Disney California Adventure (07/15/24) & Disneyland (07/17-18/24)

As a four-time visitor of Disney World, I was glad that we were able to spend a few days at DL during our recent trip to California. I will try not to go into a ton of detail, but here are some of my thoughts

DCA:

We spent 1 day here and with the assistance of Lightning Lane, we were able to ride 100% of the rides we wanted to, including 2 rounds on Incredicoaster and 2 rides on Radiator Springs racers with the help of the single rider line. There were lots of people, but it wasn't overly crowded, we even got a front-row view of the Pixar parade later in the day.

The Good- Cars Land was by far, the best part of this entire park. The theming was spot on and it just looked so good. Avengers Campus was also great, I loved the re-theming of TOT to Mission: Breakout. Pixar Pier was very lively and we got to meet a lot of characters and add to our kids' book of signatures.

The Bad- Mostly just the size. It wasn't a very big park (but I am used to the size of WDW parks) so it didn't take much to get through it. Paying for Genie+, I wasn't about to pay for ILL for Radiator Springs, so thankfully the single rider line worked out well for us because this was a 2 to 3-hour wait all day.

The Ugly- I am constantly amazed at how rude and selfish some people are. One person will hold a spot in line for a family of 6 or 8, then after waiting 30 minutes, the whole family pushes their way to the front of the line and take up 2 or 3 cars making our wait even longer. Not sure the best way to stop that, but it happened on about every other ride we were on all 3 days.

Disneyland:

2 days here and we could have used a 3rd. Definitely a lot more here and they squeeze a lot into small spaces. It took most of the 2 days to ride everything we wanted to and still managed to miss out on a few of them.

The Good- Galaxy's Edge! I think I could have stayed here all day. We got lucky with Rise, it wasn't opened at rope drop so people weren't in line for it, then we were right there when it did open, so at most, we had to wait 15 minutes. Fantastic ride and experience! Smugglers Run was also great. Rode it once, then discovered the single rider line for it the next day and rode it 4 more times in a 20-minute span.

The Bad- Very crowded both days we were there. The tight spaces in Fantasyland and Adventure Land were almost impassable at times after a parade or nighttime show. I also felt like most of the rides in Fantasyland are outdated and too short for the wait. I do get the nostalgia for them and that's why we rode them too, but it needs an overhaul of some sort in that area.

The Ugly- The line jumping here was even worse. If one person is trying to get through to their group, that's one thing, but large groups pushing their way through has got to stop. That's the one advantage of the tight queue lines in Fantasyland, you can block the path, but some of the queues in the newer areas are too wide to stop people from squeezing by.

Overall, it was a great trip. I'm glad we got to experience these parks. We had a ton of fun along with all of the other stuff we did while in the area, but ultimately I think I like WDW better where you have more room to spread out.

We are definitely rope droppers and do our very, very best to avoid paying for ILL's. (Have only sprung for it once and that was at WDW in anticipation of a hurricane and the loss of a park day). Sorry to hear it was so crowded and so line jumpy. We also try to avoid the standby line through maximal use of G+, so I haven't had to deal with it that much, but it sounds awful.

I did maximize LL as much as possible (thanks again for your tips on that), but by the end of the day, there wasn't much left available due to everyone scooping them up.