We had been to Disney World a couple of times but last Friday was our first trip to Disneyland. Since we only had 1 day we went with park hopper and Genie + tickets and used ILL. We decided to have a pretty unstructured day and take our time enjoying the parks, but wanted to pass along how much we were able to get done anyway.
Arrived at Toy Story Bullseye lot at 7:15am for an 8:00 opening. Through the gates by 7:45, and were about 100 feet behind the rope drop line. We went to Radiator Springs first in the standby line. We were off that ride around 8:35. We then took pictures around Radiator Springs and kids (10 & 14) rode Mater’s ride.
We then moved over to Pixar Pier, and rode Toy Story Mania, Goofy Sky School, Ferris Wheel and Incredicoaster all using standby line. It was now about 10:30, and we stopped for snacks & drinks. Grabbed an 11:15 ILL for Webslingers and 11:30 LL for Guardians and went to walk around Marvel area. After Marvel, we grabbed lunch and then secured a 1:15 LL for Soarin California. At this point, around 1:30, we then hopped over to Disneyland.
After entry we walked around Main Street and took pictures in front of the castle. We did Snow White standby and walked through the castle waiting for our 2:45 Matterhorn LL. We then scored 3:00 LL for Star Tours, followed by 3:15 LL for Buzz. We had a 4:05 ILL for Rise, so took some time walking around Galaxy’s Edge until 4:05.
Our family loved Incredicoaster, so we grabbed a 5:00 LL and hopped back over to DCA to ride it again, followed by a Starbucks rest break for coffee and snacks. Everything else in DCA was 45-60 minutes wait standby (we had already secured Indiana Jones LL, so couldn’t grab any others in DCA at this time), so we decided to hop back to DL, and it was now about 6:15.
Back at DL we rode Star Tours again with about 15 minutes standby wait. We had a 7:00 LL for Indiana Jones, then rode Jungle Cruise with a 30 minute standby wait. We stopped by the bakery on main street to grab snacks and drinks, then at 8:30 went to find a spot on Main Street for the 9:00 firework show. After fireworks, had a 9:30 LL for Big Thunder Mountain and then did Alice in Wonderland. Grabbed a 10:00 LL for Splash Mountain, and then called it a night. At this point we had logged 31,000 steps and had finished everything we wanted to ride.
Since we had been to Disney World a couple times, we didn’t care to ride Falcon or Space Mountain, which is why we didn’t add those into our day.
Genie Plus is definitely worth the money, if you can swing it. We did all of this and our longest wait was probably 30 minutes all day. I still think we prefer Disney World, but Disneyland was very enjoyable for our 1 day trip.
