In this post we walk you through the process of planning a day at Disneyland, the original Disney park at Disneyland resort. We’re focusing just on that one park—not the other park at the resort, Disney California Adventure. We’ll introduce what the itinerary covers before walking through an example day, explaining how to make decisions about what to visit when. Read on to start planning your day at Disneyland!

About This Post and Related Posts

If you’re interested in learning more about the offerings at the park, we have a full Disneyland Rides and Entertainment Guide. We also have a Lightning Lane strategy post covering both parks at Disneyland.

This post focuses only on Disneyland park. The other park at the resort is Disney California Adventure, home to such hits as Guardians of the Galaxy Mission Breakout and Radiator Springs Racers. We have a separate one day itinerary for Disney California Adventure.

This post makes frequent references to the Disneyland app, which you will need in the parks. Download the Disneyland app now if you haven’t already.

Our itinerary posts are meant to provide you with the tools and understanding for building your own day at the park. We provide an example of how we approach things along the way. That example includes some things and skips others because part of planning your day is accepting that you won’t do everything. The decisions and tradeoffs that we make (and explain, in detail) are right for us but may not be right for you. The important thing is that you understand how to make these decisions.

If we went to the park tomorrow and tried to recreate the example itinerary below, it wouldn’t happen. Rides break down, crowd patterns change, bathroom breaks aren’t on a schedule. No two days at Disneyland are the same.

This post is not short, and the number of words spent on any single topic doesn’t necessarily accord with its significance to your day. “Get Dole Whip” would make any Disneyland “top ten things to do” list (including ours), but it gets only three words in this post because that’s all it needs.

This post is based on a day with Disneyland park hours from 8AM to Midnight. Park hours, attraction hours, and entertainment schedules vary. Be sure to check the exact schedule for you day on the Disneyland website ahead of time and in the app the day your visit. Disneyland has a lot of offer, and we suggest you plan to be there from open to close to maximize your time in the park.

Although our toddler makes appearances in this post, the itinerary is actually based on someone who meets all the height requirements and isn’t using rider switch. You can read more about the Disneyland Height Requirements and Rider Switch here.

Update: Haunted Mansion Reopens With Virtual Queue

After a lengthy refurbishment, Haunted Mansion has officially reopened. It reopened with its Haunted Mansion Holiday overlay. More importantly, it reopened with a virtual queue and no standby line or Lightning Lane. Per Disney, “there are 2 daily opportunities to request to join the virtual queue for Haunted Mansion Holiday:

7:00 AM – Guests must have a park reservation for Disneyland Park with a one-park ticket or a park reservation for Disneyland Park with a Park Hopper ticket to request to join the virtual queue.
12:00 PM (Noon) – Guests inside Disney California Adventure Park with a Park Hopper ticket or inside Disneyland Park can request to join the virtual queue.”

As I look at the app on the second day of reopening, the 7AM virtual queue drop still has availability 10 minutes later, so the ride is at least not in exorbitant demand yet.

So far, the Lightning Lane has not returned to Haunted Mansion. We’re unsure when that will happen. In the meantime, Disney has added Pirates of the Caribbean to the Lightning Lane lineup. Due to this shifting situation, when reading through this post just remember:

Join the Haunted Mansion Holiday virtual queue ASAP; and
Haunted Mansion doesn’t currently have a Lightning Lane or standby queue, so maybe do Pirates of the Caribbean instead when this post mentions Haunted Mansion

Lightning Lanes at Disneyland

We have a full post on Lightning Lanes at Disneyland and Disney California Adventure, so this section is just meant to provide a brief overview, mainly just the context necessary for this post.

Should You Get Lightning Lane Multi Pass at Disneyland?

For a single full day at Disneyland park, which is the focus of this post, we think you should get Multi Pass. This post assumes you have Multi Pass, though we try and write content that is useful for guests without it, too.

If you have multiple days at the park or split over both parks, you might not need Multi Pass both days or at all. Generally, we think the best approach to the resort is to do:

one full day with Multi Pass at Disneyland park
one full day with Multi Pass at Disney California Adventure
additional days without Multi Pass at either park

An good alternative, though, would be:

one full day with Multi Pass split between the two parks
additional days without Multi Pass at either park

The “worth it” question is definitely too much for this post, but it’s also just not a question we care to wrestle with. Disneyland offers a lot. On low-crowd days you probably could enjoy most everything without Multi Pass. But crowds can be unpredictable and experiencing everything without Multi Pass is a lot harder than doing it with Multi Pass. It’s unfortunate that Disney has moved from a free FASTPASS system to the paid Multi Pass system, but it is what it is.

Should you buy Lightning Lane Single Pass at Disneyland?

There is one ride with an Lightning Lane Single Pass available for purchase at Disneyland park—Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance.

Generally, you don’t have to decide immediately at the start of your day whether or not to purchase the Lightning Lane. On the busiest days, they can run out early in the day, but most common is for availability to be open throughout the day or for it to come and go as the day goes on. This means you can usually plan to see how your day is going—do you have enough time to wait in the standby line—before deciding on this purchase.

Personally, we put Rise of the Resistance in the “sometimes worth it” category. It’s a great ride and a must-do, but you can usually fit it into your day some other way.

In our example itinerary we manage to avoid buying the Lightning Lane, but this also involved riding Rise of the Resistance very late in the day (a risky approach since rides can break down).

Things to Do at Disneyland

Let’s start with what this post covers. Here are the things we’re trying to experience as part of a single day at Disneyland.

Tiana’s Bayou Adventure Now Open. Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, the Splash Mountain replacement is now open. There are two ways to experience the ride: a virtual queue and via Lightning Lane Multi Pass. We have a separate post discussing How to Ride Tiana’s Bayou Adventure at Disneyland. Once the ride drops its virtual queue and its priority for rope drop and Lightning Lane Multi Pass settle, we’ll update all our core Disneyland content more completely.

The one ride with a Lightning Lane Single Pass. Rise of the Resistance is usually the most popular ride in the park and one you need to proactively plan for, including considering buying the Lightning Lane or visiting it at rope drop. You can plan to just “fit in in sometime” if you keep the option of buying the Lightning Lane open. But if the Lightning Lane sells out quickly and waits start to creep out, you’re going to have to be more deliberate into fitting it into your day.

Rides that are on Multi Pass. The twelve rides with Lightning Lanes on Multi Pass, sorted by land, are:

Tomorrowland (4) - Autopia, Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, Star Tours, Space Mountain
Fantasyland (2) - “it’s a small world”, Matterhorn Bobsleds
Toontown (2) - Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin
Adventureland / New Orleans Square / Frontierland (3) - Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Indiana Jones Adventure, Pirates of the Caribbean (presumably temporary replacement for Haunted Mansion until that Lightning Lane returns late 2024)
Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge (1) - Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run

Since we support getting Multi Pass, our plan for the day is usually going to involve booking a Lightning Lane in Multi Pass, filling the time before it with other attractions, riding it, and repeating the process.

Rides that do not have Lightning Lanes. We count 19 other “rides” without Lightning Lanes. What counts as a “ride” is debatable, but here’s our list, broken up by land (some lands grouped together)…

Main Street USA (2) - Disneyland Railroad, Main Street Vehicles
Tomorrowland (3) - Astro Orbitor, Disneyland Monorail, Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage
Fantasyland (10) - Alice in Wonderland, Casey Jr. Circus Train, Dumbo the Flying Elephant, King Arthur Carrousel, Mad Tea Party, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, Peter Pan’s Flight, Pinocchio’s Daring Journey, Snow White’s Enchanted Wish, Storybook Land Canal Boats
Toontown (1) - Chip 'n' Dale GADGETcoaster
Adventureland / New Orleans Square / Frontierland (1) - Jungle Cruise
Bayou Country (2) - Davy Crockett’s Explorer Canoes, Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

As noted elsewhere in this post, the Haunted Mansion Lightning Lane remains closed even though the ride has reopened (with a virtual queue). As a replacement in the Multi Pass lineup, Pirates of the Caribbean is using a Lightning Lane. Prior to the extended Haunted Mansion closure, Pirates of the Caribbean did not have a Lightning Lane. When Haunted Mansion’s Lightning Lane reopens, we’ll have to see exactly what happens with these two rides.

Core Entertainment. Core entertainment is entertainment that we consider “must do” and that you’ll need to plan around. Note that Disneyland’s entertainment schedule is a little more flexible than at Walt Disney World, so it’s important to check what is occurring and at what times during your visit. We consider the following items to be core entertainment:

Magic Happens Parade (daytime parade)
Feature Nighttime Show (currently Mickey’s Mix Magic)
Fantasmic! (nighttime show)

The feature nighttime show sometimes has fireworks, but not always. You can check the app (and calendar on the website) to see when the “with fireworks” version is playing.

A fourth show, Fire of the Rising Moons, occurs on nights when the feature nighttime show has fireworks. This is essentially firework viewing from Galaxy’s Edge with some Star Wars music.

You should check the app to confirm showtimes for these during your visit. Note that while seeing both Fantasmic and the feature show in the same night can be a lot, it is often possible. We’ll link to some “viewing guides” when we get to these at the end of the post.

Other Entertainment, Attractions, and Characters. This is sort of a catchall for “everything else”, but without things like dining and shopping. Other entertainment would be things like the Dapper Dans, who perform on Main Street several times a day, or seasonal events like the Pixar Pals Playtime Party. Other attractions includes things like Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln animatronic show and the Rivers of America boats—Mark Twain Riverboat and Sailing Ship Columbia.

I could give you lists of these, but I think you should go to the app and make them yourself. Check the “Attractions”, “Entertainment”, and “Characters” sections of the app to get an idea of what’s offered. You might find that only one or two things make sense for your visit, or you might find that some of these are higher priority than most rides for you (lots of kids love Pirates Lair on Tom Sawyer Island, for example).

Characters at Disneyland are a totally different affair than at Walt Disney World. There are few highly structured greetings—Meet Mickey being the main one that often carries a lengthy wait. The other one I find quite notable is Meet Disney Princesses at Royal Hall. That one tends to start mid-morning (say, 10AM). If you arrive at least 15 minutes before that starts, you can meet three princesses with a relatively short wait.

There are a handful of characters listed in the app who will appear at specific times and typically have relatively short waits. And it’s common just to see characters roaming the park. We even got to ride Mad Tea Party with Alice and the Mad Hatter just one cup over.

It’s worth checking the app to see if any of your favorite characters are set to greet, along with when and where.

Quick Tips for Disneyland Touring

These are some of the principles you’ll see us expounding throughout this post.

Set priorities. You can’t do everything at Disneyland in a single day, and you shouldn’t feel pressure to. You can ride all the rides without much difficulty many days, but you’ll miss out on some other attractions, entertainment, and characters. You’ll want to know what your priorities are before you get to the park.

Think geographically. Don’t zigzag around the park chasing low waits. The park itself is not huge, but unless you’re a solo traveler fast on their feet, adept at dodging crowds, with a singular mind for getting from point to point, every walk will take twice as long as your expect. You’ll be slowed by crowds, impromptu snack breaks, bathroom breaks, and just plain ol’ getting lost.

Know operating hours and showtimes. Some rides close at 5PM. Some shows have three performances, all before 1PM. Don’t pack 8AM to 5PM with things that will be open until midnight if there are things closing earlier that you’d like to do.

Keep lists. I use the notes app on my phone, and I usually prefer to break up the rides the way I do above (first by Multi Pass / not, then by land). Write down any characters or shows you’d like to see, along with their times. Every hour or so, consult your list, check off what you’ve done, and make sure you’re not forgetting anything.

Disneyland One Day Example Itinerary

This example itinerary walks through a day at Disneyland, explaining the choices made along the way. You might make different choices, but the important thing is you understand what factors to consider along the way. (Also please note I try to round times to the nearest 5 whenever reasonable to make the math a little easier.)

Basic Outline of the Day

The basic outline of the day you’ll see below is to arrive early and start in Fantasyland/Toontown/Tomorrowland before heading to the west side of the park just before lunch for Jungle Cruise and Pirates of the Caribbean. I call those two rides out specifically so you know to keep an eye on their waits in the morning. Along the way you’ll be managing your Multi Pass lineup, too.

After lunch, you’ll have some free time for non-ride things and the parade. Otherwise, the bulk of the afternoon/evening is just about picking which rides you want to get in line for while waiting on entertainment or a Lightning Lane return time.

Your day starts with arriving early in hopes of getting in some short waits before crowds arrive.

Parking, Security, and Early Entry

We know nothing about parking at Disneyland. We typically stay at a Disney hotel (Disneyland Hotel or Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel, usually) or a nearby hotel that’s walkable to the parks. I’d recommend Disneyland Tour Guide if you need information related to parking and getting to the parks from parking.

However you arrive, you’ll have to account for time spent going through security and on the walk to the park gates (and tram time, if parking). As a rule of thumb, we recommend accounting for 15 minutes from the Harbor Boulevard entrance for bag check and walking to the gates, but that’s a really flexible rule of thumb.

Many times, particularly earlier in the morning, this will be more like 5 minutes, but other times…well I just don’t know how to describe some of the ridiculous things you’ll see other times. We don’t visit Disneyland frequently enough to want to mess with these lines—arrive early.

Disneyland Early Entry

Early Entry is a perk at Disneyland resort that grants guests of Disney hotels an extra 30 minutes in the morning at one park each day. This means if you have Early Entry and that perk is available at Disneyland park, you’ll be able to access select rides 30 minutes before the other guests.

We have a post that covers Early Entry at both Disneyland Resort parks, and I don’t want to rehash the entire thing here. If you have Early Entry you’ll enter the park (the gates open for everyone at the same time), go toward the hub, go right at the end of Main Street, tap your room key at a scanner, and go on your way. You can buy Multi Pass once you’re inside the park, and if you follow this recommendation, Space Mountain is a fine first Lightning Lane pick.

The key thing is that if you’re using Early Entry, you probably want to ride Peter Pan’s Flight first, and you probably want to then go wait with the group by Red Rose Tavern that’s heading to Rise of the Resistance when the park opens. Alternatively, just ride Peter Pan’s Flight first and then pick up with the rest of the regular itinerary in this post (which focuses on Fantasyland).

As noted in that post, I don’t always love Early Entry. It basically just means getting up 30 minutes earlier, and, depending on the length of your visit, that might be more trouble than it’s worth.

If you don’t have access to Early Entry, you generally want to avoid the park that has Early Entry that day so you aren’t starting behind other guests. That said, since several major rides aren’t including in Disneyland Early Entry, you’re really just going to have to deal with the problem of fitting Peter Pan’s Flight into your day later.

Disneyland Rope Drop (Without Early Entry)

We recommend arriving at the Disneyland gates at least 30 minutes before the park is scheduled to open. On busier days you could push this earlier, maybe to an hour before opening, but Disneyland often has hours of 8AM to 10PM/11PM/Midnight. Arrive at the gates at 7AM and you might save a few minutes on your first ride, but by about 8PM, you’ll wish you’d taken that extra sleep.

Once inside the park, you’ll want to get to your rope drop crowd, buy Multi Pass, and make your first Lightning Lane pick. We have a separate post that goes into much more detail about Disneyland Rope Drop Strategy, including several rope drop options.

For the purpose of this post, we’re going to recommend a first Multi Pass pick of Space Mountain, combined with starting your day in Fantasyland. The Fantasyland rope drop crowd is going to be just to the right at the hub, near Astro Orbitor.

Space Mountain is a popular ride and one of the most popular Lightning Lanes, making it a fine first pick in any case. It’s particularly good for a morning that starts in Fantasyland because it isn’t too far from Fantasyland. Generally, I like to wait until the return window is around 8:30AM to 9:30AM or even 8:45AM to 9:45AM, knowing that I’m going to spend the first 45 minutes of my morning on rides in Fantasyland.

Disneyland Fantasyland Rope Drop

The Fantasyland rope drop at Disneyland is unique among basically any rope drop we’ve written about in that it doesn’t focus on the most popular rides at the park.

The reasoning for this is twofold. First, there are alternative ways to get on the most popular rides, like Multi Pass and Single Pass Lightning Lanes. But that’s the case at most theme parks…what really sets Disneyland’s Fantasyland apart is the second reason—there’s a huge density of short rides with short waits in the middle of the park.

Of the ten Fantasyland rides without Multi Pass, only Peter Pan’s Flight regularly starts the day with waits longer than 5 minutes. Since these rides also don’t have Lightning Lanes, riding them when waits are short is the only way to efficiently fit them into your day.

The big question is whether or not you should start with Peter Pan’s Flight. If there is no Early Entry, then starting with Peter Pan’s Flight makes a lot of sense. It’s a popular ride without a Lightning Lane, and it tends to sustain high waits most of the day. It’s also centrally located around a bunch of rides you can go to if (1) you get there and the wait is too long or (2) once you get off it.

On days with Early Entry, if you do not have Early Entry, it will usually have a wait of around 20 minutes once the park opens to regular guests. To us, starting with Peter Pan’s Flight on these days defeats the purpose of this rope drop. Of course you might get lucky and posted 20 minutes is actually 10. And Peter Pan’s Flight with a posted 20-minute wait to start the day is still quicker than even Rise of the Resistance with a 0 minute wait to start the day.

But we still think you’re best targeting the shortest waits among rides without Lightning Lanes until you run out of them. In particular, you should be looking at:

Peter Pan’s Flight (if no Early Entry)
Alice in Wonderland
Dumbo the Flying Elephant
Snow White’s Enchanted Wish
Pinocchio’s Daring Journey
Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride

After these, the next priorities for this time are Casey Jr. Circus Train, Mad Tea Party, and Tomorrowland’s Astro Orbitor.

Storybook Land Canal Boats and King Arthur Carrousel are notable exclusions from this morning list. King Arthur Carrousel tends to have minimal waits throughout the day, making it less of a morning priority. That said, since our toddler loves carrousels, we often visit early (priorities!).

Storybook Land Canal Boats is very low capacity and a long ride. A posted 5 minute wait can easily turn into a total 30-minute experience. Plus, the small scenes you’ll see throughout the ride are also somewhat visible from Casey Jr. Altogether we just don’t like to prioritize it in the morning, even if that means we probably won’t ride it at all.

Here’s an example morning that doesn’t start with Peter Pan’s Flight:

8:02AM - Alice in Wonderland
8:10AM - Dumbo
8:20AM - Mad Tea Party
8:26AM - Snow White’s Enchanted Wish
8:37AM - Pinocchio’s Daring Journey
8:47AM - Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride
8:59AM - Casey Jr. Circus Train

This is a good morning that leaves Peter Pan’s Flight, Storybook Land Canal Boats, and King Arthur Carrousel for later in the day. If you get to this point and there are still more short waits and you’re able to modify your Space Mountain to be just a little later, then you might continue with short waits.

(Note: If instead you were able to start with Peter Pan’s Flight, you’d probably wind up missing out on one or two of the other rides on that list, so you’d go the them later when this example itinerary fits in Peter Pan’s Flight).

Two other rides without Lightning Lanes to keep in mind in the morning are Astro Orbitor and Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage. Astro Orbitor offers some nice views, but is otherwise pretty similar to Dumbo. We don’t prioritize it, but it does get higher waits than some of the Fantasyland dark rides later in the day, meaning you might bump it up into that first hour of your day.

Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage also gets longer waits than the Fantasyland dark rides later on, but it’s a slow-to-load ride with very low capacity. If it’s a priority, short waits will be early and late, but we prefer to just ignore it in the morning and hope it fits into our day later.

First Lightning Lane and Mid-Morning at Disneyland

Once you tap into your first Lightning Lane, the real “dance” of the day begins. From hereon it’s “book Lightning Lane, keep busy until Lightning Lane, use Lightning Lane, repeat.” A good option is to start with booking Matterhorn, leaving round an hour to fill, ideally with some of the rides in Fantasyland, Tomorrowland, and Toontown.

If your morning went well (like ours did in the example), you might feel a little short on nearby options. In that case, consider checking off one of the two big rides left on this side of the park—Peter Pan’s Flight or Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway.

In our example, we wound up changing plans to go to Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, but this required a slight change to our Lightning Lane plans. We wanted to cover all three rides in Toontown at once rather than going back and forth to that remote land. This means grabbing a Lightning Lane for Roger Rabbit’s Car-Toon Spin instead of Matterhorn.

9:19AM - Use Space Mountain LL; Grab Matterhorn LL
9:25AM - Change Plans, modify LL to 9:50AM Roger Rabbit
9:35AM - Chip 'n' Dale's GADGETcoaster
10:20AM - Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway (40 min wait)
10:32AM Use Roger Rabbit Car-Toon Spin LL; Grab 11:20AM Big Thunder LL

After Roger Rabbit’s Car-Toon Spin, we started to feel like this was a busier than average day (it was, slightly). We noticed at 10:30AM that Indiana Jones Adventure’s Multi Pass times were already at 2:30PM. That’s not so late that we have to grab it right now, but we have to be aware of it in making our next few picks. In any case, we decided it was time to head to the west side of the park. We grabbed an 11:20AM reservation for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

Since we have a nice walk to the other side of the park, now is a good time to grab coffee. We mobile ordered coffee from Cafe Daisy in Toontown. Alternatively, you might grab coffee from Starbucks in Downtown Disney or on Main Street earlier in the morning.

Late Morning at Disneyland

With nearby Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters, “it’s a small world”, and Star Tours both offering immediate Lightning Lane times, you might be tempted to squeeze those in first before going west. This is a mistake though.

Those rides will offer good return times later in the day, and we’ve still got two rides—Jungle Cruise and Pirates of the Caribbean—that we’d like to try and get on before peak waits set in. Those two rides are the most popular rides without Lightning Lanes on the west side of the park, and they’re typically a good place to end the morning.

After a moderate (20 minute) wait for Jungle Cruise, we had just a few minutes to wait before it was time to use our Lightning Lane to ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Since we want to book a new Lightning Lane ASAP, it makes more sense to just wait a few minutes to be able to tap in rather than to go somewhere else first.

With Indiana Jones Adventure now giving 4PM return times, we decided to try and squeeze one more Lightning Lane in before nabbing that one. We went with a 12:50PM return for Haunted Mansion. This allows us to go ride nearby Pirates of the Caribbean and then have lunch before Haunted Mansion.

11:10AM Jungle Cruise (20 minute wait)
11:25AM Use Big Thunder LL; Grab 12:50 Haunted Mansion LL
12:05PM Pirates of the Caribbean (35 minute wait)
Lunch

As always, we’re thinking geographically here. Our lunch was bread bowl soup and beignets at Royal Street Veranda, a favorite of ours. If, for example, you wanted to do Docking Bay 7 or Ronto Roasters instead, then you might book Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run for just after lunch. If shopping and Star Wars are your things, Galaxy’s Edge is going to be worth a bit of your time. There are several small shops with unique Star Wars items, and Dok Ondar's Den of Antiquities has some particularly cool items.

After tapping into Haunted Mansion, it’s time to settle for our late Indiana Jones Adventure time, 6:25PM. This means we’ll be making our next Lightning Lane pick at 2:52PM, two hours after we grabbed this Indy time.

At around 1:15PM, Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh had a posted 15 minute wait. This is higher than I’d like to see (5 minutes is common), but this is the perfect time for a lesson in geography. Almost everything else I want to do in the park is at least 5 minutes away. It makes no sense to pass on a 15-minute wait now just to have to come back later.

We may have to come back to this area later to ride the Explorer Canoes or to visit Tom Sawyer’s Island, but neither of those are must-dos for me. There’s a chance that once we ride Winnie the Pooh, we’re just done with a huge portion of the park. In this case, the 15-minute wait is fine.

12:50PM Use Haunted Mansion LL; Grab 6:25PM Indiana Jones Adventure LL
1:30PM Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

Doing a Progress Check

If you’re the planner in your group, you need to set some time aside—during meals is often good—to take stock of your day. Chances are you’ve been running on autopilot keeping busy the first five hours of the day. But once midday hits, peak waits have arrived and you can’t book a Lightning Lane immediately. You can take a few minutes to make sure you know what’s left on your list.

The most important part of this process is to check the times that attractions close or shows/characters have their last performance/appearance. Today, Explorer Canoes closes at 5PM and Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage closes with the park at midnight. If I’m in the middle of the park at 4:30PM trying to decide between these two options, I’d better know that one of them is open for a full seven hours after the other.

This flipside of this is that you also need to be realistic about how late you’re going to be in the park. Saving three rides for 10PM to Midnight may sound reasonable at 2PM, but you might also get to 10PM and realize you desperately want to be heading home.

At this point in our example, we’ve got 9 of our 20 rides without Lightning Lanes remaining: Astro Orbitor, Davy Crockett’s Explorer Canoes, Disneyland Monorail, Disneyland Railroad, Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, King Arthur Carrousel, Main Street Vehicles, Peter Pan’s Flight, and Storybook Land Canal Boats. As a matter of personal preference, only Peter Pan’s Flight and Disneyland Railroad are important. I’m pretty happy with where we are as far as these 20 rides.

Regarding Multi Pass Lightning Lanes, we’ve got six of eleven still to book: Autopia, Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, “it’s a small world”, Matterhorn Bobsleds, Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, and Star Tours. This isn’t ideal, but we’ve still got plenty of day to work with, plus at least one tool to cut down on this list (we’ll get to that next).

We also don’t have a plan for Rise of the Resistance. At 1:30PM, Rise has a 75-minute wait. That isn’t awful. It’s about 2.5X the average wait for the day, or a bit more than the time a family might spend on, for example, the combination of Pirate’s Lair on Tom Sawyer Island and Mark Twain Riverboat. There’s a lot of day left, and getting to 3PM with Rise of the Resistance done and up to 9 hours to deal with everything else we’ve got left would be a fine option.

We’re going to take a riskier approach—saving Rise of the Resistance for late. The risk here is that the ride breaks down late in the day and doesn’t reopen. While rare, this can happen. This also means if we’re completely worn by 10PM and the wait is 2 hours…well that won’t be fun. Nonetheless, we’ve got other things we want to do in the park, including things that won’t be open at 10PM.

The third option would just be to buy the Lightning Lane at this point (as always, keep in mind that on busier days it’ll sell out earlier). There’s no “right” option here, and our decision is of course impacted by the fact that we’ve ridden Rise many times before.

Finally, core entertainment starts with the first running of the “Magic Happens” parade at 3:30PM. And there is still a ton of “everything else” activities that we’ll spend some time on soon.

Early Afternoon at Disneyland

Early afternoon is when waits peak (from about 12PM to 4PM) and your day will start to move more slowly, at least as far as rides go. You’ll also want to have an eye toward the parade times.

To make more progress on our ride list, it’s time to use another tool in our touring toolkit—single rider. If you have to ride together as a family, or if your little one isn’t old enough for single rider, this won’t be an option for you, but there are several rides in the park that have single rider. The list changes, but a standard lineup is Space Mountain, Matterhorn, and Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run (search the app for “single rider” and then use “Find on Map” to see current offerings).

Of these, Smugglers Run is my favorite option for single rider because of it’s usually short waits. Many people don’t like single rider at Smugglers Run because it basically guarantees you’ll be an “Engineer” rather than a “Gunner” or “Pilot” on the ride. For more on this issue, use Google. Personally, I’m totally fine and sometimes even prefer being an Engineer. At 1:45PM, the ride is posting a 75-minute wait and I wait 7 minutes in the single rider line.

1:52PM Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run (Single Rider)

It’s finally time to do things other than wait in line for rides. We’re going to aim to watch the 3:30PM “Magic Happens” parade rather than the 6:30PM time, giving us about 90 minutes for other activities.

While we’ll be skipping it, I want to note that there is a 2:15PM performance of Tale of the Lion King today that could be worth trying to get to at this time.

There are lots of ways to fill this time, and this is yet another reminder to check the app for Attractions, Entertainment, and Characters that we don’t specifically mention. Here are some of our favorites, first in Adventureland/Frontierland:

Get Dole Whip
Watch Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room
Ride the Mark Twain Riverboat or Sailing Ship Columbia

As noted earlier, Pirate’s Lair on Tom Sawyer island is popular with many families, there is also usually streetmosphere in New Orleans Square.

Then on Main Street, where we’ll watch the parade:

Watch Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln
Visit Disney Gallery
Visit Main Street Cinema

You can also usually catch some streetmosphere on Main Street just before the parade.

During this, just after 2:50PM, I grab a 3:50PM Lightning Lane for Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters. A 6PM Matterhorn alternative might be okay, but I’m hoping to get Lightning Lanes for Star Tours and maybe even Autopia as part of this visit to Tomorrowland.

Late Afternoon at Disneyland

It’s a short trip from the parade route to Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters. With quick return times available for Star Tours and an hour gap before Autopia, I choose to take care of one of the big things left on my list—Peter Pan’s Flight.

2:50PM Grab 3:50PM Buzz Lightyear LL
3:30PM “Magic Happens” parade
3:55PM Use Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters LL; Grab 4PM Star Tours LL
4:10PM Use Star Tours LL; Grab 5:15PM Autopia LL
5:05PM Peter Pan's Flight (45 minute wait)

I’d note that the 45 minute wait was the literal peak for the day for Peter Pan’s Flight. The thing about this time of day is that you (hopefully) have few things left that you really want to do. Jumping around the park or waiting 20 minutes for Storybook Land Canal Boats just to avoid a 45-minute wait for Peter Pan’s Flight, hoping for a 20-minute wait later doesn’t make a ton of sense.

As noted earlier, if you were able to ride Peter Pan’s Flight at rope drop, you’d probably have a few less popular rides to fit into this timeslot.

Grabbing a 7:45PM Matterhorn after tapping into Autopia, I get to 5:30PM with two Lightning Lanes booked (Indiana Jones Adventure at 6:25PM and Matterhorn at 7:45PM). While it’s a bit unfortunate I have to leave Tomorrowland/Fantasyland to go ride Indy, it isn’t the worst detour (and I’ll even find a way to make it useful). Otherwise, I’ve got until about 9PM, at which point I’ll shift focus to the nighttime shows.

The nice thing about the end of the day is you shouldn’t have too much pressure to get things done because your list is smaller. The downside is you have fewer things to choose from (unless you’re repeating rides, obviously), so there often won’t be good options. There isn’t much strategy at this point, it’s just checking off whatever boxes are left.

We chose just to trudge through some of the things that weren’t done yet, the only notable decision being to take the Disneyland Railroad from Tomorrowland to New Orleans Square. Our favorite portion of the ride is from Tomorrowland to Main Street USA, we still hadn’t ridden the railroad, and we had to get to Adventureland (next to New Orleans Square), so this trip made sense.

5:15PM Use Autopia LL; Grab 7:45PM Matterhorn LL
5:55PM Storybook Land Canal Boats (20 minute wait)
6:30PM Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage (20 minute wait)
6:55PM Disneyland Railroad (Tomorrowland to New Orleans Square)
7:25PM Indiana Jones Adventure LL
7:45PM Use Matterhorn LL; Grab 7:50PM "it's a small world" LL
8:00PM Use "it's a small world" LL
8:40PM Astro Orbitor

Nighttime Entertainment and Dinner at Disneyland

As of this update, Disneyland has two main nighttime shows. The feature nighttime projections and/or firework show occurs on Main Street at 9:30PM on our example night (I’m avoiding a specific name because the show tends to change somewhat frequently for, e.g. seasonal events). There’s also Fantasmic, held in Frontierland at Rivers of America at 9PM and 10:30PM on our night. We’ll go with the plan of watching the feature show then the 10:30PM Fantasmic.

I like to do a quick service dinner near Main Street before the fireworks, and I’m not the only one. If you’re planning on this, your two main options are Jolly Holiday Bakery and Refreshment Corner. In either case place your mobile order early. We’re not talking 30 minutes before you plan to be eating, we’re saying you should place this order at like 2PM. You can select the time slot, so select something that will allow you to arrive 30-45 minutes before the fireworks.

9PM - Dinner
9:30PM - Feature Nighttime Show
10:30PM - Fantasmic

Late Night at Disneyland

We made our bed, and now it’s time to lie in it. The metaphorical one, that is, because it’ll still be a while before we get back to a real bed because of the decision we made earlier to save Rise of the Resistance for the end of the day.

Technically you’re allowed to get in line for rides up until the time they close. This means we could spend the time from 11PM to 11:59PM doing anything other than Rise of the Resistance if we were willing to wait until the last minute. This is hugely risky not just because Rise could break down, but because any other ride you get on could break down, keeping you from making it to Rise. Or you could just slip and fall on your way to Rise.

Instead, we’ll just head straight to Rise. Again, we’re not the only ones with this idea, and the wait will spike after Fantasmic, but that doesn’t much matter. We have one big thing we want to finish, so that’s where we’re going.

11:50PM - Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance

If you manage to get off your last ride, whatever it is, with a bit of time before midnight, you can head to Tomorrowland and ride the Disneyland Monorail out of the park, to Downtown Disney.

Conclusions

Of course our sample itinerary missed a few things—that’s more or less inevitable. We didn’t use every second of our day (we got in line for Rise before 11:59:59PM), and we didn’t focus exclusively on rides (mainly the 90 minute “break” before the parade). But we accomplished a ton, hit the highlights, and had a magical day.

The biggest mistake you can make is going into Disneyland with no plan and no knowledge. If by some miracle you made it to the end of this post, you should have plenty of knowledge to go about crafting your own perfect day at the park. Happy travels!

All Your Other Disneyland Planning Questions Answered

Don’t be overwhelmed by Disneyland planning! Take a second to check out our most important content and you’ll not only be an expert, but you’ll save big $$$ along the way.

Just starting out? Check out our Disneyland Planning Guide. When it comes to hotels, we’ve got reviews of all three Disney hotels: Disneyland Hotel, Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa, and Disney’s Pixar Place Hotel. As for tickets, check out where to find discount Disneyland tickets.

Know what to ride with our: Disneyland Rides Guide and Disney California Adventure Rides Guide. And just as important, know how to get on the best rides without the wait with our Disneyland Lightning Lane Strategy! For the complete guides to a day at the park, we have a One Day Disneyland Itinerary and a One Day Disney California Adventure Itinerary.

We always recommend arriving at the parks early. If you can get access to Early Entry at Disneyland and Disney California Adventure, you’ll have the most time in the parks. Even without those bonus hours, you’ll need to know Rope Drop Strategy at Disneyland and Rope Drop Strategy at Disney California Adventure.

Finally, before you head out, be sure to check out our to-the-point packing list, 10 essentials you forget to pack for every Disney trip. And if you’re interested in saving, there’s no better list than our 53 Ways to Save on your Disney trip from start to finish.