This will be a little long, please bear with me. Need a little itinerary help, or suggestions on how best to utilize Touring plans to plan.
Background: I’m taking my granddaughter, age 9 to Disneyland for the first time in August. It’s still a possibility that my 2 other granddaughters age 5 and 7 and their other grandma will join us (fingers crossed, find out later this week)
We will fly in on a Monday morning at SNA, staying at the Disneyland Hotel, plan to spend the afternoon at the pool, with dinner at Goofys Kitchen. My granddaughter (9) and I went to WDW last summer, the other 2 have never been to Disney (They are on my hotel res, waiting on Moms ok to buy their park tickets)
We have 3 day park hoppers. Reservations DL on Tues, DCA on Wed, DL on Thurs. Thurs evening after 8, we will be transferring to the Hilton near Universal. Friday is our Universal Hollywood day, and we will fly home on Sat.
My granddaughter has a DAS, due to some anxiety/ sensory issues, but as long as we keep the waits less than 20 minutes or so, and take some short break in a quieter area or show, or slow type ride like small world, etc things worked our well at WDW. We didn’t rope drop, but started close to opening time, and usually went back to hotel by nine, except for one evening for the fireworks.
My mom recently passed away; her greatest joys were family, especially her grandchildren, and travel. So when I inherited some money after her passing, I did responsible things like adding to college funds, etc, but I earmarked funds for travel splurges, and general grandchild spoilage. So, on both Tues and Wed afternoons, starting at 1pm, we will have a VIP tour.
The plan is to breakfast in the room (cereal, banana etc) walk to the park around opening, ride things or see shows that we perhaps don’t want to spend tour time on, like the animation class in DCA, or maybe small world or pirates,or the train that take longer to do. Eat a good lunch at noon before our tour, prob do a quick mobile order in the evening. Will end the tour with the fireworks on one day, Fantasmic the other, taking advantage of Tour reserved areas, so we won’t be waiting a long time or in too crowded an area which would be an issue for my granddaughter with the DAS. Definitely want kids to see the electric parade, hopefully the tour can help us out there also.
Wed will be for rerides or things we didn’t get to, I’m not sure what time WOC usually runs, but it’s probably too late, I’d like leave the parks between 8- 830, so we aren’t too late arriving to our Universal hotel. We plan to start that day with the Princess Adventure breakfast at Napa Rose, so a later start. I’ll have Genie +, mostly for photopass. Will probably buy Genie + for the non-Das grandkids/other grandma for Wed, as the DAS holder is not as adventurous as the others and they may want to ride things she won’t try. On the other days we will have the tour to take care of that, and will all do stuff together in the morning.
So, frequent DL’ers what are your suggestions for best shows or attractions our DL and DCA mornings?
I have been playing around with doing a touring plan, but unsure how to handle DAS. Check the app and use estimated wait times? When we did WDW last year, we usually got a return time from a moderate wait attraction, and then did a short wait time one nearby or a snack/bathroom break, photos, if we were doing a show or a meal,we would request a return time at a longer wait attraction, then return after the show or after the meal. I don’t know how or if I can build a touring plan around that. I’d prefer not to do a lot of land hopping.
And last summer, the fastpass/lightning lanes were only used for recovery passes, DAS, and tours, so with the extra people from Genie or ILLS, not sure how that affects the wait when we return. And haven’t done DAS request with the ap ( I have an Android which I’ve heard is buggy with the app), or scanned in without magic bands. I’m thinking about having our tickets on a lanyard clipped to my backpack for scanning; having used my phone for scanning into plays or concert or boarding airplane, I’m truly bad at it. ( And with having to scan in LL for 5 people, at potentially 2 check points…not good)
So morning attraction suggestions on tour days? Not Haunted Mansion,hard no from granddaughter.
How to set up touring plan with DAS to optimize those tour day mornings and our last day?