G’day all, we (wife and I + 5yr + 10yr + 13yr) are hoping to make our way over to Disneyland from Australia in Dec 2026. We originally planned WDW, but the castle refurb has thrown a spanner in the works. We are now pivoting to DL. We have done Disneyland Paris twice, for 5 and 6 days, so we like to take things slow and have naps during the day to utilise early/late hours. I have a few questions, please:
We wanted to come the week after Thanksgiving (arrive 29th - have 6 park days and fly out 6th Dec). This way we pick up our anniversary, and crowds are supposedly ok this week. However, none of the crowd calendars seem to mention the Candlelight Processional. If we have no interest in this event, should it be an issue?
Fireworks and parades seem to occur every night at present, but I think that’s due to 70th anniversary celebrations. Come 2026, should we assume only Fri-Sun for fireworks and parades? We absolutely do not want to travel this far and miss the fireworks and parades!
It is my understanding Candlelight just moves parades to the daytime (still two parades), and fireworks still occur at night?
Would we be better crowd-wise, coming the week after next year? The crowd calendar shows the week of the 7th a bit quieter than the week of the 30th this year. Maybe park days 1st - 6th next December would be better and allow us 3 chances to see fireworks/parades?
How late can we book tickets and off-site accommodation for DL? For DLP, we booked 12 months out, as dining goes so fast, you need to. We are worried about the new ESTA requirements, so we want to wait for them to manifest (or not) before we put down our hard-earned dollarydoos. Not that we have anything to hide, quite the opposite, we don’t have social media (bar YouTube), so we are worried that we will be flagged as suspect!
We are tossing up between the Tropicana or Desert Inn, as we need space for 5 and like to spread out a bit. We don’t need the kitchens, more so the room, and extra bathrooms. Pricing up it seems cheapest to book accommodation directly with hotels and tickets from a reseller like AttractionTickets or Klook down here. Getaway Today doesn’t seem cheaper in my tests, but possibly because no deals have been released yet?
I don’t really have answers, as I’ve not been to DLR since I was a teenager. However, a couple things.
First, are you, in general, asking about how does the CP impact your normal planning in the parks?
Second, at WDW, the dates and celebrity narrators aren’t announced until a few months ahead of time, so I don’t think it would show up on the calendar in general before then. However, you can probably look at historical dates to get an idea of when the CP will be happening.
I’m not Disneyland knowledgeable either. @lolabear_la and @Wahoohokie both have good current info.
One thing I’ve noticed is the consistent mention that advanced planning isn’t as necessary for DL/DCA.
We’re planning a trip in June '26 to take advantage of the 70th celebration. Our last DL/DCA trip was in 2013. We booked travel last June and booked lodging last week I think it was. 2 nights with 3 queen beds but only one bathroom at Park Vue Inn, because of its location. Probably will get park admission media in early 2026. I don’t know if we’ll book dining at all.
At DL, Candlelight is only done one weekend and it’s always the first weekend in December. There is only 1 celebrity narrator and this person is not announced until they walk onto stage for the first show. In 2026 it will be 12/5 and 6.
Hello and welcome! I am a very frequent DLR visitor so hopefully can help you out. I’ve also been to DL Paris twice in recent years, and there are a lot of similarities with that layout and DLR so it should feel very familiar. Much different than WDW’s layout which is huge and like visiting a large city with it’s transportation.
I was just at DLR for part of this week this year (12/2&3), and go this week many years. While it is much more crowded than it used to be pre-Covid, it’s still a great time to go. The crowds are mostly there for all of the holiday offerings which are not behind a paywall like they are at WDW. So it will feel like there are people everywhere, but the actual ride lines aren’t bad which is why TP says they were a 4/5 on my days even though many would say it felt like a 10. Town Square by the train station and Main Street will be packed that Sat and Sun for Candlelight. Most of the seating area is for VIPs/celebrities, but if you aren’t interested just plan ahead with timing and maybe avoid those areas from mid afternoon on as it will be quite crowded. Looking at the crowd calendar from this year, Sat and Sun were 2’s in DL! Perfect for riding rides and ignoring what is happening in Town Square. DCA will be more crowded those days as people try to avoid the crowds in DL will head there with their 1 park per day tickets, or in the afternoon assuming DL will be packed. By the way, get park hoppers!
Most years there are fireworks every night in December, but I would plan on them only being on Friday-Sunday, and if they are every night you will be thrilled. It will be the Christmas parade and Believe…in Holiday Magic showing. World of Color is every night, but Fantasmic is usually only on the weekend.
This year the crowd calendar shows the parades were changed to 12:45 and 3 (instead of 3 and 5:30) and FW were at their regular time.
I can’t say from experience as I always go the first week. I do see the Magic Keys are all unblocked all weekdays of the first 2 weeks, so you are going to see about the same number of locals with passes both weeks.
Dining is less of a deal at DLR, though there are a few that are good to have for a one time trip. Dining is released 60 days out, no benefit to staying onsite for that. As for hotels, book as soon as you have your dates set, but always book a refundable rate and change as needed. I would recommend onsite though, since this is a special trip from a long way away. The real world lives outside the gates, which I don’t necessarily want to see on an expensive vacation. I am partial to the Disneyland Hotel, but have stayed at all 3 and all 3 are great in their own ways.
I have stayed at the Desert Inn quite a few times, the location is it’s best feature. Friends have stayed in the suites with the 2 rooms/multiple beds and 2 bathrooms and liked it well enough for the space. It’s just an okay hotel though. I have never stayed at the Tropicana.
I always book things separately as I think you get better deals. It is quite early for deals, being a year out. Hope this is helpful!
It’s always been like this, so people are used to it in California. Some would say it’s more personal, and special, and not the money making machine (with dining packages) that it is in WDW.
Yes, I know when it is happening as I have identified that it can impact my plans. I am trying to ascertain how much. The 2025 crowd calendar doesnt show an obvious spike. So if crowds are still OK, the next thing is to determine what events are impacted. I know the parades are moved to the daytime, but haven’t seen any mention of the fireworks on the CP weekend? And then related to this, is it just as easy to come the week after? This years crowd calender shows no difference but 2026 shows an increase…
Ah thank you so much for addressing all my questions!
We weren’t planning on park hoppers to save money (and we could meander in a Disney park all day no worries!), but we reflected on our DLP trips where we did it a lot, and now, factoring in Candlelight Procession, it’s probably a worthwhile investment.
That’s good to know about December, but we will do as you say - expect the minimum. So in the worst case, we would see World of Color every night, Fantasmic on Fri-Sun, and then the Christmas parade and Believe fireworks on Fri-Sun? Is that the minimum?
Onsite vs offsite - we would love to stay in the bubble. But we just can’t justify the cost when a- they are often further away (we nap and often forget stuff so have to run back to the room) and b- they have removed the early entry perk. We always stay on site at DLP due to the heavy theming and perks, and there aren’t many other options. And we would at WDW but for DL we just see a cost savings opportunity. However, I haven’t seen any “deals” for accommodation + tickets on site yet, so maybe that would help?
We are definitely staying for the location. As long as the beds are horrific and it’s infested, we are happy to save the $ here to spend more in the park.
My preliminary pricing has Pixar as the cheapest package @ US$8500 but then Tropicana and Desert Inn separate pricing at US$6k so it’s a very substantial difference over the 7 nights. Again, this reinforces why off-site would be better for us. Would love to never leave the gates, but $3k is a massive difference. Should I expect that gap to close substantially when Dec 2026 deals are released?
This will be every day, twice a day for your whole trip. But yes, what you stated is the minimum.
The beds are fine! It’s clean. I just like to make sure people know what they are getting when they stay offsite on Harbor. I get the cost of onsite is a lot. We own DVC at the Disneyland Hotel so it’s easy for me to say just stay onsite.
I don’t know about the gap closing the closer it gets. I do know that the price difference in the last few years between onsite and offsite has gotten smaller. The offsite hotels used to be like $100-150 US a night and are now charging more like $300 a night, and they are definitely not worth that. The onsite hotels have not gone up as much it seems. We stayed at Pixar Place in late May on a discounted rate, and it was $351.40-382.20 a night for our 4 nights. I would much rather pay that for Pixar Place than $300plus at Desert Inn. I honestly don’t book packages, always separate so I can change things around easily.
Welcome to the West/Best Coast Klattsy! You’ve got some great answers from our resident bi-coastal expert Karen (she really does know the most about the both of them combined)! But still jotting down my own input (which pretty much agrees with her).
The one note I have overall is that you’ve mentioned 6 park days. Is there a ticket pass that is offered to the Australian market that will give you 6 park days? For us in the US market, the max number of days offered for DL is 5 days. I know they might offer longer for other markets so it could very well be you can get 6 days but calling that out in case.
Totally agree with there being no issue re: the Candlelight Processional & general park-wide crowds, especially if you’re planning to avoid the event. As mentioned, it’s mostly for VIP/invited guests who get all the seats and then any park guests who wants to standby watch it can stand in overflow space (all around the walkways around the very front and along Main St). All that to say, Main Street and DL’s entry WILL be jam-packed and grid locked. The best plan will put you either happily tucked back beyond Main St in any of the lands in DL or across the way in DCA for those evenings (although I see Karen looked up the crowds and said DCA is busier and so prob best to avoid that as well). But definitely, no matter what avoid all of Main Street up through the DL entrance from about 3pm until the crowd has cleared (which could be all the way until after fireworks - but you still can plan to watch fireworks from Main St if you’re wanting that view, you’ll just have to join that fray about 45 minutes to an hour before fireworks).
Agree again to plan for weekends only and be thrilled with bonus days if it’s every day! For both parade and fireworks, it will depend on if Disney is trying to get cost savigns by only running entertainment on weekends, or if they’re needing to draw in crowds and then put on entertainment other days to help draw them in. And then for fireworks, it will depend on if Anaheim grants DLR permission to do fireworks daily between Thanksgiving and through the New Years Eve (which they do most years, but not all). So not a given, especially when the city and DL are power playing each other as they sometimes do.
Karen gave you all the facts here and she’s absolutely right.
I wouldn’t look too closely at the crowd levels between those 2 weeks because even if you pick the one that tends to be lower based on historical levels, a) it’s not going to be terribly different since school breaks and Magic Key Pass reservations will be about the same between the two and b) if the week that you picked for the slightly crowds ends up having a random influx due to some announcement or change made soon before, it may not matter at all (DLR being in such a populous area with loyal local attendees makes it hard to really pin down patterns for many years). Disney has been trying to get a better control on that by capping Magic Key sales & reservations and even having a reservation system at all, so it’s definitely less of an issue, but there are still a lot of people living within an afternoon’s driving distance to Anaheim and if there is something compelling, they can and will take up all the allotted reservation space they can which could lead to busier feels even if they aren’t all standing in the lines, which is what the crowd level is measured with).
I also recommend locking in a hotel rate as soon as you can, for better pricing (there’s no dining that ties into onsite hotel EXCEPT that there is theoretically a concierge desk that can get you dining reservations as an onsite guest but they don’t again advertise it much and I don’t know off-hand how one would get in touch with that aside from calling the hotel and asking there). But definitely book only a fully refundable hotel (easy to do at DLR). As for tickets, you will need you to make reservations for your park dates, but I don’t foresee any challenges with park days being sold out if you wait until even just the week before (for such a big trip I would lock in the park reservations at least a week, 2-3 if you can). Just so you get your pick of park days on the days you want. If you do change your mind about an onsite stay, one unadvertised benefit is that onsite hotel guests do get a separate pool of reservations to pull from for their park tickets that’s available by linking your hotel stay and tickets to your Disney login. When you have that pool to book from instead of the general ticket reservation, you gain flexibility to have your dates available for either park in almost all cases. So just some food for thought if you need to push hitting submit on that ticket order all the way to the brink.
We stay away from the Desert Inn on principal after a bad taste left from an experience with their manager, but it is the closer of the 2 and meets the needs of being close and reasonable. The Tropicana was our first go-to hotel when we first started going to DL and it’s been a long while since we’ve stayed there but they were more than reasonable and also nearly as close as Desert Inn. And our experience with them was always decent (but not always the warmest at the front desk, the valet guys though were always so nice). Our favorite offsite is Park Vue Inn, and they have some limited suite configurations. They are pricier but they don’t charge for parking (which we do use because we drive to DL from home). The hotel is about as close as you can get to the pedestrian crossing and their customer service at the desk is very warm. Other options that have larger rooms include Marriott Courtyard and Residence Inn near the Convention Center (but again, both of those are pricer and we’ve only stayed at the Residence Inn with a steep Marriott discount). I do fully agree with Karen, that for such a trip, to consider any of the onsite hotels. DL is my favorite as well, but as Karen said they each have great things. And an idea, since you have 6 park days so doing all of it onsite is expensive, would you consider a split stay? Maybe 3-4 nights offsite for the savings, and then transfer to onsite for the last bit to end in style and within the bubble and with the flexibility of park reservations to be able to switch park days around if needed? Just a thought.
For ticket deals the ones I hear most about are Getaway Today, Undercover Tourist and Ares. And for the offsite hotels particularly, I have always found the best deal booking directly. It will also give you better flexibility with cancellation dates as packages are usually 30+ days out for cancellation whereas direct hotel reservations can be refundable up to 2-5 days in advance.
And whatever you research or need help deciding on, ask away all the questions! We love to help, even if there’s not very many of us on the DL side!
We’ve finally booked lodging - 3 queens at Park Vue Inn. Location location
Probably get tickets in January or February from my nearby Army Morale and Rec office.
As for dining, I think we might wing it.
Our transportation arrives very early on the 8th. And leaves late on the 10th. This seems like a lot of time compared to our November 2013 trip when we arrived about park opening - had breakfast while we waited - and left after supper. No clue where we ate!
Winging it is so easy at DLR for dining. Even with the table service there is a lot of walk-up availability and chance.
So I’d say that’s a great plan! If you need good bench recommendations, I’ve got a few! But basically anything that looks at the Rivers of America or the window above the Fire Station (Walt’s Apartment).
OP! You should go to Disney world!! There’s just much more to do with your kids’ wide age range and it’s so easy to stay in the bubble and stay within a reasonable budget. They don’t even have a set date for repainting the castle unless I’ve missed some news recently
It is worth noting that the work of painting the castle should have minimal impact on daytime guests. They try to keep most of that work out of sight of guests.
