13 Disneyland Tips and Tricks You Need To Know

This post, 13 Disneyland Tips and Tricks You Need To Know, was originally published in 2018 and has been completely updated in February 2022.

We recently got to experience our first trip to Disneyland!!!!

We traveled in June 2018, so everything in this post is based on that time frame.

Because it was our first trip, I wanted to share some things I learned as I planned it and through our experience.

Have you ever been to Disneyland?

Researched a trip so much your head was spinning?

There is so much information out there that at first I was extremely stressed, tense. And I think that’s an understatement!!!

That’s why I want to break down the process for you to help give you pointers of steps to think about, etc.

O.k., so since this is a very long post, here is your Table of Contents just in case you’re looking for only one thing in particular feel free to jump straight to it 🙂

Note: This post may contain affiliate links. If you purchase something through the links I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thanks! For more information, please see my disclosure policy.

Table of Contents

Planning
Hotels
Packing
Strollers
Souvenirs
Food
Rides
Resting Spots
Restrooms/Potty Training
Characters
Fireworks
Parade
Safety

Disneyland Tips Before You Go

Planning

Being the planner I am I did a lot of research before our trip to Disneyland.

We had been talking about it for months but once the decision was made we only had about two weeks before going.

I checked on Disneyland’s website and some discount sites that had been suggested on a few Disney sites to look for best options for hotels, tickets, extras, etc.

You know what I found?

The discount sites were actually more expensive than just going through Disney. (I’ll admit, I may not have been reading it correctly but it was too much for me to sort though).

So, I dug back in and did another search and found Costco!!!!

Are you a member of Costco?

We’ve recently become members, actually only because we received it as present from my brother and so haven’t really learned and used all the great features that come along with being a member.

They have a Disneyland package and guess what I found?

Going through Costco was the same price as going through Disneyland, but with a plus!!!

The plus? We received a free Character Dining and a $40 gift card!!!!

Definitely worth the extra search 🙂

Needless to say we went through Costco for our hotel and park tickets.

Speaking of….

Hotels

There are so many hotels in the area you can really have your choice from fairly cheap to expensive.

Not only that but several of them, through my research, showed they had shuttles to and from the park so even if you don’t stay on the property you still don’t necessarily have to drive.

We chose to treat ourselves to Disneyland Hotel, which is considered on their property, for several reasons.

∼For one, we figured it would be easier to get to the park if we were already on the property.

∼We wouldn’t have to deal with parking.

∼If we needed to go back to the hotel in the middle of the day it wouldn’t be too cumbersome.

How it ultimately panned out:

∼It was easy to get to the park, pretty much a straight shot but it still took us about 10-15 minutes to walk from the hotel to the park entrance.

∼It was super awesome to not have to deal with parking – finding it or walking to or from it.

∼We ended up never going back to the hotel during the day. Partially and mostly because walking around the park was tiresome as it was. We figured if we walked all the way back to the hotel, what would end up being an additional 30 minutes of walk time that’s not even in the park, we just might not get back to the park!

The hotel, itself, was really nice. It consisted of three buildings with a great pool that included water slides!! (We debated on staying another day just to relax at the hotel :))

Packing

As with any family trip you want to make sure you have all the necessary items packed.  You can find those here with my Toddler Packing list and my Never Forget Anything Again list!

Now, in terms of what to make sure you have packed with you into the park will be partially determined by your family.

But my big four not to forget –

∼Suntan lotion: you’ll be in the sun a lot so it’s important to protect that skin! And make sure you reapply it sometime during the day. I always tried to remember to do it around lunch/nap time.

Don’t forget these items on your trip to Disney!!!

∼Water: I actually had snacks written first but with so many options in the park, no matter where you are you’ll find snacks. Although, since you are allowed to bring in your own food, if anyone in your party has specific needs or wants then feel free to take those!

Now back to water:

Please, please make sure you stay hydrated! There are several water fountains around the park but I’ve heard the water from those isn’t so good. I also heard that the food places will give you a free cup of water if you ask. It just so happened the one place I asked didn’t give out water!!!! Go figure!

We always ended up taking in 3 to 4 full bottles of water.

We also ordered drinks with our lunches and dinners.

With all these, we managed to do o.k.

But it’s so easy to forget to take sips while you’re trying to get from ride to character to event.

My process is to take a sip before and after every ride and while walking in between things.

∼Long sleeves/light jacket: If you’re inside one of the rides or restaurants you may want/need one. Also, at least the night we stayed for the fireworks, once the sun started to go down it started getting chilly!

∼Sunglasses: for you and the little ones.

Disneyland Tips While You’re There

Strollers

To take or not to take the stroller!

Yes, yes, yes!!!!

Whether you have a big one or a nice small collapsible one it is so worth it!

Not only will you be to let your little one take a nap or be off their feet at times during the day, but you’ll also have the perfect place to store all those items listed above plus 🙂

Worried that your will get misplaced, taken, or lost?

I had read several places that having a stroller tag is a helpful idea. Not only does it specify it is your stroller but it’ll make it easier for you to find your stroller in the sea of other strollers.

I thought about it and thought about it but ultimately I decided that no one will know or care if that is actually your stroller (ones with names on them).

The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.

∼Walt Disney

What I did instead was thought of a marker to make our stroller easier to find. For the life of me, even with looking through Pinterest, I couldn’t find an option that really worked for us.

We had recently bought a package of pipe cleaners and were looking for craft ideas for us and found a beautiful rose ring.

I decided to do it in multiple colors and wrap it around the stroller handle.

It wasn’t huge and ultimately I’m not sure it really helped me ever find our stroller because I had my orange water bottle sitting in the cup holder which is what I always spotted first 🙂

Now, another suggestion we saw was to take a bike lock to secure your stroller.

I looked and looked to see if that was really needed and or even allowed and decided not to take one.

I never saw anyone else use one and the employees were always moving strollers around to keep things tidy anyway so the likelihood it’d get cut off was high.

I’m not saying it couldn’t happen but we didn’t have any problems.

Souvenirs

I had read, that before your trip, you should buy souvenirs so that you can save a bit of money.

As great advice as that is, it was a frustrating suggestion! How do you know what your kid is going to want while you’re there?

We like Disney but our house is not solo Disney.

I didn’t want to buy, let’s say something Donald, and find out that he was going to want a Goofy.

Needless to say, we didn’t get anything before going and my little guy (LG), he’s 3, didn’t care!

The more you like yourself, the less you are like anyone else, which makes you unique.

∼Walt Disney

Now his grandmother, on the other hand, had to get him a souvenir and that ended up being in the form of a Mickey bubble wand! These wands were everywhere!

She also had to make sure he had a t-shirt actually from Disneyland, not just bought in a Disney store 🙂

We also saw so many people wearing Mickey ears. But again, my LG didn’t even seem to notice lol 🙂 so we did not splurge on this.

So… you don’t want to go this route?

Disneyland Tips for Souveniers

Here are three other suggestions that worked out well for us! One is my favorite way to get souvenirs 🙂

#1

Make/bring a small notebook that can be used for autographs.

Since I knew I had several small notebooks, it was just a matter of finding one that would work and I did, it was red 🙂

I then found a free template site for Mickey Ears.

After figuring out the size that worked best I glued it onto the front of the notebook.

Talking about being proud of myself lol and I was excited to use the notebook until I found number 2 🙂

#2

Get a plain solid colored shirt (we went with white)  and a sharpie (we went with black) for autographs. But, of course, you could go with a red shirt and black sharpie, a white shirt with a red sharpie, you get the idea 🙂

Side note: I don’t plan on having my LG ever wear this, instead I plan to get a shadow box to put all the little knickknacks we got, to display them all in.

#3

This is my favorite = Pressed Pennies!!!

It’s so simple and normally only costs 51 cents. I say normally because at the park I actually found a machine that pressed quarters (this one cost $1)!

There are several press machines around the park so it’s simply a matter of finding them, picking the picture you’d like to have on your penny, inserting the coins, cranking the gear and getting your penny.

I found, what I consider the jackpot, several machines with all the different sections of Disneyland to press.

One machine was broken, unfortunately, but I took advantage of the others.

Here’s part of my stash 🙂

Free Souvenirs

And you can’t forget about the ‘free’ souvenirs!!!

• Your hotel room key
• Your park tickets
• Stickers and buttons you can get during your stay.

I read over and over that you can get buttons for almost anything.

When we checked into the hotel I mentioned something about it being our first time and we all got 1st-time buttons. And at Breakfast with Mickey was got our meal button.

Definitely awesome souvenirs 🙂

Disneyland Tips You Really Need To Know

Food

All the sites I read to do my research mentioned bringing your own food, since it is allowed, but if you eat there use the app so that you can order your food ahead of time.

This sounded great and we almost gave it a try several times while we were there but…. we just were never sure what our schedule was going to be.

We were in line for a ride and I wanted to order food because lunch was coming up but we didn’t because we weren’t sure how long it would take to finish getting through the line let alone the ride itself.

We never did have problems getting food. The longest wait was maybe 10 minutes to order and then another 10 maybe for the food to come out.

Another suggestion was to get the child’s meal because it comes with a side of fruit or chips. We found that most meals came with these so we always just got food off the main menu and we all shared.

(If you’d like a breakdown of where and what we ate please let me know, I’d be happy to share!)

Our meal at PCH Grill – Disney Breakfast with Mickey

The suggestion we did use – bring in your own food.

Besides water, we brought in pouches for my LG, apple slices, and potato chips.

Rides

So my focus on this trip was for my LG, which meant we didn’t worry about the Fast Pass because most of the rides we wanted to do weren’t included.

I got a little crazy with planning out our rides.

One example would be I knew he’d want to drive the cars in Autopia and ride in the submarine in Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage.

They happen to be right next to each other so it made sense to do those at the same time!

Funny story – LG didn’t want to have anything to do with the submarines the first day!

Just a great reminder that you can plan all you want but ultimately you must be flexible!!!

Wanting to make the most of the trip and also keep our walking back and forth to a minimum, I wrote out all the rides I thought my LG would enjoy and in which ‘land’ it was in, and what things I wanted to make sure we took advantage of at each one.

For example:

∼At the Riverboat cruise – if your little one, or you, would like to drive it don’t be afraid to ask. While we were waiting for the boat I asked one of the cast members and he said it’s up to the captain.

As the boat was unloading we tried waving at the captain but guess what, the cast member we talked to ended up being the next captain. And guess what, he escorted us up to the pilothouse and my LG got to drive the boat!

I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate people and hope they were entertained.

∼Walt Disney

Not only that but he got a cool certificate for driving.

∼At the Jungle Cruise, you can ask for a map. They make a unique souvenir!

∼I had read that at Autopia you’d get a free driver’s license afterward. I was so excited as my LG loves to ‘drive’.

He still needs to work on it 🙂 but he enjoyed it so much and on the way out of the ride we saw the drivers’ license booths but…. it was $5! 🙁

Needless to say, I was disappointed.

We still got one for my LG but it’s not free!

∼Definitely use the Disney app for help with wait times but know that they will not always be accurate.

My biggest suggestion= Do the rides you want to ride the most first thing in the morning. The later in the day it is the longer the lines will be!

Disneyland Tips For Your Little One

Tarzan’s Treehouse, Chip and Dale’s Treehouse, and Donald’s Boat were all on the list and they were fun.

They are basically areas to walk around in but not much to see (for our 3-year-old)… but Goofy’s playhouse was a hit!!!!!

It has places for us adults to sit and rest while the kids run around and play. There’s a slide and plenty of things for them to climb up on and crawl through to let them run off extra energy but be in a confined place.

Resting Spots

During my LG nap, I certainly didn’t want to keep walking around, nor sit in the sun, for him or me.

My favorite spot was right inside Frontierland next to Frontierland Shootin’ Exposition. It is wonderfully shaded and had nice benches.

The only time it wasn’t free was on Thursday when it was pin day. 🙁

Another spot is on the way to Toontown.

You have to go under a bridge and that provides lots of shade and seating.

Restrooms/Potty Training

This is always an important location for us 🙂 And we found two great spots!

All of them were ‘hidden’ which was great for aesthetics but not so good when you need to go!

My ‘favorite’, I know sounds weird but stay with me :), was one just inside Frontierland.

The biggest reason why this one was so great?

For us girls, it had two sides with probably 40+ stalls on each side!!!

We never had to wait to go, which, when you need to go, is important 🙂

The second is on the left, on the way to Fantasyland. Instead of walking through the castle, you’ll walk to your right between the castle and Matterhorn Bobsleds.

Now, this one is not as big but again, we never had to wait so it was great!

Now for those of you potty training, they do have a Baby Center. It is centrally located and has little potties just perfect for them.

For us, we were rarely in that area so unless you want to be inventive, are planning on bringing a travel potty with you I would hold off on the training until after your trip 🙂

Characters

If meeting any of the characters is important to you I highly recommend one of the Character meals!

Do you remember that I mentioned the Character meal was included since we went through Costco?

Yup, it was included for the same price. And, I’m not sure we would’ve spent the extra money for it had it not come with it.

Although in hindsight it’s definitely worth the extra cost.

You do need to make reservations ahead of time, and if you go through Costco, make your reservation then make sure you give your vouchers to your waiter when they give you your bill and they’ll take care of it.

Want to make sure you meet Mickey during your visit to Disneyland? One trick is all you need!

We went between saving the character meal for our last morning and our first morning.

Since our character meal options were at the hotels we didn’t have to have park tickets for it.

If the meal you chose is inside the park you’ll have to have a park ticket too!

My thought was that if we save it for our last morning we could go out with a bang and we knew we’d see some characters before we left.

If we did it our first morning, it’d be a great start to our first Disney trip.

We ended up going with our first morning and picking Surf’s Up! Breakfast with Mickey and Friends.

After doing the research I knew we’d be guaranteed to see Mickey!!!

But we also got to see Minnie, Daisy, and Stitch (who my LG didn’t know but ended up loving 🙂 )

The food was pretty good.

It was buffet style which seemed safer than a sit-down and be served meal.

But the best part?

We got our first three signatures on our t-shirt here which was fantastic, and we didn’t have to wait in line or anything.

Plus, of course, the simple act of actually getting to meet Mickey in person! What’s better than that 🙂

Fireworks

Another decision- Do we save fireworks for the last night to go out with a bang and so my little guy will be tired the next day for the drive home. Or one night in between so we, the adults, aren’t tired too.

Our second night won out which in one sense was great.

We were still ‘fresh’ and excited to be at the park and discovering everything it had to offer.

We also didn’t have to worry about driving and staying awake for the 7+ hour drive.

My LG did great! He’s normally in bed around 8/8:30 but managed to stay awake through the fireworks and the trip back to the hotel! He’s such a trooper 🙂

Best place to see them?

Most people and sites will tell you close to the castle.

I asked a security guard and he suggested right in the middle (or on the right of the street facing the castle) of Main Street and finding your spot starting about an hour and a half before the fireworks is best!

We followed his suggestion and it was wonderful.

We were able to see the fireworks but also the projections on the building fronts.

P.S. – I won’t ruin it but if you’re there for PixarFest and you are standing in this spot you’ll get a special surprise 🙂

Enjoy!!!

Parade

I’ll be very honest here.

I wasn’t exactly worried about seeing the parade.

My LG had never seen one and so I knew he wouldn’t necessarily care.

Plus, since they are having their PixarFest it was Pixar characters.

We’ve not had the chance to watch any of them so I knew he wouldn’t know any of them.

We ended up heading to get some ice cream on Main Street at the time it was getting ready to get started and Mom just had to squeeze us in.

We enjoyed the parade, but again, since ‘we’ didn’t know any of the characters it wasn’t that ooh, aah experience.

And last but certainly not least.

Safety

I honestly can’t remember reading this as a Disneyland tip, and we didn’t do this ourselves, but it doesn’t take much time and you’re already doing it anyway.

∼Take pictures of your little ones each day so just in case the group gets separated and you need help people will know what the person/child is wearing!

∼Don’t leave valuables in your stroller.

Have some sort of backpack/hydration pack or waist pack to take with you on the rides. All the rides we went on allowed you to have a bag. You may have had to take it off and put it at your feet but you were still allowed to have it.

∼Use a backpack harness for your little one. Not only will it allow them to ‘run’ around and use up some energy, but it also allows you to know they are still attached to you and not wandering off like they are prone to do!

In Conclusion!

If you’ve made it this far thank you so much for sticking with me 🙂

I’m not sure how many times I came back to edit this because I would remember just one more thing I wanted to share.

With that, I’m sure I’ve forgotten something so I will come back and continue to update it as I remember more lol 🙂

But until then, I hope this gives you a great starting place and helps ease a bit of the anxiety, stress, and/or frustration of planning your first time to Disneyland.

Hope you have a wonderful trip!!!! And please don’t hesitate to let me know if you have questions, I might be able to help.

Oh, and just in case you’ve been thinking about trying an international Disneyland, check out this awesome post by Mumpack Travel – Discover the magic of Disneyland Shanghai!

Which one of these Disneyland tips helps you the most? Please share it with us in the comments! Thanks!