Hey guys!
Thanks for tuning in! In this video, we will go though how to make the most of one day
at Disneyland in California. Disneyland California was the very
first Disneyland to be built. It is the OG.
We went on a Friday during non-school holidays, so whilst it was still busy,
it was not crazy busy, therefore we got through a lot of rides.
We also bought genie plus with our ticket online beforehand
and timed it on a day where there would be fireworks,
which is typically Friday and Saturday.
We will go through how to use
genieplus later on in the video. In the meantime, don’t forget to hit
our subscribe button for more videos. Parking near Disneyland can be quite expensive.
Anaheim is also quite a far drive from the main LA area,
especially in morning traffic. If you want to make the most of your trip,
we suggest staying at an accommodation closer to Disneyland the night before and the night of,
as it is an early start and late finish if you want to
maximise your Disneyland experie
nce. We stayed at Alamo Inn which was
surprisingly affordable and did the job. Ooh!
Come in come in come in. Welcome!
This is our room to prep for our Disneyland excursion.
So, it is quite spacious! We got a teeny tiny closet in here!
We got a… Oh my gosh!
The bathroom is huge! Such a big bathroom.
The shower is huge as well. Oh yeah, you said this an accessible room ay?
That’s why it’s so big! Why do we…
we always keep getting accessible rooms! It’s because it’s the cheapest.
It’s the cheapest?
How are the bigger rooms the cheapest?
Oh well. Aim to arrive by 7:30am in the morning
for the 8am rope drop in the main square, so you can get your day
started as early as possible. We have written down our Disneyland
time schedule and ranking of each activity in the description box which covers exactly what we did at what time.
This will give you an idea of what you can get through in a day if
you plan smartly with genieplus. We managed to get through
12 rides, 5 shows, 5 character meets an
d 4 restaurants
in just one day. How genieplus works is you need to
download the Disneyland app and there are only certain rides that have genieplus,
we will attach the list below. This is only activated once inside the park.
The ride will have a separate queue for genieplus. Genieplus enables you to use this lane
during a booked time period. This lane normally is shorter and faster,
depending on the estimated wait time for the normal lane.
For example, if it is currently 8am, you could select t
he ride Smugglers run and
choose the time period 9-10am. During this time period, you can
enter via the genieplus lane, and you cannot book another
time period for another ride until you finish the ride you booked or until
2 hours have passed since you booked it. So it is useful to set a 2hr timer on your phone
to remind you to book as many rides through genieplus as possible.
And you want to try book the ones with longer normal wait times to make the
most of your genieplus lane. This is all
visible on the Disneyland app.
Our suggestion is to book genieplus rides for later in the day.
Use the morning and during lunchtime to go to non genieplus rides and shows while
there is still not as many people. Now we will go through the rides,
character meets, shows, the delicious food and drinks
in the order that we did them. We will also rank each ride for
mild adrenaline junkies like us. We’re power walking.
We’re walking to Disneyland now. We wanted to leave at 8…
No, we wanted to leave a
t 7, To arrive at 7:30,
But now it’s 7:20. It’s ok, we’ll make up for it, we’re Usain Bolt. We arrived at 7:40.
Got here in 20 minutes. We’ll go through now.
We’re in! We got through the gate in less than 5 minutes,
so that was surprising. So we’re going to head over to the rope drop at
Frontierland, to go to Star Wars Rise of the Resistance.
Apparently the wait times for that is just high throughout the entire day,
so we’ll just get bthat out of the way first. So this is everybody waiting for t
he
rope drop at Frontierland at 7:45. Everyone’s pretty orderly.
We’ve just passed the rope drop now, we’re going to Star Wars Rise of the Resistance.
We are charging! But… calmly.
We’re walking. Let’s join the resistance.
We’re walking fast, trying to get weave around
as many people as we can. We’re trying to get to Rise of the Resistance,
because everyone seems to be going there! We’re already in line.
We can’t even see the ride yet. It’s 8:06 and we are already in line.
We got in line now an
d we’ll see what time we get
to the front of the line. We’re heading into the ride
now, it’s around 8:15 or 8:20. We didn’t wait too long.
15 minute wait. Yeah, not too bad.
Find somewhere to hold. Rise of the Resistance is comfortable for
any age as long as you meet the height requirements.
You are taken through a starship as a prisoner by the storm troopers.
You then end up escaping in a ship with the resistance and encounter storm troopers.
This ride sits at 1st out of 12. We were going to
go to Runaway Rail,
but Ricky accidentally booked genieplus for Smuggle’s Run.
It’s confusing. So we are going to go to Smuggler’s Run now.
There’s not even a line. So in this situation, there is
not much point using genieplus, but we’ve already clicked it, so
we’re just going to do it. We got here straight away pretty much.
We are already waiting to get into the ride. In Smuggler’s Run, you are assigned to a
fighter plane simulator with three other people. The two back passengers control the w
eapons
and the two front passengers control the steering, which we ended up doing.
One person controls up and down, the other controls left and right.
And you ride through this virtual simulation where you are trying to escape the empire.
We loved this interactive experience, but it did give us a little motion sickness, which we are prone to.
We ranked it 4th out of 12. In Mickey’s runaway railway,
you ride a train which ends up splitting into separate carriages,
which we found pretty cool. It i
s comfortable for any age.
We ranked this 5th out of 12. We’re entering Runaway Rail
in Toontown at 10 past 9. Currently the wait time is 10 minutes apparently, so we’ll see.
We don’t have genieplus… Well, this one doesn’t have genieplus,
you need to purchase a separate lightning lane. It’s 9:15 and we’re already heading in,
so it was a 5 minute wait. The wait time is 20 minutes at the moment to meet Minnie. A bit past 9:30, We’re doing meet Minnie and Mickey.
We’ve already met Minnie. She was
only like…
it said 20 minutes, but I swear it was only 10.
And then Mickey, they said it’s a 30 minute wait. It’s 10 past 10, so…
time for breakfast. Mobile pick up is very convenient ay? Yeah, it’s quite fast.
Basically, no wait time, because you book a time to pick up the order.
We got a croissant from Jolly Bakery. So egg inside?
Hearty. Egg and Bacon.
Eat! I think we got some hollandaise sauce in there
Decent. Bacon’s a bit dry. But I guess, it’s like, fast food.
The croissant tastes good, i
t’s nice and fluffy. And the scrambled eggs?
Doesn’t really have the layers of a fancy croissant,
but it’s simple food. Yeah.
And you got scrambled eggs in there? Yeah.
They look slightly over. I lied, the egg is not over done,
it’s actually perfectly cooked. It’s 10:50am, and it’s a 20 minute wait at the moment for
Pirates of the Caribbean. No genieplus for this one, so we are going to
line up like normal people. The app is pretty cool, it
comes with these cool filter. Ooh!
It’s Olaf! It’s li
terally only been 10 minutes, and we are
already pretty much at the front of the line. Pirates of the Caribbean is a very
gentle water ride past ships, fighting scenes, drunkards and of course,
Captain Jack Sparrow. A very comfortable ride for any age,
we ranked this 7th out of 12. Jungle cruise is a boat ride that takes you around a river course.
This is comfortable for any age and you don’t usually get wet.
We ranked this ride 11th out of 12. At 11:50am, we went to Tiki juice bar to get a dol
e pineapple sundae that
Ricky had been eyeing up and it was the best fruit sundae we have ever had.
The best $6.99 we have ever spent. Try it!
Perfect for this weather! It’s getting hot now.
Ah! It’s very cold!
Very refreshing! Perfect for this hot weather!
Does it taste like pineapple? Yeah, it tastes like pineapple, which is good.
Not too rich. It’s on the hard side of a soft serve,
which I mentioned before, is what I like. It tastes like a pineapple ice
block in an ice cream version. Matterh
orn bobsled is a gentle rollercoaster ride in a bobsled.
We were pleasantly surprised as we weren’t originally planning on going on this ride.
For us semi-adrenaline junkies, this was perfect for us,
so we ranked it 2nd out of 12. We going into the lightning lane.
Oh, where there is still a line. 12:34, so we’ve been waiting for almost 10 minutes
and we’re already about to go on. It’s about a 10 minute wait in lightning lane
compared to a 30 minute wait in standby, which is the normal lane.
So i
t is faster,
we’re about to go on. We just found out that it’s
only a 5 minute wait to meet the Disney princesses, so we’re going now.
Where are they? Oh, over there.
Next to the castle is where the princesses are, in the royal hall.
We’ve started lining up to meet the princesses. We got 2 little princesses
in front of fast actually. 1:50, we’ve been waiting for 15 minutes and we’re
at the front of the line, so that’s about right. Very popular.
It was a 60 minute wait time before. It was an i
nteresting system.
They like… you actually get time to
talk to them and meet them. There’s 3 princesses and you
just rotate around the room. We got Snow White, Anna and we got Ariel.
So that was cool. Plus Princess Jasmine.
Princess Jasmine. So at the moment, Indiana Jones standby is 35
minutes, we are going to take the lightning lane, at 1:15 now. Let’s see how long it takes. Just
while we are waiting in line for Indiana Jones, we are booking our next one on genieplus, because
we just rede
emed it, so you can book another one now, so we are booking Haunted Mansion,
earliest is 4:45, so we’re going to do that now. Ooh! Welcome!
1:30, we have been waiting for 15 minutes in the lightning
lane and we’re almost at the front. Almost. For Indiana Jones, you sit in a railed vehicle which takes you
through the treasure caves, a comfortable amount of adrenaline.
We ranked this 6th out of 12. At 1:50pm, we decided to stop for lunch.
We purposely timed lunch a little later hoping to squeez
e a few more rides in the last hour
while kids might be eating and resting. We got the clam chowder and lobster roll
from Harbour galley and spent $31.77 including tax. Maybe we shouldn’t have ordered
the soup for 34 degrees. It’s ok.
Yeah, it’s decent, it’s quite salty. I think the pepper was a good addition.
Too salty? A little bit too salty? Just okay for me, but then
I don’t usually eat salty foods. It is probably okay for most people then.
The bread is quite… It’s not warm,
it’s definitely
cold-ish, and it’s quite hard to rip off.
The bread could be better. The bread is a bit hard.
Need to have it with the soup. Definitely wouldn’t be able
to have this bread by itself. Yeah, you need it with the soup.
It’ll be interesting to try their lobster roll, because we have had New
England’s (San Francisco) one, which they specialise in lobster rolls,
now we get a direct comparison. It’s pretty good actually.
You got little bits of celery, it feels quite fresh.
Fresh lobster salad. The s
auce is good.
I added a little bit of salt and pepper and it tastes just right.
Yeah, pretty fresh lobster. Pretty good,
better than I expected for Disneyland. We’re back for round 2.
Pineapple juice. Pineapple juice this time.
It’s got ice cubes. Ice cubes!
Fresh! Cold! Shall we go sit on the side?
Refreshing! Perfect for this summers weather.
Again! It’s perfect, yeah.
It’s not too sweet, but you can taste like pineapple.
I wonder if it’s purely squeezed pineapple. Might have a little bit more
sugar.
Yeah, but you can definitely taste the pineapple. Definitely more pineapple than your
typical pineapple juice at the supermarket… surely. Then we went to the enchanted tiki room to watch the 20-minute show
of puppet birds singing. It’s 10 past 3 and we’re going to try go on Peter
Pan’s Flight. Current wait time is apparently 20 minutes, no genieplus for this ride, so we’re just
going to line up as normal. It’s 3:20, now it’s time to book It’s a small world on genieplus.
3:20? Oh, tha
t’s too soon. No, it gives you a 1 hour buffer, doesn’t it? Does it? Yeah.
Oh ok, 1 hour buffer. SO we’ll do that then. Peter’s Flight is a very comfortable ride
for any age and you get to sit in a small ship that is suspended in the air and flies through the night sky in London and Neverland.
We ranked this 9th out of 12. It’s a small world is
another comfortable boat ride past all the singing puppets and where
the iconic song plays over and over again, which was fine until our
boat got stuc
k and we had to listen to that song for 10 minutes straight.
We ranked this 12th out of 12. So the ride is stuck, and we’re stuck
listening to this song. It’s been like 5 minutes straight just listening to this
song. And they haven’t fixed the ride yet and we’re going backwards. We’re going
backwards. It’s going to do my head in. We’re booking Big Thunder Railroad.
Mountain Railroad! Now, for 4:15, which is
in 5 minutes. Big Thunder Railroad is very
similar to Matterhorn bobsled and we also
weren’t originally planning on going,
but we were happy we did. A comfortable amount of adrenaline for us,
we ranked this 3rd out of 12. We’re doing the Haunted Mansion now,
it’s 4:50pm. So many people!
And the line is so long! And this is even with genieplus.
Standby line is 60 minutes. The Haunted House was a
must-do around Halloween. During the first part,
you move through sections of the house while still technically waiting in line for the ride.
Then you go on this small black carriage whic
h travels along rails
and only fits two people. Here, it will take you past a lot of Halloween
characters and scenes. It actually wasn’t very scary at all.
We ranked this ride 10th out of 12. It only took us 10 minutes
to get here with genieplus, versus an hour. Pretty good!
Yeah! Finally made use of it!
Good use! We watched the Lincoln show
which shows a life-size puppet of President Abraham Lincoln
delivering his iconic speech. So people have already started sitting
on the sidewalk here, thi
s is Main St.
People have already started sitting here around…
what time? 5:30?
5:30 for a 6:30 parade. This is one hour early.
So we’re just going to go further up to the other side.
To around It’s a small world where it should be slightly less crowded.
We’re just standing here, there’s no one here yet.
But along from there onwards, it’s all full of people.
We’re starting a trend. By this time, it was a bit cooler,
and waiting outside wasn’t too bad, which is why we chose the later
time over t
he 3:30pm parade. For the 3:30pm one, they will make their way from
It’s a small world to the front of the theme park. For the 6:30pm parade,
they will make their way back in the other direction.
After researching online, the spot outside It’s a small world came highly
recommend for viewing the parade. It is not as busy and that is
where the floats turn a corner, which means there is plenty of time to
see the floats from different angles. At 7:15pm, for dinner, we shared a huge turkey leg
and
a Bratwurst with Sauerkraut from Edelweiss snacks and it was delicious.
It cost us $26.38 including tax. This one,
I’m looking at my phone because I can’t pronounce it.
Bratwurst with Sauerkraut. Basically it looks like a hotdog with pickled
Ummm pickled something.
I’ll see if I can tell you. Let’s try it.
It’s some sort of pickled vegetable. I actually can’t tell, because it’s so pickled.
It’s yum though. Sausage is good!
Would’ve liked maybe a little bit of ketchup on it or something,
but ma
ybe that’s not the proper way to eat it. That is huge! That is a turkey leg from
Edelweiss snacks. It’s still smoking! That’s my hand for size. It’s huge. Alright. There’s like
a bit of meat that’s about to fall off. Ooh! Look at that! It looks pink on the inside.
Mmmhhhh! Mmmmmmhhhhh!
Is it good? Looks good.
Tastes very good. Yeah?
I don’t think I have had a turkey drumstick before. Still hot, still tender. Wow! Not too
dry, got a nice subtle smoky flavour. Yeah, it’s pretty good. Oooh, nice
! Very filling.
We’re doing Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters. Last ride of the day, it is 10 past 8 and
we’re using the genieplus lightning lane. Buzz lightyear astroblasters
is an interactive ride where you get to shoot the
enemy of Buzz Lightyear ‘Zurg’. We rank this ride 8th out of 12. It's so dark. We’re literally just sitting in the middle of the street. We started waiting… what time is it? I can’t even read my watch. 8:30?
8:35? Fireworks are at 9:30 and
we’re already 1 hour early and we’
re already the later ones. But we found that if you
can’t get a view at the front, it’s better to come further back
so the castle is not blocked by the trees. Disneyland was definitely
a day we will never forget! But it did come with a few
small disappointments as well, which still didn’t outweigh all the highlights,
but we thought we would mention it. The castle was a lot smaller
than expected as I had previously been to Tokyo Disneyland and the castle was double the size
of the California
castle. But I guess you could understand that the
California castle was built a lot earlier. Another disappointment was that the view of the
castle during the fireworks weren’t the best due to lots of trees blocking the way
and the castle being small. You can move closer to the castle to get the
trees out of the way, but then you might end up being too close that
you can’t see the full scale of the fireworks. There also weren’t any rides from the
newer Disney movies. I think the only thing were
the Encanto projections on It’s a small
world. That was quite nice because that was from a newer Disney movie. Otherwise the
rides, they were all more older movies. We were also a little disappointed that the
Halloween fireworks were on instead of Disney100 as we were quite looking forward to the Disney100 special version.
They only played villain songs and Halloween is not that big in
New Zealand compared to America. We didn't like the Halloween one as much. That being said,
we loved our tim
e at Disneyland. I think our favourite food would have to be the
Dole Pineapple soft serve and juice. Our favourite part of the day
was the parade! It was truly world class with
amazing music and dancing. We hope this video helps you get the
most out of your Disneyland trip, especially if you are short on time.
Our next video will be on Universal Studios Hollywood,
so remember to subscribe to stay tuned. Bye!
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