That’s the way I would do it. DCA will just get more and more full all day. Not to say that DL won’t get busy, but it will trend towards being more full with the families and all adults who are leaving DCA along with you and combining with the families already in DL while most of the teens will gravitate back to DCA for their special events that are only at DCA. And as an added bonus if you’re really trying to avoid the teens, the price for them to be able to hop to be able to do both has much increased over the recent years (so less of them are in DL at all).
That’s tough. The jump from 2 to 3 isn’t quite worth it for that partial arrival day and if you knew for sure you would use it, I would say it’s still worth it. But where you don’t know you’ll use it, I can’t say I’d recommend springing for it. You could always get the two day tickets, reserve the 2 full days now and once you arrive to Anaheim, if all the stars align add a day at the ticket booths and head straight in (but you would need reservations to be available for the day you’re arriving on top of knowing you’d feel up to staying for whatever amount of time you felt worth it for that partial day).
Another argument to back-up just keeping the 2 days, when we’ve either been blocked out or had to go on tickets because APs weren’t available, we’ve always used that arrival day as a way to force a rest/slow down day. Those trips allow us to give the kids pool time and a more relaxed pace to actually wander DTD if/when we get bored of sitting in the hotel and/or around the pool. I never like or try to plan those days in DL because I just love being in the parks so much, but when they happen I do always appreciate the forced time out of the parks.
And you can even watch the fireworks (without any of the audio, but still decent views of the bursts) from the esplanade if they are able to stay out that late and still be up early and at 'em for rope drop your first morning. And if you stay right across from Harbor, depending on the hotel, you may be able to see fireworks either just outside your motel door or on a rooftop patio area that some of them have for either their pool or eating area.
Your offsite hotel cost will be less than $400/night, so that’s one place to shave off a few hundred dollars. I agree with your thought about just doing two days. They will be long days, but I think you and your kids will need that full day of rest before hitting the parks. And… the San Diego Zoo is the best zoo ever!!! I suggest the bus tour first thing in the day to get a grand overview and then you can think about what you want to go back and see up close. I think your kids will love it.
This is why DL is cheaper than WDW for me - we can easily drive (I also don’t have dog boarding, but that counts both places). We usually only stay 3 nights, sometimes as much as 5, and stick to DL (no Legoland, etc.) and maybe have a couple of beach days.
That said, I think we will be doing a separate trip to San Diego later this year for Legoland, the zoo, Sea World, etc. We’ll see.
If Autoslash comes through for me like it did for our Colorado trip last year, I’ll probably get the car rental down a lot. For that CO trip, our minivan started at like $800 but I got it down to like $300 over a few months of rebooking. It was nuts. If you don’t know what Autoslash is, go check it out.
Thanks for saying the name of that thing again. I keep forgetting it. Since we are more inclined to get a car in the last few trips, it would come in handy! Going to the site now and adding a bookmark!
My DW and I are similar to you, WDW usuals, but never been to DL. We went without our kids a couple weeks ago and visited the parks 3 consecutive days. Obviously its easier without kids, but we felt we were able to do everything we wanted on our trip and would have been just as happy with only 2 days instead of three.
We went really hard day 1 between the two parks, got Genie+, and did quite a bit. Day 2, we didn’t have Genie+, but rope dropped DCA to get Spidey and a few other rides in. Then we spent a few hours at the pool and came back late afternoon for a relaxing night of dinner and essentially the only ride we did was the train for a few laps. Day 3 we hit it hard again and had Genie+.
If you removed Day 2, we still would have felt perfectly happy with our trip and accomplished everything we wanted. Don’t know how DAS works, but I would say Genie+ was huge in helping us accomplish everything in 2 days.
I stayed at Camelot in early December. @Ms.BarbsWildRide did also I believe.
Recently renovated. Very comfortable and spacious. Great location. We grabbed breakfast from McDonald’s next door each morning. We had a family suite, which is basically two rooms that share a bathroom. Connecting rooms is an option if you need a second bathroom.
There’s a small pool and hot tub on the fourth floor. Nothing exciting, but you can see the fireworks from there.
Definitely should be able to find cheaper accommodations at DL. $400 is more than Paradise Pier the dates I’m going. I would check the hotels near the convention center as they are a little cheaper than across the street.
I am a fan of Camelot as well. We were going to get the suite, but with 4 adults and two teen boys, we really needed that second bathroom. We ended up with two adjoining rooms. In your scenario, I would absolutely opt for the suite.
Jordan, just back from four days in the parks with my niece and her family. She has five kids ages 4-8 all of whom qualify for DAS. You will probably move a little more efficiently with five than we did with eight, but temper your expectations. DAS worked great for us but it could still be hard to do a lot.
It was hot last week (two days of 90 degree temps) so we were aiming for a break from 11 or so to 3 or 4. Parks were open from 8 to 8 while we were there. We managed to do about four attractions in the morning and another three or four after our break. I would plan for that and anything more is gravy.
We did not do any advance selections for DAS as we couldn’t do one for 8 people and splitting into two groups got complicated. Our strategy was to get a return time for a popular attraction and then get in standby line for something with a short line. But often DAS return times would be within 10-15 minutes.
Thanks for updating. I’ve booked flights, hotel, and car rental. Need to pull the trigger on park tickets now. But then we’re fully committed. Need to talk to DW about a third park day to at least get in a few hours on arrival day.
