Disneyland Reopening Experience
It’s been a minute since I’ve been on my blog and to be honest I think I start every new blog post this way haha. But regardless of that I’m back on here to share a few things about my trip back to Disneyland after it’s year long closure due to COVID-19. We decided to get tickets for May the 4th (for all of you fellow Star Wars fans out there) to not only celebrate Star Wars but also to welcome back Disneyland into our lives. Things are a bit different when it comes to the experience so I felt the need to share somewhere more easily than just on Instagram so here we are! I also re-read my Batuu experience post and felt the need to do some writing haha.
With all that being said let’s get into the experience! When tickets went on sale for California residents only we knew that there would be a high demand since the parks were only allowing 25% capacity. We originally got tickets for Avengers campus opening day at California Adventure so a few days afterwards we were upset to see that May 4th had no availability left. Luckily Disney had been replenishing tickets and reservations on certain days and we were able to snag some tickets. With our entire group being vaccinated we felt ready to jump back into the parks. Overall the experience was great with the limited capacity working in everyones favor, ride were about a max 30 min wait so you still got to experience a lot even though the parks closed at 7pm. Park hopping is also available but you can only begin “hopping” at a certain time. I believe at 2pm.
Getting Tickets/Reservations
When you decide to get tickets or already have tickets to Disneyland or California Adventure you first select the day you’d like to purchase. On Disneyland.com you can check (before you buy) what parks are available on certain days (note that some parks will be sold out for certain days, if you don’t see both the pink and blue park logos on the calendar date then one or both of them aren’t available). Once you purchase your park ticket(s) you MUST then reserve that date (just because you purchased the ticket for that specific day does not mean it’s reserved! Reservations are a secondary step). Make sure you and your group all have the Disneyland app downloaded with any payment info input as well as linking all tickets to every single persons app to make things easier for food reservations and to ride Rise of the Resistance.
Parking & Getting There
We are locals but we decided to have a little slumber party at a local hotel off of Harbor Blvd so we could have a more relaxed morning experience. You’ll want to park at Mickey & Friends parking structure which costs $25. The first few days of the park opening the parking garage was a bit messy but I hear it’s gotten better. Check before you arrive that day to see what time it opens however (opening times for the structure can vary). Also note that the trams are NOT active right now so you’ll be walking from the parking structure to the entrance. It’s a nice walk but just keep this in mind. I heard from a few other people that they were parking at hotels off of Harbor Blvd and using that entrance since the temperature checks and security were less crowded. Since we stayed at a hotel right there (The Anaheim Hotel) we just cruised across the street and waited about 15 minutes to get through all of security. Things moved quickly, efficiently and safely. We arrived at around 8:40 and were into the park just a few minutes after 9am when they opened.
Rise of the Resistance Reservations
One of the most frequent questions revolves around riding Rise of the Resistance in Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge. If you’ve noted the above and your entire group has their tickets linked on the Disneyland app you can all attempt to get a reservation to ride at 7am the day you are going into the park. You DO NOT need to be in the park for this since the parks don’t open until 9am. This means you can be in the comfort of your car, home, or hotel and attempt to get a boarding pass. Open the app right before 7am and on the page (which is usually on the home screen) you’ll see where to join a boarding group. Hit that right at 7am and hope for the best! You can also make a secondary attempt at 12pm however you’ll need to be in the park by this point.
Food & Mobile Ordering
One of the biggest changes you’ll note is the food situation in the parks. A lot of the usual stands and restaurants are closed still so the selection is a little limited. The other big thing to note is that any food location larger than a cart requires you to mobile order. This is their way of staying as contactless as possible. All mobile orders go through the app and windows can vary from being 10 minutes from when you order to an hour. Ours were usually 20 -30 minutes so I’d suggest planning a bit better when it came to this. Check out the food locations and order maybe 30 minutes ahead of when you’d like to eat. When your window of time appears the app will state “I’m here please prepare my order” go ahead and click that and stay where you are. We made the mistake of pressing it and heading to the mobile order area and it’ll take another 10 min or so for your order to be fully ready. The moral of the story is take your time because it doesn’t move as quickly as you think.
What to Ride & Wait Times
With limited capacity comes short wait times and I have to say it makes me nostalgic of the old days when I’d be off from school in 8th grade and at the parks with my mom on a weekday. The lines were at max 30 minutes and a lot of rides you basically walked onto. the lines seem long because they are all pushed outside and there is social distancing but they move quickly and every ride is spaced out when it comes to seating. On smugglers run we had our own group riding together even though there was only four of us and on Pirates we had our group of 4 at the front of the boat and one girl sitting in the last row.
There are a few updates when it comes to rides as well. The Haunted Mansion was actually being worked on prior to Disneyland closing so there are a few additions to the ride as well as it just looking nice and cleaned up. Snow White also got a little reboot and it’s not “so scary” anymore. Side note, I hated that ride because it was so scary so as of now it’s not as bad although as I got older I started valuing how scary it was for a kids ride haha. Guess that’s why they called them dark rides eh.
Cast Members and Everything Else
The experience overall was a lot better than I expected. For it being in the 80s and of course the implications of wearing masks all day everyone from cast member to guests were really pleasant. Everyone abided by the rules of distancing, didn’t overly question the rules put in place and people kept their masks on and were caught pretty quickly if they didn’t have them properly placed. Someone actually got called out on the Haunted Mansion as we were riding. Note to everyone that all rides have cameras where they can see everything so don’t think the darkness hides anything haha.
Hope this helped a little bit for anyone who was curious about the Disneyland reopening experience! It’s definitely worth going if you feel safe to do so because the short lines were something we haven’t experienced in a VERY long time. I’m looking forward to hearing the news on the new pass situation at the end of the year but until next time I’ll see you guys for my Avengers Campus Opening Day post 🙂 Check out the little recap video I made below!
