10 Easy Ways to Do Disneyland on a Budget

One-day theme park tickets to Disneyland Park in Anaheim, Calif., and its sibling, Disney California Journey Park, begin at $104 per particular person, so calling Disneyland low-cost is about as plausible as saying an elephant can fly. However at Disneyland, elephants do actually fly (Dumbo, anybody?) — and efficiently planning a visit to Disneyland on a price range isn’t as unattainable because it may appear.

This is tips on how to go to Disneyland for much less.

Approved third-party sellers equivalent to Undercover Vacationer usually promote Disneyland tickets for lower than shopping for immediately from Disney.

Some membership applications, together with AAA and Costco, provide tickets or trip bundle offers, although they sometimes command a membership payment to hitch. Different affiliations, equivalent to worker or pupil low cost applications, may equally unlock reductions. 

There are two Disney theme parks in Anaheim, and if you wish to see each in sooner or later, you’ll want a Park Hopper ticket. The issue? Park Hopper tickets price $65 extra per particular person for a single-day ticket.

In case your one-day journey will really feel incomplete in case you don’t see each, say, Disneyland’s Sleeping Magnificence Fortress and Avengers Campus throughout the best way at Disney California Journey, you then’ll want the pricier Park Hopper choice. However in case you’re there for a number of days, save by visiting one park per day. One of the simplest ways to do Disneyland is by specializing in one park at a time, anyway.

The theme park turnstiles sometimes open for enterprise barely earlier than official park opening time, and it’s probably visitors will likely be ready. By arriving early, you’ll be capable to move the safety test and scan your tickets. From there, you’ll sometimes be capable to linger throughout the first few hundred ft contained in the park, browse the retailers and be able to energy stroll to the rides as quickly as they open.

You may race to your precedence experiences, like Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway. This new trip opened simply in time for the Disney100 Celebration. By hitting your must-do rides early, you will keep away from the longest wait instances. In keeping with Disney journey planning web site Touring Plans, which tracks trip wait instances, traces are normally the longest from 1-2 p.m.

Relating to meals, the most cost effective solution to do Disneyland is to carry meals from elsewhere. Disneyland explicitly permits exterior meals and nonalcoholic drinks, with only a few stipulations, equivalent to no glass containers.

Pack nutrient-dense snacks like protein bars and nuts. Street trippers may cease at a grocery store alongside the best way. Close by cafes and quick meals eating places can provide similar-quality meals for much less cash, and some are inside strolling distance of the park. If you happen to’re prepared to enterprise out additional, dine at Anaheim Packing District — a meals corridor in a renovated, historic 1919 citrus-packing home that’s a 10-minute drive away.

The official Disneyland app has many capabilities, together with displaying GPS-enabled maps, stay attraction wait instances and — maybe most helpful — cell meals and beverage ordering.

This characteristic is obtainable by nearly all quick-service eating places, together with the notoriously well-liked residence of the Dole Whip, the Tiki Juice Bar. Funds your time and skip the traces by ordering and paying to your meals and drinks in-app.

One other tip within the time-is-money vein: Single Rider. A handful of particularly well-liked points of interest, such because the Millennium Falcon at Disneyland and the Incredicoaster at Disney California Journey, provide Single Rider queues, the place of us prepared to trip individually from their group fill unused seats.

The Single Rider line nearly at all times will get you on board sooner than the usual queue.

Forgo the costly Disney reward retailers contained in the parks. As an alternative, buy plushies or character garb out of your native toy retailer upfront. Then, disguise “souvenirs” in your suitcase and spring them on the youngsters when you’re on trip. They probably received’t understand their new plushies aren’t really from Disneyland.

The “Disney tax” on meals and souvenirs additionally applies to different gadgets. For example, the plastic poncho from the reward store close to Splash Mountain is probably going far pricier than what you’d purchase elsewhere.

Many people assume that the very best airport for Disneyland is Los Angeles Worldwide Airport — the fifth-largest industrial airport within the U.S., in line with the Federal Aviation Administration. 

However LAX is definitely near 40 miles away from Disneyland, and that distance can equate to a few hours in site visitors. Two smaller airports, John Wayne Airport and Lengthy Seaside Airport, are every about 15 miles away, which might imply a less expensive and sooner journey to the park.

That stated, in line with 2021 FAA information, LAX served 6.2 instances extra passengers than John Wayne Airport and 22.7 instances extra passengers than Lengthy Seaside Airport. This implies that in case you decide to fly into LAX, which is additional away, you’re extra prone to discover a direct flight or have extra route choices. 

And in case you can keep away from a layover, you’ll probably save a bit of cash on flight prices. A 2019 research from the MIT Worldwide Middle for Air Transportation, a analysis arm of the Massachusetts Institute of Expertise, discovered that the most cost effective nonstop flight is, on common, $31 inexpensive than the most cost effective flight with a layover.

There are three Disney-owned accommodations in Anaheim, they usually’re nearly at all times dearer than non-Disney accommodations of comparable high quality close by. In contrast to at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., the place staying on-property normally has advantages like extra frequent bus transportation to the parks, that’s sometimes not the case on the West Coast.

In California, many off-site accommodations stay inside strolling distance — and plenty of could be booked utilizing bank card factors.

If you find yourself spending $13 on a turkey leg within the park, you may as properly earn some rewards. Although the finest Disney bank cards aren’t really Disney-branded.