I LOVE going to Disneyland, but I hate waiting in lines. You could be standing in line for 2 hours for a 2 minute ride.
So for my last trip to Disneyland, I did some research on the theme park. I already knew about Fastpasses, but what else can I do? This is what I found:
- Go during the off season
- Plan your game plan ahead of time.
- Get there early
- Download the MoustWait Disneyland iPhone app
- Grab a Fastpasses for your favorite rides
- Grab more Fastpasses throughout the day
I like going in October. Lines are usually 30 minutes long as opposed to 2 hours during the summer.
Check out a map of the theme park and plan what rides you want to hit up first. You can view a map of Disneyland here.
If you have an iPhone, there are a couple apps that tell you how long the wait is at each ride. How this works is it’s updated by fellow MouseWait app users. The app is free and it’s usually pretty accurate. I’m not sure if other phones have this app yet.
Fastpasses are tickets that hold your place in line. You’re able to do what ever you want and come back in line during the time stated on your ticket. They’re free and they’re offered at most of the popular rides. Make sure you grab a pass for your favorite ride (mine is Space Mountain) first thing in the morning because the passes will run out towards the end of the day. When I grabbed my ticket around 9am, I couldn’t be admitted into the ride until 2:30pm. Also, a good thing to know is if you’ve missed your allotted time slot for a ride, cast members are pretty lenient and will let you in.
Did you know you can grab a new pass every 2 hours even though you haven’t used your previous tickets? Well, you can. Let’s say you get your first pass at 9am that admits you into the ride at 3pm. You are able to grab another pass at 11am and another at 1pm.
California Adventure’s Fastpass network works the same way and it’s completely independent from Disneyland’s network. So, you are also able to hold passes for both parks at the same time.
There are other “special” Fastpasses you can randomly receive from Disneyland. Learn more about them here.
Alrighty, I hope you find this information useful!
[…] You read that right, 4 hours! The fastpass return line was only 20-30 minutes. Once again, use our strategies for avoiding the long lines at Disneyland! Of course, there were certain parts of the day where the fastpass return lines were 150 minutes. […]