How to do Disneyland right?

[mr2mike]

Good point.
The Indiana Jones ride too (not for little kids) seems to break quite a bit too. Widely known.
Haunted House has had issues the past few years we've gone as well.

[killramos]

Just my opinion. But ride appropriateness is often super dependent on your kid.

My 2 year old thought Pirates of the Caribbean was the best thing ever for example.

[ThePenIsMightier]

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We rushed for Rise on our second Disneyland day but it broke down before we even got to Galaxy's Edge. By the time it was up and running again an hour later the wait time stayed over 60 minutes for the rest of the day. And I'm not enough of a Star Wars fan to pay $25 for one ride, so we missed that one.

I'd recommend rope dropping that one if it's on your must do list.

This still doesn't work that well as you can't beat the on-site hotel guests because they get admission 1 hr early and all line up at the edge of Galaxy's Edge. They are 400 meters in front of you at "rope drop" and there are lots of them.
That's what my group did and still ended up with 25 min waits at 07:30:01 but that kicks the shit out of 90 min.

Rise of the Resistance is fucking amazing, though. Budget to spend that reservation money.

[ThePenIsMightier]

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Just my opinion. But ride appropriateness is often super dependent on your kid.

My 2 year old thought Pirates of the Caribbean was the best thing ever for example.

True. As a general rule, Cali Adventure rides are more extreme, such as Incredicoaster and Guardians Elevator Drop.
But I've seen my a 9yo fucking cry on Splash Mountain but beg to get directly back in line for Guardians Tower...

Some kids are named Walker & Texas Ranger while others are named Dr. Quinn & Medicine Woman...

[Rocket1k78]

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Finally booked a trip for October with the family, super pumped! First timers so anyone care to critique my plan?

Arrive Saturday evening - Chill/do something simple depending on how fussy kids are
Sunday - Park Hopper start at California Adventure
Monday - Park Hopper start at Disneyland?
Tuesday - Park Hopper start at California Adventure
Wednesday - Rent a car in morning and go to Lego Land
Thursday Afternoon - fly home

- will definitely add Genie+ and buy individual Lightning Lanes for the popular ones like Radiator Springs Racers
- 2 kids under 6, 1 boy 1 girl, they aren't very good walkers
- boy loves Cars, girl into typical princess stuff, we like Star Wars
- Sundays and Tuesdays there is a halloween thing, so they kick everyone out of California Adventure at 6ish i believe. So i guess best to Park Hop starting at CA on Sunday/Tuesday?
- Staying off site (10-15 min walk away) as I am not Beyond Baller status

Questions:
Should we do Park Hopper for all 3 days, or just do 1 park a day? And if just 1 park per day, which one should we do for the third day?
Kids are slow walkers / can't walk very far. Do we bring a wagon/stroller? do they rent them there or do i need to check one in luggage?
What's the best strategy for food? Are the options inside decent? Stampede like prices or worse? Or do people usually pack something in?

As mentioned, dont get a park hopper. You only really need a day if that at Cali adventure unless you want to see and do literally everything. I would also forget Legoland, 4 theme park days in less than a week with 2 young kids will be a nightmare for everyone. I would just stay in Anaheim and take a rest day in between. Get the Genie but make sure you know how it works, my wife took care of it but there was something about you not being able to book the next ride if your time over lapped it or some shit like that.

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We missed out on Nintendo world by a couple of weeks. I heard it's a shit show since opening, and can't pay to skip lines. Fuck that.

Wife and kids were just there for the Taylor swift concert and went to universal and you can definitely pay to skip the lines. I think she said it was an additional $200usd per person though but she said they pretty much walked on every ride.

[ExtraSlow]

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Some kids are named Walker & Texas Ranger while others are named Dr. Quinn & Medicine Woman...

Just keep them all jacked up on mountain dew.

[killramos]

Hey so aside from Uber. Anyone have a reccomendation for a car service booking?

Need a suburban for the group size, just curious if anyone has had any experience with one. Lots of choices in LA.

Big bonus if they can provide a car seat. Have a lateish flight in and don’t really want to fuck around that night.

[ThePenIsMightier]

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Hey so aside from Uber. Anyone have a reccomendation for a car service booking?

Need a suburban for the group size, just curious if anyone has had any experience with one. Lots of choices in LA.

Big bonus if they can provide a car seat. Have a lateish flight in and don’t really want to fuck around that night.

We used Karmel Shuttle and it was very good. We were driven in a Yukon and had direct contact with the driver. He took us directly to the DL Hotel and was familiar with how to navigate that weirdness.
I'd bet they have a booster for sure, but an actual car seat might be a stretch, but you can call them.

[killramos]

Looked into Karmel, not only were they a fair bit more expensive than other car services, but they had pretty prohibitive policies around car seats:

We DO NOT provide child safety seats. Children (including infants) may not sit or ride on the lap of another passenger. We are not able to provide child seats or boosters as each child seat is designed "specifically for each child's age, height and weight". We simply are not able to provide the proper size child seat for all sizes of children. As a result, we are not able to offer child seats or boosters.

Ended up booking something with a service called "Blacklane"
https://www.blacklane.com/en/

Seems kindof like an uber style service but with pre reservation, they claim as long as I pre book and include in my booking they will provide car seats free of charge. cancellable until an hour before pickup which isn't the worst. Was about $405 USD all in including meet and greet which seemed pretty good.

Alternatively, I found this other service "Executive Car Service" whose base price was ~$300 plus $18 per way for a car seat. But didn't provide meet and greet. I am assuming this is similar to Blacklane in that they just contract out to drivers but also seems a solid option.
https://www.executivecarservicelax.com/

I guess we will see how it goes haha, really would prefer to not have to bring and install my child seat which just seems like a pain.

[Justing]

We used Executive car service a couple times, each time the driver had the car seat installed, he just asked us to check it over.
Direct contact with the driver, we'd get an email of who it was and then he'd text me.

I also absolutely refuse to travel with car seats. haha