I stumbled upon a great article that shares valuable insights on optimizing a Disneyland adventure as an adult, delving into topics such as setting the right expectations, skillfully utilizing Fast Passes, and embracing breaks to guarantee a better experience. I.e., a necessary Adult Survival Guide.
Setting the Scene
You: You’re an adult returning to Disneyland in California after some decades. You may or may not be with children or family.
Goal: You want to ensure that you’ll enjoy your day at the park just the way you did as a child, especially for the amount of dough you’re going to put out.
How to make that happen: Plan ahead. Here are some things my partner and I considered for our planning and some cool things we learned at the park that we can pass onto you to get your money’s and time’s worth.
Set low expectations
Hate to start out with something that sounds so negative but this was a realistic lesson learned to come out happy and satisfied at the end of the day.
Most of the rides are the same. The rides you remember giving you the biggest thrills as a child will today turn out to be the same ride experience over and over again so expect that what you get zipping through the tunnels of ABC Mountain Adventure will be like the last one on XYZ Mountain Terror except you may get drenched with water on one or come across a snowy beast in another. Can I say, though, that going through the same motions but in the dark really made the difference. What a novel idea- engineer the same ride at the same velocity with the same twists and turns but just cut out the lights. Awesome! Space Mountain was fun as a kid and still fun as an adult. We also got a real treat going during the Halloween season because Space Mountain had a Halloween makeover where they’ve added a few digital 3D effects- riders are flung right into the opening mouth of a skeletal face or a ghoulish hand comes out to grab you. The Haunted Mansion ride was also totally done up and transformed into a Tim Burton’s A Nightmare Before Christmas adventure.
Rides will break down. For $80 and the hiked-up prices of the vendors inside the park, you’d think the rides would be top-notch quality but that is not the case, unfortunately. We found most of the big rides- Indiana Jones, Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad- will break down frequently throughout the day so know that you won’t be able to go on every ride you want when you want. It helps to use the Disneyland Maps app to see when rides are fixed and open again in real time. See section below.
Get on rides faster
We’re so happy that Disneyland has embraced technology to make a better experience for us. A few cool things to remember:
1. Fast Pass. Upon payment at the entry of the park, everyone will be given a ticket with a barcode on the back. Do not toss your ticket away because that ticket with barcode will save you at least 50% of wait time in lines or more.
This is how Fast Passes work: For rides that offer Fast Pass service (most do, especially the big rides), you go to the machine, stick your ticket in, and it’ll spit out a Fast Pass ticket with a return time range. Remember- now you have two tickets to hold on to. You are, in essence, making a reservation to go on a particular ride and can’t use the service until the time starts. The advantage here is you are “clocking in” for a quicker wait time and until that time starts, you can go on other rides or grab lunch somewhere close by. And when you return, you can saunter in through the Fast Pass line (hold on to that Fast Pass ticket!) where you’ll walk up to a much shorter line or in some cases, we’ve walked right up to the front. They’ve also thought through how to make this experience fair for everybody. With the barcode, the system “locks” you out so you’re not using Fast Passes for more than one ride at a time. That way, all lines for the rides have a balance between the walk-in riders and the Fast Pass riders.
They’ve also placed signs in front of the rides where you can see an estimated wait time for the lines for walk-in riders and another sign that posts the return time for fast pass riders.
2. Disneyland Map app. The Disneyland Map app for the iPhone was a great tool to maximize our time. Not only did it give us wait times for each ride, but it also gave us live updates of rides that were closed. Remember what I said before about rides closing down for repairs throughout the day? This helped us make better decisions throughout the day. The app was also able to give live updates of rides that were open and running again.
3. Going Solo or in pairs. Smaller parties means getting on rides faster. Throughout the day, we heard ride attendants shouting out for parties of one’s to fill up seats on rides. We felt that even going in pairs got us up to the front of the line most often, or better yet, to the front seats of the cars. Going solo would be a nice treat for those needing a break from being around large families or groups.
Breaks and other treats for yourself
This isn’t new information but here are some important things to prepare for: Understand your body and its limits. I get motion sickness so I came prepared with Dramamine. Know you’ll tire out at some point so take breaks as often as you need. If you’re always racing against the clock, that’ll take the fun out of the day as well as for the people you are with. Even with the Fast Pass, there are things you can’t control, so do your best at timing rides and seeing as much as you can but give your body breaks. I’m not advocating for this but it was an extra bonus for us: bring a flask with a little happy juice to help relax, especially if you are with a big family. Wink! Currently, Club 33 is the only place where one can enjoy an adult beverage and this is a members-only restaurant.
Break the repetitiveness
If you’re like me and grow tired of repetitive activities, find attractions where you’re not just going on the same roller coasters. Sit back and enjoy digital technology (Star Tours- it’s new and improved!) or take the raft to Pirate’s Lair and walk around and find some treasures. We had some minutes to kill in between rides, so we went up Tarzan’s Treehouse that kept going up and up until you were about 80 feet high and the view and landscape of the park was a nice contrast to the zoo down below.
I wouldn’t have survived a 10-hour day without planning for some of the these things which is what separates kids from bigger kids (like me). To play and have fun means planning for it. If you’d like to add to this pseudo-guide, leave a comment!
