Hello,
We plan to visit Disneyland on October 15, but may choose to add a second day and go early on October 14. Can I add a second day to my existing one day ticket in this way?
I am about to buy the one day ticket, and we know we want Genie Plus for Oct 15, but if we decided to add Oct 14 we wouldn’t want to pay for Genie Plus that day… in this case, should I buy the one day Oct 15 ticket without Genie Plus, and just buy it the day of? Or would I be able to add Oct 14 ticket without Genie Plus as a 2 day ticket?
How likely are they to sell out of Genie Plus, or to increase the cost for the day of?
I know if you add Genie Plus at time of ticket purchase you have to add it for all days, so I would assume if you add a day you would need to add Genie Plus to it as well.
You can add a day to an existing ticket; however, you are usually upgrading your ticket from one # of days to another or adding features. So if you have Genie+ included, I don’t think you can upgrade your ticket to one for which Genie+ is not included while retaining Genie+ for the existing day. But maybe – you’d probably have to visit Guest Services / ticket booth to accomplish this, whereas you can usually simply add a day in the app (I believe – it’s been awhile since I’ve done this).
However! I would be careful about this plan in general because park reservations are already running out for some days in October. October 14th only has availability for Disneyland right now (no DCA). All reservations are gone for 10/13 and 10/20. Often if you arrive later in the day availability opens up at some point, even if it was gone earlier in the day. But no guarantee of that.
This is moot if you are a Disney hotel guest, because they will typically hold availability for you.
I think this would be the easiest way to accomplish it.
Unlikely, and if they do run out, it would be after noon.
There’s a pretty good chance it will be $30 day of vs. $25 in advance. About 25% of days are $30 and 75% are $25, but October is a busy time and those are weekend days.
Thank you! I went ahead and bought the tickets for the 15th without Genie Plus, and will just buy it the day of. That way if we want to try to go the 14th (if still available), we can do it without Genie Plus to save a little on that extra day.
I can’t believe I put off booking for so long - I am bummed that we can’t go to DCA now unless we get Park Hopper, and it’s just out of the budget. But we were only planning the one day, and Disneyland was the priority since we have young elementary kids, so all is good.
Great advice, thank you! Honestly, I didn’t realize how much there is to do at Disneyland so maybe we should do two days there with a 5yo and 8yo anyhow, if we add a day? We haven’t been to WDW for a couple years now but they wouldn’t even ride anything scarier than 7DMT last times so not sure what to expect from them! We will be at Universal earlier on our trip so we will know more their appetite for rides I think by the time we get to Disney.
Young kids will probably have more fun at Disneyland honestly, though there are some fun attractions at DCA for young kids (and depending on their heights and feelings about thrill rides, they might really love the whole park).
Agree with all the wisdom Jeff has doled out for you & will echo that you should definitely stalk availability on the reservation calendar.
For the first time in many moons we did a bit of an impromptu trip to DLR where we didn’t have park reservations secured until we were two days out, and when we left we only had 1.5 of the 3 days we needed (we could only find reservations on a 2nd day for part of our group). It was a little wild, but everyday by stalking it wildly we were able to find availability for us for all the days we wanted in all the parks we wanted too.
We also realized that looking for smaller than our whole group of six really helped us be able to grab reservations for us 1 or 2 at a time, until we could get all six of us with a reservation & then try to modify to the other park if we preferred. So you could search for availability in pairs (just make sure to pair 1 adult with each child in your searching so there’s always an adult for supervision) to see if that helps find availability.
Another question a little off topic but don’t know where else to ask it… Is there a section on the forum for Universal Studios Hollywood? We are spending a day there too so wanted to go read up, since this is my favorite place for intel. But I can’t seem to find the spot!
No dedicated spot on the forum, unfortunately. There are some trip reports over the last year or so that include time at Universal Hollywood. I know @Jeff_AZ did a day and @JustKeepSmiling also went with her family for I think several days. There are probably more that I’m not remembering or didn’t catch.
I wrote this response to one of my friends who recently asked me about USH:
To see Nintendo World, my advice is:
Pay the extra $20/person (I think) to buy early entry to Nintendo World when you get your tickets. Arrive as early as possible. The line for MarioKart is short in the morning but quickly builds to as much as 3 hours all day until the evening when it usually dies down.
As soon as you get in the park, check to make sure you don’t need to join the virtual queue. They will require virtual queue if they expect to be at capacity. They will usually remove the virtual queue requirement in the evening. Even if you get into the land in the morning, join the virtual queue again just in case. Anyone in your party with a phone can join at different times for your whole party. It’s not linked to your tickets. (Same as VQ for Hagrid’s in Orlando.)
You also need to add a separate virtual queue / mobile order to eat at the Toad restaurant, which you can reserve early in the day — don’t wait until you are ready to eat or it will be out of reservation times.
If you do all that, you can finish Nintendo World in the morning by noon and then do all the Harry Potter stuff (Forbidden Journey is the only major ride plus the Hippogriff kiddie coaster) in the afternoon (usually not as long a wait in this land anymore). You could go back to Nintendo World later or do some of the other rides (Jurassic World and The Mummy are my faves). It’s also worth doing the 1 hour backlot tram tour. It’s pretty unique and cool. There’s a Water World (yes that one) stunt show that is fun. Get dinner at the Three Broomsticks or somewhere in CityWalk.
I don’t recommend two days for Universal Hollywood unless you really want to see every single thing.
But I can’t seem to find the spot!