I went to Disneyland California in 2019. Here are my best Disneyland tips especially if you’re a Star Wars fan.
Whether you’re a family with kids or a couple of kids at heart, these Disneyland tips will make your day at Disneyland super fun. Being adults, Mike and I weren’t sure what it’d be like without kids, but as you can guess, it was lots of fun!
We barely waited in any lines, snacked on delicious food, and of course, took photos pretty much everywhere in the parks.
We did a bit of research on travel tips for Disneyland before we went, which were helpful, but we wish we knew the most important tip there is for riding the new Star Wars Ride: Rise of the Resistance. As a result, this is our very first tip in our list of 10 best Disneyland tips.
You might think these are not your average Disneyland tips since we didn’t go with kids but they’re also awesome if you go with your family.
This post was written in collaboration with Disneyland. All opinions are my own. From Lust Till Dawn is a reader-supported site. Purchases made through links may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Learn more.
Best Disneyland Tips #1: For the Star Wars ride, get to the park at 7:00AM.
This is the only thing we felt like we missed out on at Disneyland because we got to the park at about 8:00AM instead of 7:00AM. Picking up our tickets, going through security then waiting in line to get into the park took about 30 minutes.
We got into the park at 8:30AM, linked our Disney tickets to the app, and by the time, we did this, reservations for the Star Wars ride: Rise of the Resistance were already all full for the entire day.
If getting on this ride is important to you, then you must get to the park at 7:00AM so you can be one of the first people in line to get into the park at 8:00AM.
Make sure to have the Disneyland app already downloaded for this purpose!
Disneyland Tips #2: Buy a Maxpass for an additional $20/day.
This is the best of all Disneyland Fastpass tips; buy a Maxpass for an additional $20/day. You’ll be able to book Fastpasses right from your phone, which is going to save you time from running around the park grabbing Fastpasses.
Also, when you have a Maxpass, instead of having to wait two hours to be able to grab your next Fastpass, you only have to wait 90 minutes. Big time and feet saver (you walk a lot at Disneyland)!
To get a Maxpass, you need to download the Disneyland app, purchase Maxpasses on it, and link your tickets to the app once you’re INSIDE the park.
Disneyland Tips #3: Download the Disneyland app.
Besides having the Disneyland app already downloaded so you can grab a reservation for the new Star Wars ride asap, you’ll want it for a bunch of other handy things. You can:
- Get a Fastpass ticket with the app and don’t need to physically walk over to a ride to pick up a paper Fastpass.
- See how long waits are from certain rides. That way, while you’re waiting for your Fastpass time to come, you can ride on whatever rides have the shortest waits.
- Find out where everything is from bathrooms to food stands, and of course, attractions.
- See what events are happening such as a parade and quartet band playing in the New Orleans Square.
- Check out the menu of all the restaurants to check for diet-friendly options such as vegan, vegetarian, nut-free and more.
- Order food at restaurants with the Mobile Food and Beverage option.
Disneyland Tips #4: Order food with Mobile Food and Beverage.
The icons with the tablet symbol have Mobile Order options.
Chicken tenders we picked up with Mobile Order
When you look at the map of restaurants on the Disneyland app, you’ll see some of them have this little symbol that looks like a tablet. All of those restaurants are where you can make a Mobile Order.
This is a huge time saver as you can prepay with the app, don’t have to wait in line and can even order food to a specific timeframe in which you would pick it up.
Pro Foodie Tip: The Star Wars’ Docking Bay 7 Food and Cargo restaurant has this delicious braised beef pot roast with cavatelli pasta, wilted kale and mushrooms. Not sure if we thought it was so good because we ate amusement park food all day, but having this for dinner really hit the spot. If you’re a meat-eater, get this dish!
If you’re not a meat eater or are allergic to gluten and what not, the Disneyland app tells you which restaurants meets your special dietary needs.
Disneyland Tips #5: Follow these Disneyland Fastpass tips (once you upgrade to Maxpass).
Hold onto your Disneyland tickets when you get into the park because you’ll need to scan these into the app to get MaxPasses because we’ve all had those moments where we “just had our ticket just a minute ago.”
Prioritize which rides you want to go on and make sure to get Fastpasses for those popular rides first.
For example, Space Mountain is a really popular attraction and one of the best rides inn Disneyland for adults. As a result, these Fastpasses went by really quickly.
At 3:00PM, Fastpasses for Space Mountain were already booked up to until 8:30PM, which is when we got on it so prioritize which rides you want to go on. We saw people waiting in line for two hours just for this 3-minute ride. NOT FUN!
Set an alarm for when you can book your next Fastpass.
You can only have one Fastpass at a time for rides. After booking one, you can’t book another Fastpass until you a) use your Fastpass or b) 90 minutes go by*. Setting an alarm will allow you to get maximum number of Fastpasses in a day.
You can have a Fastpass for both a ride and show such as World of Color show and Incredicoaster at the Adventures Park. So don’t be shy and book both at a time!
Disneyland Tips #6: Stand in the Single Rider lane.
We didn’t grab a Fastpass in time for the Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run ride so we went into the Singer Rider lane. The wait time for the ride was 60 minutes but Mike and I had only had to wait 30 minutes in the Single Rider lane and still got to go on the ride together.
As a result, if you don’t get a Fastpass for a ride but don’t want to wait the full time in a line, try the Single Rider lane!
Disneyland Tips #7: Bring as much stuff as you want to Disneyland (except for the prohibited items).
Dress like me with these items from Amazon!
I wanted to bring my DSLR camera to Disneyland and was worried that I was going to have too much stuff. But this proved to be a fruitless worry.
There are lockers on Main Street in both Disneyland and Disneyland California Adventure Park that cost between $7-15 for the whole day. You can go in and out of them as much as you want. I stored my camera in there when I was done with it for the day and didn’t worry about safety at all.
All rides have pouches in front of your seat where you can put small items or are chill enough to bring what you need onto it. There’s the exception of Silly Symphony Swings, which has baskets for you to store your items in at the time being, and of course, Splash mountain, which you may not want to bring your stuff on simply because it may get wet.
Having my small backpack with a camera in it was even fine on Incredicoaster. Because of centrifugal force, you and your bag pretty much get glued to the seat so stuff won’t follow out. To be safe though, Mike did loop the bag through his foot.
Disneyland Tips #8: Make sure to wear sneakers and pack a reusable water, charger, sunscreen and jacket for nighttime.
Plastic bottle I brought attached to a water bottle clip with carabiner.
Reusable water bottle station in Star Wars land.
You tend to walk A LOT at Disneyland so make sure to wear sneakers so you’re comfortable all day. Sneakers are better than flip-flops because on a ride like the Silly Symphony Swings, you may be asked to take them off.
Disneyland has water fountains all over the park is quite thoughtful with water. There are literally water fountains all over the park so although they give you plastic cups if you want to get water and don’t want to drink straight from the fountain, bringing your own reusable water is your best bet.
If you bring a plastic water bottle like I did, get one of these water bottles with carabiner so you can easily clip the bottle onto your jeans or outside of your bag.
Between using your Disneyland app and taking photos all day, your phone may die quickly so bring a reusable charger. My favorite reusable charger is this mini one by Anker; it has 1.5x full charge for your phone and is small enough to fit in your pocket or purse!
Disneyland provides reusable chargers but they start at $30 so it’s best to bring your own. If you do get a charger from Disneyland, the good news is that you can swap your charger out at any station once it gets drained.
Most likely it’ll be bright and sunny during the day when you visit so pack sunscreen. If you’re going in the wintertime though, don’t forget to bring a jacket for nighttime. The difference in temperatures makes it feel pretty cold at night!
Disneyland Tips #9: Store prohibited items at a restaurant across the street of Disneyland for $10.
Disneyland’s websites say that no selfie sticks are allowed (along with a few other items). I decided to push my luck and bring a tripod for my phone because I wanted to take videos of Mike and me. Yes, technically it could be a selfie stick but I have never once used it for that purpose.
Anyways, as you know with Disney, they’re strict. I couldn’t bring in my alleged selfie stick because in the past, people used to use their selfie sticks on rides, which would shut them down for hours. I either had to surrender my tripod or go put it back in my car or hotel.
Since I didn’t have a car or hotel to put my tripod away in, a little birdie told me that I could go across the street to the restaurant and have them store it for me for $10.
I ended up surrendering it and ordering a new one because I didn’t feel like spending the time to do that, BUT it’s a good inside tip to know if you have something valuable on you that you didn’t realize was prohibited by Disneyland.
Disneyland Tips #10: There’s a Starbucks on Main Street.
Depending on who you are, this could be the most important Disneyland tip you’ve ever gotten or it could be the worst. For you coffee lovers who need a solid cup of coffee, there is a Starbucks on Main Street next to the fruit stand in front of then lockers. Even better, the prices aren’t higher than a regular Starbucks outside of Disneyland.
What did you think of these Disneyland tips? If you have any that we should know about, drop them below so that other Disney lovers can have the best time there!
Thanks for stopping by.
xo,
Sarah
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