Chapter One
PLANNING before YOU LEAVE HOME
GATHERING INFORMATION
IN ADDITION TO THIS GUIDE, we recommend that you obtain copies of the following publications:
1. DISNEY RESORT TRAVEL SALES CENTER CALIFORNIA BROCHURE This full-color booklet describes Disneyland in its entirety and lists rates for the Disneyland Hotel. Also described are Disneyland package vacations with lodging options at more than 25 nearby hotels. The brochure is available from most full-service travel agents, or it can be obtained by calling the Disney Resort Travel Sales Center at [??] 714-520-7070 or get the e-brochure at www.kingdommagictravel.com/disneyland. A two-page faxed brochure is also available.
2. DISNEYLAND GUIDEBOOK FOR GUESTS WITH DISABILITIES If members of your party are sight- or hearing-impaired or partially or wholly nonambulatory, you will find this small guide very helpful. Disney does not mail them, but copies are readily available at the park. Daily wheelchair rentals are available for $10.
3. CALIFORNIA TRAVELER DISCOUNT GUIDE Another good source of lodging, restaurant, and attraction discounts throughout the state of California, the California/Nevada Traveler Discount Guide can be obtained by calling [??] 352-371-3948, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST. Published by Trader Publishing Company, the Discount Guide is free, but you will be charged $3 for postage and handling. Similar guides to other states are available at the same number. You can also order online at www.travelersdiscountguide.com or by mail at 4205 NW Sixth Street, Gainesville, FL 32609.
Disneyland Main Information Address and Phone
The following address and phone numbers provide general information. Inquiries may be expedited by using addresses and phone numbers specific to the nature of the inquiry (other addresses and phone numbers are listed elsewhere in this chapter, under their relevant topics).
Disneyland Guest Relations P.O. Box 3232 1313 South Harbor Boulevard Anaheim, CA 92803-3232 [??] 714-781-4565 for recorded information [??] 714-781-7290 for live information
The Phone from Hell
Sometimes it is virtually impossible to get through on the Disneyland information numbers listed above. When you get through, you will get a recording that offers various information options. If none of the recorded options answer your question, you will have to hold for a live person. Eat before you call-you may have a long wait. If, after repeated attempts, you get tired of a busy signal in your ear or, worse, 20 minutes'' worth of singing mice warbling "Cinderellie" in alto falsettos while you wait on hold, call the Disneyland Hotel at [??] 714-956-6425.
RECOMMENDED WEB SITES
There are a number of good Disneyland information sources on the Web. The following are brief profiles of our favorites:
BEST OFFICIAL THEME PARK SITES The official Disneyland Web site, disneyland.disney.go.com, is so loaded with video, photos, special effects, and gimmicks that it''s slow to load and cumbersome to search unless you have a very late-model computer and high-speed Internet access. For those who do, there''s a ton of information to be had, but even so it usually takes a lot of clicks to find what you''re looking for. As an example, we tried finding the phone number for restaurant reservations and searched for "dining" and "restaurants" and "restaurant reservations." Each search yielded 0 results. The Universal Studios official Web site is at www.universalstudioshollywood.com. Like the Disneyland site, it''s complex with a lot of bells and whistles. As far as your computer''s concerned, be new, be fast, or be gone.
BEST OFFICIAL AREA WEB SITE www.anaheimoc.org is the official Web site of the Anaheim-Orange County Visitors and Convention Authority. You''ll find everything from hotels and restaurants to weather and driving instructions on this site.
BEST GENERAL UNOFFICIAL WEB SITES IntercotWest.com (The Internet Community of Tomorrow-West) is an active and friendly Web site filled with detailed information on every corner of the Disneyland Resort. Featured are frequent news updates and descriptions, reviews, and ratings of every attraction, restaurant, and shop at the resort. The site is also host to the largest Disney-related multimedia gallery on the Web, with thousands of photos chronicling the parks'' recent history. Intercot West taps into the Internet''s spirit of community via its interactive moderated discussion boards, a place where Disney fans convene to gain insightful trip-planning tips and make new friends. Intercot West is a part of Intercot (www.intercot.com), which features vacation-planning information for Walt Disney World.
MousePlanet.com is a comprehensive resource for Disneyland data, offering features and reviews by guest writers, information on the Disney theme parks, discussion groups, and news. The site includes an interactive Disney restaurant-and-hotel review page where users can voice opinions on their Disney dining and lodging experiences. Also available are trip reports by site contributors and users.
LaughingPlace.com features daily updated headlines and columns on all things Disney, including theme parks, films, TV, stage, merchandise, collectibles, and more. The free site specializes in current news on the Disney theme parks and resorts, with information such as hours, showtimes, events, and highlights of specific attractions. LaughingPlace offers interactive, user-rated attraction guides, lively discussion boards, and a customizable home page with a unique trip countdown feature and park info. The Web site, which distributes an informative daily newsletter via e-mail, is also the home of Laughing Place Radio and The LaughingPlace Store.
BEST DISNEYLAND HISTORY WEB SITE At www.yesterland.com you can visit the Disneyland of the past, where retired Disneyland attractions are brought back to life through vivid descriptions and historic photographs. Yesterland attraction descriptions relate what it was once like to experience the Flying Saucers, the Mine Train through Nature''s Wonderland, the Tahitian Terrace, and dozens of other rides, shows, parades, and restaurants.
BEST WEB SITE FOR RUMORS AND THE INSIDE SCOOP www.jimhill media.com is perfectly attuned to what''s going on behind the scenes-Jim Hill always has good gossip. He works with the Unofficial Guides as our resident historian and contributes sidebars and anecdotes to our Disney titles.
BEST MONEY-SAVING SITE MouseSavers.com specializes in finding you the deepest discounts on hotels, park admissions, and rental cars. MouseSavers does not actually sell travel, but rather unearths and publishes special discount codes that you can use to obtain the discounts. It''s the first place we look for deals when we travel to Disneyland Resort.
BEST DISNEY DISCUSSION BOARDS The best online discussion of all things Disney can be found at mousepad.mouseplanet.com and www .disboards.com. With tens of thousands of members and millions of posts, they are the most active and popular discussion boards on the Web. For boards that feel more familiar than your neighborhood bar, try disneyecho.emuck.com.
BEST DISNEY PODCASTS Host Jeff (from Houston) Falvo, who bills his show as "Consciousness from the Happiest Place on Earth," has a lot to say about what''s happening at the parks, both in California and Florida. Access the Podcast and the Podcast Network Forum at www.meanderingmouse.com.
ADMISSION OPTIONS
THEME PARK ADMISSION OPTIONS ARE pretty straightforward at Disneyland Resort. You have only two things to decide:
1. How many days admission you''ll need.
2. Whether you want to go to both Disneyland Park and Disney''s California Adventure on the same day. This is known as "park hopping."
Park Hopper tickets expire 14 days after the first use, so you don''t want to buy more days than you''ll need. Needless to say, the Park Hopper tickets expire after you''ve used the number of days purchased even if the 14 days haven''t passed yet.
All admissions can be purchased at the park entrance, at the Disneyland Resort hotels, from the Walt Disney Travel Sales Center, from Disneyland Ticket Mail Order, on the Disneyland Internet site, and at most Disney stores in the western United States. One- and two-year-olds are exempt from admission fees.
Admission Costs and Available Discounts
It''s possible to obtain discounts on all multiday tickets, but only in the 1%-to-7% range. One place to purchase admissions at a discount is www.disneyland.com, where Disney sells "Bonus" tickets. These tickets, in addition to the dollar discount, allow you to enter the theme park an hour earlier than the general public one time during your visit. The bonus feature is offered only on Three-, Four-, and Five-day Park Hopper tickets.
If you purchase tickets on the Disneyland Web site you can choose between "hard" tickets, which will be shipped to you, or e-tickets, which can be downloaded as PDF files and printed at home. An e-ticket printed from your home computer will show two barcodes. A cast member will scan these at the turnstiles. Once the barcodes are read, the cast member can issue your actual ticket.
The deepest discounts we''ve found are available from ARES Travel (www.arestravel.com). ARES usually beats the Disney advance purchase price by $4 to $6 per ticket and also includes the early-entry bonus feature. ARES will send you the tickets by FedEx for a flat fee of $10 per order, plus a $1-per-ticket convenience fee. You can order online or call and speak with a warm body at [??] 800-680-0977.
Military discounts are available for all Disney theme parks, usually in the 7%-to-25% range. Check with your base MWR for info. Military ID may be required at the gate. Many readers, however, report buying military tickets for friends and relatives who used them without problems.
Admission prices, not unexpectedly, increase from time to time. For planning your budget, however, the following provides a fair estimate:
One-day, One-park Ticket
This pass is good for one day''s admission at your choice of Disneyland Park or Disney''s California Adventure. As the name implies, you cannot "hop" from park to park.
Park Hopper Tickets
These are good for one, two, three, four, or five days, respectively, and allow you to visit both parks on the same day. These multiday tickets do not have to be used on consecutive days, but they do expire 14 days after their first use.
The 14-day expiration is in marked contrast to similar passes sold at Walt Disney World for which you can purchase a No Expiration option. If you mistakenly bought multiday tickets because you were not aware of the 14-day expiration, call [??] 714-781-7290 or [??] 714-781-4565 and ask to be connected to Guest Communications, which has the authority to issue you a voucher for the unused days on your ticket.
Anytime before a pass expires, you can apply the value of unused days toward the cost of a higher priced ticket. If you buy a Four-day Park Hopper Ticket, for example, and then decide you''d rather have an Annual Passport, you can apply the value of unused days on the former toward the purchase of the latter.
Annual Passports
The Disneyland Resort offers several Annual Passports. The Premium Annual Passport is good for an entire year with no blackout dates. The pass costs $379 and is good for admission to both parks (excluding arcades). Southern California Annual Passports, priced at $154, provide admission to both parks for a year, excluding preselected blackout dates. These are available to residents in zip codes 90000 to 93599 and to Baja California residents in Mexico postal codes 21000 to 22999. Prices for children are the same as those for adults on all Annual Passports. All of these passes are a good idea if you plan to visit Disneyland parks five or more days in a year. If you purchase your Annual Passport in July of this year and schedule your visit next year for June, you''ll cover two years'' vacations with a single pass.
Admission passes can be ordered through the mail by writing
Disneyland Ticket Mail Order P.O. Box 61061 Anaheim, CA 92803-6161
Disneyland Ticket Mail Order accepts personal checks and money orders. Mail orders take three to four weeks to process. To order tickets by telephone, call [??] 714-781-4400.
In addition to Disneyland Ticket Mail Order and the Disneyland Web sites, Disneyland admissions can be purchased in advance from Disneyland Resort hotels; Disney Stores in the Western United States; and the Walt Disney Travel Sales Center, [??] 800-854-3104.
Admission and Disneyland Hotel Discounts
For specials and time-limited discounts on Disneyland Resort admissions, visit MouseSavers.com.
Rides and Shows Closed for Repairs or Maintenance
Rides and shows at Disneyland parks are sometimes closed for maintenance or repairs. If there is a certain attraction that is important to you, call [??] 714-781-7290 before your visit to make sure it will be operating. A mother from Dover, Massachusetts, wrote us, lamenting:
We were disappointed to find Space Mountain, Swiss Family Treehouse, and the Riverboat closed for repairs. We felt that a large chunk [of the park] was not working, yet the tickets were still full price and expensive!
HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO GO TO DISNEYLAND FOR A DAY?
LET''S SAY WE HAVE A FAMILY OF FOUR-Mom and Dad, Tim (age 12) and Tami (age 8)-driving their own car. Since they plan to be in the area for a few days, they intend to buy the Three-day Park Hopper Tickets. A typical day would cost $431, excluding souvenirs, lodging, and transportation. See the chart below for a breakdown of expenses.
TIMING Your VISIT
SELECTING THE TIME OF YEAR FOR YOUR VISIT
CROWDS ARE LARGEST at Disneyland during the summer (Memorial Day through Labor Day) and during specific holiday periods during the rest of the year. The busiest time of all is Christmas Day through New Year''s Day. Thanksgiving weekend, the week of Washington''s birthday, spring break for schools and colleges, and the two weeks around Easter are also extremely busy. To give you some idea of what busy means at Disneyland, more than 77,000 people have toured Disneyland Park in one day! While this level of attendance is far from typical, the possibility of its occurrence should prevent all but the ignorant and the foolish from challenging this mega-attraction at its busiest periods. For the record, attendance at Disney''s California Adventure Park runs about one-third that of Disneyland Park.
The least-busy time of all is from after Thanksgiving weekend until the week before Christmas. The next slowest times are September through the weekend preceding Thanksgiving, January 4 through the first week of March, and the week following Easter up to Memorial Day weekend. At the risk of being blasphemous, our research team was so impressed with the relative ease of touring in the fall and other "off" periods that we would rather take our children out of school for a few days than do battle with the summer crowds. Though we strongly recommend going to Disneyland in the fall or in the spring, it should be noted that there are certain trade-offs. The parks often close earlier on fall, winter, and spring days, sometimes early enough to eliminate evening parades, fireworks, and other live-entertainment offerings such as Fantasmic! Also, because these are slow times of the year at Disneyland, you can anticipate that some rides and attractions may be closed for maintenance or renovation. Finally, if the parks open late and close early, it''s tough to see everything, even if the crowds are light.
Most readers who have tried Disney theme parks at varying times during the year agree. A gentleman from Ottawa, Ontario, who toured in early December, wrote:
It was the most enjoyable trip I have ever had, and I can''t imagine Going [back to Disneyland] when it is crowded. Even without the crowds we were still very tired by afternoon. Fighting crowds certainly would have made a hellish trip. We will never go again at any other time.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Unofficial Guide to Disneyland 2009by Bob Sehlinger Copyright © 2008 by Bob Sehlinger. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
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