Week before or of Thanksgiving?

FromALandDownUnder

Earning My Ears
Joined
Oct 6, 2017
Planning to fly to California from November 14-23 and looking for advice re Disneyland crowds - best to go to LA first and then down to Disney for the few days before Thanksgiving or will it be too busy, better to do Disney first and then LA? I'm travelling with three kids aged 11,15 & 17 :)
 
We were there last year 20th - 27th nov. We had a fantastic time.
We stayed at Homewood suites Anaheim convention centre which gave us a seperate bedroom a living area, kitchen, free breakfast and a free evening meal on select nights of the week I think it was mon - Thursday. You walked next door to the toy story parking lot and caught the bus to the park. Not sure if you have booked accomodation yet but it was great with teens.
Try to be at Disneyland for a weekend fri night - sun night as some of the night time events such as fireworks or parades are only on weekends till after thanksgiving or December. If you plan to be at Disney on thanksgiving see if you can book the thanksgiving buffet at Disneyland hotel. It is expensive but for our first thanksgiving and probably only it was a great experience.
We did not enter the parks on thanksgiving day. We went to the buffet, a movie at downtown Disney Moana and played some games at espn at down town Disney. Had a great time.
We also got to see the Christmas parade which I think started the weekend before thanksgiving.
I found the parks to be ok crowd wise on the days leading up to thanksgiving and the weekend before. The Friday and Saturday after thanksgiving in regards to crowds was terrible.
We had planned to go on the Friday in the morning before our other activities but got in the que and gave up.
Went back to our hotel had a swim( it was warm enough last year) then went to an ice hockey game in the afternoon before ending the day shopping at the Black Friday sales.
We actually stayed in Anaheim the whole time and did tours from Anaheim to la to do things we wanted to do. I hate having to waste a changer over day if they won't let you check in till 4.
I am the type of person who likes to get a base and travel from that spot.
With it being a busy time sometimes it is easier to book for example the dessert party with WOrld of colour.
There is a thread on the Disneyland forum that talks about all the Christmas activities. Have a read of it as it has some great ideas.
 
Thanks AussieNSW, we ended up doing Disney the first week on a Wed/Thurs/Fri (which allowed us to see Fantasmic as well as World of Colour at California Adventure Park) and then the second week going to Universal on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving... crowds were okay the week before Thanksgiving at Disney but Thursday and Friday afternoon/night at Disneyland were noticeably busier. Waits for rides were no more than 45 minutes on all days but the FastPass system helped us to avoid queueing more than 15 minutes for most rides (apart from Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland - they could do with FPs LOL!). Universal was crowded but manageable, that said we still had to queue for 45 minutes for Jurassic Park/Mummy/Harry Potter as I could not justify double the cost for the four of us for front of line passes. Universal needs to learn from Disney re FPs! That said I wished I had taken your advice and stayed in Anaheim and just travelled up to LA for Universal.... we stayed in Hollywood and it was just so grotty the kids hardly wanted to leave the hotel! By that time we were pretty tired anyway so did more pool time than sightseeing. Really appreciate your advice, especially re the check-in times, I did find most hotels would not let you check in early even if you had come on a long-haul flight from Australia!
 
PS we had a fantastic time - I think me more than the kids! Even though this was my third time at Anaheim Disneyland! I am already planning to go to one of the Asia Disneylands next year to get another 'fix'!
 


We have been to Anaheim and wdw a number of times as well as Disneyland Paris. On our way back from Europe we stopped over at Hong Kong Disneyland and were disappointed. Maybe if we hadn't been to others it would have been ok but it was a real let down for us.
Our daughter went to Tokyo Disneyland and loved it.
We have not been to Disneyland in mainland china.
 
I was leaning towards Tokyo Disneyland so... good to know it's well worth the visit. I understand there is a Universal Studios in Osaka so might try to do both in the one visit :)
 
We did both Tokyo Disney and Universal last year. Universal was great because it had Wizzarding World of Harry Potter, which we hadn't been to before.
Tokyo Disney was great, but I still prefer Anaheim. There's just something about the original park. Many people say that Disney Sea is the best park in the world, but we went on a day which poured raining. It was great to get onto rides quickly, but we just didn't get the feel of the park.
Japan is well worth a visit though.
I have a trip report on here somewhere, in case you want a read if you're planning to go.
 



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