Visiting Disneyland during off-peak times and on Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Thursdays can reduce wait times. Planning to visit popular attractions during parades or later in the evening can also help. FastPasses are available but have limitations.
Disneyland has many fun attractions to offer family members of all ages. There are shops, exhibitions, parades, fireworks and, of course, rides. Unfortunately, as with all busy theme parks, one of the perennial pains of visiting Disneyland is the amount of time you can spend waiting to ride popular rides like Space Mountain or Peter Pan. There are a few ways to reduce the wait in line at Disneyland.
First, plan your family vacation for the off season. Going in the summer, on holidays, spring break, and other popular times will mean more people at Disneyland waiting in line. Lines are getting longer and wait times for some of the more popular attractions can exceed an hour. Planning a vacation in January, February, October, or early November means visiting the park when crowds are at their smallest, which results in less waiting time.
Also, the day of the week you visit the park can make a difference in the length of the lines. Season ticket holders generally believe that Tuesdays are the least busy days. Mondays are busier as they are close to the weekend and the same goes for Fridays. If you can, try to visit Disneyland on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, as this will also keep wait times to a minimum.
In addition to choosing the right season and day, it can be helpful to be aware of when choosing which attraction to visit. If Fantasyland’s fairytale-themed rides are your favorite, plan to go during a parade or later at night when most of Disneyland’s younger guests are busy or asleep. Of course, getting to the park early or planning to stay late will allow you to get to many rides without the crowds. Additionally, it is often helpful to plan meals and snacks contrary to normal meal plans. This will pay off in two ways since you won’t have to wait in line for food and you will have shorter queues for the nice rides while everyone else is!
Disneyland also offers a FastPass which can be very useful, if you know how to make the most of it. The busiest rides in the park have FastPass vending machines at their entrances. With your passport (your day ticket), you can receive a FastPass that will allow you to return to the ride later in the day and skip all or most of the lines. Of course, as with many things, FastPass isn’t always as easy to use as it might seem.
The return time shown on your FastPass can vary from one hour to four hours after the time you receive it. While you are free to ride any other rides during this time, you will have to wait in line. Also, each guest’s passport can only have one FastPass at a time. This means that if you have a FastPass for Space Mountain, you won’t be able to get another one until the turnaround time begins. On the other hand, there’s no limit to the number of FastPasses you can use in a day.
There are many Disney fan sites discussing the use of FastPass and suggesting possible bugs or hacks that will allow you to keep more than one at a time, but it’s probably too much to count on them. It’s also important to keep in mind that FastPasses are often not available during off-peak days, when lines are already shorter, or at the end of very busy days when machines are out of paper.
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