like nothing better than to solely sell single day tickets or the 5-7 ticket packs at worst. The demand is so great though, jacking up the prices on the annual pass year after year just doesn’t do much to reduce the crowding problem. It really just increases their profits while ignoring the problem that the quality of a Disneyland experience has steadily gone downhill.

My last trip to Disneyland was in 2010 or 2011. It was for a wedding my daughter was in and we knew one side (bride) very well. We were there for 4 days and bought dual park tickets. It was in either October or November. The park (except for Calif Adventures) was a packed mess on every day. In fact the final day we gave our tickets to a couple kids who were in the wedding because we just didn’t want to fight the crowds anymore.

It is a fun place, but not when it is like that. And we can remember being there in the 80’s on weekdays offseason when you didn’t even need to stand in line for anything. So crowded is just no fun.

I went all by myself once in the early 80s in early December (was visiting my dad, who was working during the day, so one day I drove down to Anaheim). Walking in from the parking lot all by myself felt really creepy, like going to Disneyland alone was the sort of thing only someone looking to do something highly unsavory would ever do. But once inside, I had a blast. Ride Space Mountain 6 times in a row? Sure - no line, no one else wanting to go to any other ride. I assume it is never possible to have the experience of having the park all to yourself anymore. Though my brother-in-law who lives in Florida says that Super Bowl Sunday is a great day to go to Disney World.

Or a ride all to yourself…

The wife and I went to Magic Mountain and Knotts in November a few years ago, and it was great. Hardly any lines. My goal at MM was to ride all the roller coasters that had been added since I was last there - which was all of them, save Colossus and Revolution - and only came up one short (It was a Sunday, and they closed at 6pm). Zero lines at all at Knotts the following day, and we were often the only ones on a ride.

I have no idea how that’s possible.