Who needs blessing of size when you can just build the perfect weekend destination instead? With two great theme parks, Disneyland is perfectly designed to provide you with the ideal weekend away from home. Could it be as simple as one-day, one-park? Maybe. But in this post we’re going to talk you through the details—from park hopping to Lightning Lanes to rope drop—of planning the perfect weekend at Disneyland resort!
Basics of the Weekend Trip
I’m talking about two full days at Disneyland Resort in this post, or at least one full day and one long day that includes the morning. If you’ve got only one day plus an afternoon, say the day before, my advice is to get park hopper and Lightning Lane Multi Pass on your full day and do your best. For a broader look at planning, we’ve got a whole Disneyland Trip Planning Guide.
Disneyland Resort has two parks—Disneyland (I’ll sometimes say “Disneyland park”) and Disney California Adventure. I’m mostly talking you through plans to visit both parks during your trip in this post. This is not a two-day plan for just Disneyland park.
You don’t have to stay at a Disney hotel for a good trip to Disneyland. I’m not going to cover hotels any more here, but I’d venture to say that if you’ve only got two days and you’re spending them at the parks, just go with any reasonably-priced hotel walking distance from the parks. A hotel is just a place to put your head for the 8 hours (if you’re lucky) between the parks. I usually like The Anaheim Hotel for my park-heavy trips.
Finally, there are three posts you must read to supplement this post, and they’re pretty obvious:
Even if you’re planning to park hop, those one-day itineraries will give you an important sense of how to prioritize things at the parks. I’ll link to other important posts as they come up.
Ticket Pricing for a 2-Day Disneyland Trip
Let’s start this with a list of ticket prices for a two-day Disneyland trip. The biggest decision you’ll have to make is probably which ticket option to go with. I recommend buying from Undercover Tourist, where you’ll frequently find discounts on these rates (also compare other discount options), but I’m going with Disney’s standard rates for the purpose of this post.
Two Days, One Park Per Day - $320
Two Days, One Park Per Day, Lightning Lane Multipass $384
Two Days, Park Hopper - $405
Two Days, Park Hopper, One Day Multi Pass - $441
Two Days, Park Hopper, Multi Pass - $473
Three Days, One Park Per Day - $389
Three Days, Park Hopper - $479
Note that the fourth option, “Two Days, Park Hopper, One Day Multi Pass” is not an actual ticket type. Instead, it’s the cost of the “Two Days, Park Hopper” ticket plus $36 (approx) for Lightning Lane Multi Pass on one day. If you buy Lightning Lane Multi Pass in advance, it’s less per day but you have to get it for the length of the ticket.
This post focuses on two-day trips, so I’ll mostly be discussing the first three options above. But it’s worth noting that if time is not a limiting factor and if your hotel plans make sense, adding a third day (to be spent at a single park) costs less than adding park hopper to a two-day, no hopper ticket.
To Park Hop or Not To Park Hop?
Park hopper costs $85 per ticket for two-day tickets. To not bury the lede, let me just say I always get park hopper and I hop a lot at Disneyland. The two parks are literally about 3 minutes across a promenade from each other—it’s just too easy to hop.
But I don’t think hopping is essential. Both of these parks are full-day parks. If you wanted to squint at the numbers a bit, you might say Disneyland is, like, a 1.4-day park and Disney California Adventure is a 0.8 day park. The point being that you’ll probably get a good sense of Disney California Adventure in a single day no matter what, so park hopping is really about whether you want to dedicate extra time to Disneyland park.
If you’ve got small kids, or “Disneyland” things like meeting princesses, riding all the dark rides, or taking lots of castle photos are going to be high on your list, I think park hopper easily makes sense. If you’re more of the mindset of “I don’t actually know what I’m getting my family into, and I’d just like us to have a good weekend at these two parks”, then you’ll probably be fine without park hopper.
Since I tend to recommend park hopper, we’ll start with how to plan a weekend at Disneyland with park hopper. Then I’ll talk about planning the weekend without park hopper.
Planning a Weekend at Disneyland With Park Hopper
With park hopper, your weekend at Disneyland is much more flexible, but that probably comes with a little bit of pressure. You might feel like you spent all the money, including probably some on Lightning Lanes, and to make it worth it you have to do everything.
Try to resist that attitude. Trust me when I say that these two parks easily justify a three-day visit if you have the time. If you don’t (the reason you’re on this post), please be satisfied knowing you’ll have an amazing weekend, seeing all the highlights, and probably be left with some great things to look forward to next time.
Basic Outline of the Weekend
My approach to two days at Disneyland with park hopper would almost always be to start the first day at Disneyland park and probably spend the entire day there. Then I’d start the second day at Disney California Adventure. I’d expect to finish the second day at Disneyland (assuming specifically that there’s time to be there after I watch World of Color at California Adventure). How many hops occur, particularly on the second day, could vary—might be just one, might be three.
The basis for this schedule is simple enough.
First, you want one morning at each park because that’s when waits are the shortest. Use rope drop to get on one or more rides with next to no wait. Since the key rides for rope drop are limited at each park, it won’t make as much sense to start your days at the same park.
Second, Disneyland park offers more to do and will take more time. It definitely can fill one full day, which is why I recommend spending one full day there. If you find you have stuff leftover, which you probably will. hopping back there the second day will help you get more done. If you covered most of the popular stuff your first day, you’ll have only short or no waits to contend with when you return to the park the second afternoon.
Third, you want an evening at each park to enjoy its nighttime show, but Disneyland park usually is open later than California Adventure. That’s why you’ll often wind up at Disneyland late both nights (waits are shorter late in the evening, too).
As with guests who aren’t park hopping, things like Early Entry and park hours may push you to swap the order of these days. But if you start at Disney California Adventure and then go to Disneyland at 3PM on day 1, you might have little sense of how to spend your time there. My advice is probably just to do any rides, shows, or characters that have a short wait or no wait. Or do any Lightning Lanes that have availability. This will lighten the load for your next, full-or-almost-full day at Disneyland park.
How Many Days of Lightning Lane Multi Pass?
I’m not going to talk about Lightning Lane Single Pass or Premier Pass here. I think my standard analysis of those options applies as well here as anywhere. The key thing when it comes to Lightning Lane is deciding between 0, 1, or 2 days of Multi Pass.
Let’s remind ourselves of the relevant ticket options:
Two Days, Park Hopper - $405
Two Days, Park Hopper, One Day Multi Pass - $441
Two Days, Park Hopper, Multi Pass - $473
Honestly, 10/10 times I’m picking option 3—Multi Pass both days.
You could skip Multi Pass. You might decide it’s not worth the cost, and I get that. Just don’t make the mistake of thinking that having park hopper is going to be your saving grace in this case. Park hopping starts at 11AM. Between 11AM and about 8PM, the rides you care most about are going to have long waits—maybe an hour or more. Being able to hop to another park just to wait in long, midday lines is not making the most of park hopper, in my opinion.
So, if you’re going to get MultiPass, should it be for one or two days?
Multi Pass includes both parks. Having it for one day while you have park hopper means you’ll have the option of booking any of the 20+ rides on Multi Pass in both parks. I have fit them all into a single day. But it wasn’t easy, and I say that as someone who does this for a living and knows these systems and parks inside and out. I also had the benefit of relatively low crowds last time I did this, and I was visiting solo.
Fitting all the MultiPass rides at both parks into a single day is also exhausting. You’ll have to hop multiple times. You’ll be spending a lot of time on your screen trying to grab batches of rides that work together (1PM Mission: BREAKOUT!, 1:30PM Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway, 2PM Toy Story Midway Mania! is not a good lineup, no matter how popular those rides are today). Since you have two days, maybe you won’t mind spending one day like this.
My bottom line is that if you think it’s worth it for one day because you want to get more rides done, then I’m telling you the reduction in stress you’ll get from getting it both days is worth the extra cost. It just strikes me as a little counterintuitive to get all the way up to $441 on tickets and then hold back the last $32 saying “I’m just going to try and cram all the Lightning Lanes into one day”. Then again, I also understand that you’ve sometimes got to keep the high cost of a Disneyland trip down any way you can.
This wraps up our discussion of planning your weekend with park hopping. Remember, I linked to those two one-day plans and the Lightning Lane strategy because those posts will walk you through your park days, even when you’re hopping.
Now, onto a weekend without park hopping…
Weekend at Disneyland Without Park Hopper
If you want to spend the weekend at Disneyland without park hopper, you’ll probably want to spend one day at each park.
Yes, you could spend both days at either park. Disneyland park is going to make much more sense for a two-day visit. You wouldn’t run out of things to do, but it’s my strong opinion that the things you’ll miss out on at Disney California Adventure are far more worth your time than the additional things you’ll do at Disneyland park.
That said, if the kids in your group (if you have any) are all under 32 inches, the case for two days at Disneyland is a bit stronger. At 32 inches, though, they’ll get two good rides at California Adventure. And at 40 inches California Adventure is definitely worth a day.
How Many Days of Lightning Lane Multi Pass?
Again, I’m not going to talk about Lightning Lane Single Pass or Premier Pass here. I think my standard analysis of those options applies as well here as anywhere. The key thing when it comes to Lightning Lane is deciding between 0, 1, or 2 days of Multi Pass.
You’ve chosen to go without park hopper, so presumably you feel like park hopper isn’t worth the $85 dollars. But you’ve still got to decide whether it’s worth it to spend money on Lightning Lanes.
Lightning Lane Multi Pass costs $32 per day when bought in advance for the length of your ticket. Or you can buy it one day at a time when you get to the parks, with prices ranging from $32 to around $40 depending on the day.
Personally, I would say that $64 for two days of Multi Pass is probably better value than $85 for park hopping on a two-day trip. It makes sense to feel like you didn’t want to spend the money on park hopper but that you do want to spend it on Lightning Lane Multi Pass. Since you’re not hopping, you’ll only have the one day at each park to get the rides in—Lightning Lanes are going to be the best way to get the best rides done.
Which Order to Do The Parks In
You’ll need to know in advance which park you’re spending which day at. Before getting to my rule of thumb, there are a few more objective factors at work.
First, check on the Early Entry schedule. If you have Early Entry, you might want to use it, which will determine which days you go to which parks. If you don’t have Early Entry, or if you have it but don’t want to get up early, you’ll schedule your days to avoid the park with Early Entry.
Second, check park hours, favoring longer hours at Disneyland park. Assuming you can be at the park from open to close, you’ll want the longest possible hours at Disneyland park. That park has a ton to do.
Finally, if those factors don’t decide it for you—start with Disney California Adventure. Why? Simply because it’s the easier park. If you have Lightning Lanes, you’d much rather learn the system there than at Disneyland where you’re dealing with several more rides to fit in. If you don’t have Lightning Lanes, you’ll still get a feel for how big these parks are, what posted wait times really mean, how fast morning crowds grow, and so on. Go into Disneyland park with a little experience, if possible.
Of course, I’m no monster. There is something to be said for your first steps in Disneyland being in Disneyland. We’ve always taken Zoe to the castle park on the first day of a first visit to a Disney destination. Feel free to consider this sentimental reasoning more than enough to justify spending your first day at the park Walt built.
That wraps up this section and this post. Remember, I linked to those two one-day plans and the Lightning Lane strategy because those posts will walk you through your park days, even when you’re hopping. Just in case you missed those links, though, here’s the suite of our core Disneyland content…
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.