Looking for Disneyland tips for your family? You’ve come to the right spot. In this blog post, you’ll find information about visiting Disneyland with kids of all ages (from toddlers to tweens), how to navigate the park as a family, and ways to make your park visit as magical as possible.
Traveling is a big deal. Traveling with small children is an even bigger deal. Traveling with small children to Disneyland… that’s kind of the Holy Grail of family travels.
But it can be done. And it can be done magically, with some semblance of affordability, and as stress-free as any vacation with kids can be.
Thousands of parents make this pilgrimage each year and you can too.
How to navigate this Disneyland tips post
I broke this post up into three main sections, with a lot of sub points from there. You’ll see what I mean. But if you scroll up a notch, you’ll see a table of contents. That can help you find the Disneyland tips you need quickly since this post is horrifically large.
The three categories are (drum roll please):
- Tips for before you go
- Logistics for your stay
- Tricks and advice when you’re at the park
Hop around and find what you need to support your family on this big, fun adventure.
Top 5 Disneyland Tips Before You Go
There are so many tips and tricks out there for taking kids to Disneyland. Even though I had been to Disneyland many times before ever taking children, I still must have read 100 blog posts just like this one in anticipation of our first big trip.
I took all that information – along with my own know-how and travel-priorities – to help my family have a truly magical vacation (and one that felt like a vacation, not like parenting-somewhere-else).
I first sat down to write this blog post in 2018 after my husband and I took our 26-month-old, almost 4 year old, and 5 year old. It was a trip I still think about today with such fondness. We’ve now been lucky enough to go back two more time (once with my parents and once with my in-laws) and it just keeps getting more magical as the kids get older.
And that mention of age brings me to my first tip:
Tip 1 – There is no right or wrong age to go to Disneyland
I spend a lot of time on social media (wink) and I come head on with content that makes it seem like Disneyland is an ASAP trip in childhood.
That babies must go. That toddlers have to go. That by the time a kid is five, they should have gone multiple times or the magic of Disneyland fades.
Nope. That’s not true.
If Disneyland is something that is absolutely in the cards for your family to do with young children, go for it. Have a blast. But if you’ve been worried that waiting to take a trip to the Happiest Place on Earth is going to ruin the joy for your children: it absolutely will not.
In fact, I think Disneyland is more magical to my now 11-year-old.
For our family (and remembering that I am someone who loves visiting Disneyland), we did our first visit when our two oldest kids (who love thrill rides) were tall enough to ride the roller coasters (40-inches tall). We knew that meant they’d also be old enough to carry and hold memories from that trip.
Our youngest was 2 for our first trip. Could we have waited another year for our youngest to be a little older? Absolutely. And it would have been just fine.
The point I want to emphasize: there is no rush. There is no window. There is no “it has to be this age or it’s a bust” with Disneyland. Go when it feels right for your family.
Height Check: If you have a child who loves roller coasters, make sure to know what they can (or can’t) ride on before you book a vacation. We had a measuring stick to 40″ to know exactly when our middle could ride most of the rides. This saved us a lot of heartache going too early. You can find a list of ride heights here.
Tip 2 – Make sure to do lots of Disney prep
Kids love context. They love the known. It is the unknown and the surprises, no matter how wonderful and joyful that can be stressful and scary for children. Considering how expensive Disneyland is as a vacation, I wanted to make sure my kids had as much background knowledge going into the parks as possible.
After all, part of the magic of Disneyland is seeing characters and movies come to life – but if a child has never seen the movies… it’s really no different than a very clean, very expensive county fair.
So, here are the things we did before each trip to Disneyland to help give our kids (even our 2 year old back in the day) context for the magic:
Watch movies
This doesn’t mean I had my kids non-stop in front of the TV watching Disney movies. What it meant was that if we were choosing between watching Trolls for the 12,000th time or Alice in Wonderland… we chose the latter.
Listen to music
There’s a lot of music magic in Disneyland so grab a Disney Spotify playlist or search Disney songs on Amazon and YouTube. Listen to movie soundtracks and park music (the songs they play on rides and down Main Street).
When my daughter was almost 4, she was over the moon excited to visit the Enchanted Tiki Room in person because of the song. She listened to it on repeat for months – seeing it in person was a dream come true for her.
Find ride videos
Again with “kids love context,” it doesn’t spoil anything to share with kids videos of rides you find on Youtube. If anything, it makes them way more excited. I have this fantastic memory of my 26-month-old running to the Gadget Go Coaster because he’d seen the ride in a video. He never would have had that level of excitement without prepping before hand.
Tip 3 – Print out a map beforehand
I actually cheated on this one and had a real map from Disneyland for my kids to pour over for month. If you have friends visiting the park before you, ask them to bring you back one.
If not, print out a map of Disneyland– print it on legal paper if possible – so your kids can start to get a feel for the park.
My kids poured over that map for months – especially my two oldest kids – and by the time we got to Disneyland, my five-year-old knew that map as well as we did.
Remember, anticipation is a big part of going to Disneyland (the build up, the excitement), seeing, knowing, and hearing the names of the rides and attractions only heightens that.
Tip 4 – Download the Disneyland App ASAP
You (the adult!) also needs to get familiar with Disneyland and Disney California Adventure if this is your first time going or first time going in a while. The app is great and easy to navigate…
But you don’t want your first time looking at it to be the day you walk in.
Have it on your phone for a while. Check wait times. Notice where different rides are. Just like kids need context and orienting, so do adults. The app is great for that.
How to Use the App: You’re going to use this app a lot during the trip. Here is a great video about how to use this app for everything from ordering food to mapping your visit to using the Lightning Lane (if you purchase those tickets).
Tip 5 – Think about the trip beforehand
This may seem like a no-brainer but go with. Disneyland is not a “show up and go” kind of vacation. There’s a lot of logistics and things to consider beforehand to help you and your family have the best time.
Some things to consider before you ever get to the park:
- What time does the park open? Are you rope dropping and arriving early?
- How does your family do with meals out? Are you taking food into the park?
- What will go in your travel backpack?
- Are you bringing a stroller?
- Do kids need to go back to the hotel for naps?
- What rides are most important to each family member?
- Are there any experiences (like parades or fireworks) you want to see?
The next two sections of this post breaks down a bunch of these “brass tacks,” sharing how my family does Disneyland to hopefully get you thinking about how this vacation could look for your family.
The following sections contain affiliate links.
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The logistics of Disneyland with kids
When I was planning our trips, I found a lot of tips online that felt pretty generic.
I didn’t find a lot of hard-facts-let’s-get-down-to-business information on how to take a family of 5 to Disneyland so that overshare is what you are about to find here.
From packing, to traveling, to where we stayed, to what we did in the parks, here is a run down of “The Busy Toddler Family Does Disney.”
Logistic 1: Packing tips for Disneyland
The first time we went to Disneyland, I went Monica Geller on packing. She would have been so proud. I put every outfit for each kid in a resealable bag so I wouldn’t be the only person who knew what everyone was wearing.
It was a level of organized that I was so proud of and it worked. It was smooth sailing each early morning getting the kids dressed.
In subsequent trips, with my kids a little older, the packing cube system has been fantastic.
I also lean hard into The Zipper Bags of Internet fame to stay hyper-organized so I don’t need to dump anything out to find our stuff.
Logistic 2: Getting from the airport to Disneyland
In so much of my research for our trip, one piece was always missing: how do you get your family with small children from the airport to Disneyland?
Here are four options for you to consider:
- Rent a car – The standard on vacation. Things to think about with this trip: it’s expensive to park at the hotel, do you need a rental car for other parts of the vacation or are you only doing Disney (which means you don’t need a car), will you rent car seats or travel with your car seats? It’s a lot to juggle.
- Take the Disney Bus – This is such a popular option. Buses do not require the use of car seats and it’s cost effective vs renting a car and hotel parking charges. If you land at LAX (which we often do because it’s cheaper), the bus takes around 1 hour 30 minutes to travel to the Disneyland and is on a set schedule.
- Ride share: This is the option we used for our latest trip with kids ages 7, 9, and 11. California law requires children under 8 to use a child restraint system as well as children under 2 to be in a rear-facing car seat, so that’s important to know before choosing a ride share. We brought inflatable booster seats for our kids.
- Car Service: We’ve done this option twice because the car comes with car seats. This is a more expensive option than the Disney Bus but ultimately has worked best for our family the times we chose it.
Logistic 3: Hotels for a family of 5
Finding a hotel for a family of 5 is not the easiest task. I know that I have no one to blame for this problem but myself.
We always stay off property because it’s way cheaper. Plus, unlike Disney World, hotels at Disneyland are literally across the street and some of those off-property hotels are closer to the entrance than in the park hotels…
Here are the two hotels we’ve stayed at that worked perfectly for our family.
Desert Palms Hotel & Suites
This hotel is located behind Cars Land, is a fast walk to the park, and has a free breakfast. We’ve stayed here twice in the 1-bedroom suite with a bunk bed. There was a king-sized bed in one room and an interior door separating us from the “kid room,” which was a bunk room with double beds.
Photo credit: Desert Palms Hotel & Suites
Anaheim Camelot Inn & Suites
This hotel is located directly across the street from the main Harbor Avenue entrance to the Disneyland resort making it pretty comparable with the walking distance of an on-property hotel. We did a two-room family suite with a king bed, sofa bed, and two doubles. It was fantastic and the proximity to the park was unbeatable.
Photo credit: Anaheim Camelot Inn & Suites
Logistic 4: Kid to adult ratio
Normally, I don’t mind playing a zone defense with my kids. And once they were older, I didn’t mind it at Disneyland either…
But if you are traveling to Disneyland with kids who aren’t tall enough for a ride or to wait alone, having an extra set of adult hands is clutch. A 1:1 kid to adult ratio is really helpful at Disneyland (until kids get older).
When we went with our kids as toddlers, we got help from my Dad and my SIL – each joined us for 1.5 days.
Here’s two ways this helped for us with littles: On some rides (like Autopia), each kid could have their own car and be the driver rather than trying to share the steering wheel.
For bigger rides, like Thunder Mountain Railroad, our 26-month-old couldn’t go with. We used the “Rider Switch” program – one adult walked around with him, while the other adults did the ride with the bigger kids.
Then we’d switch…and the older kids would go back on the ride with the adult that had originally stayed behind.
Rider Switch Program: Learn more about the “Rider Switch” program here – trust me. You want to know about this if you head to Disneyland with kids under the height requirements for rides.
Logistic 5: Pre-plan as much as you can
I know we already talked about this but I’m going to keep hammering it home. Think strategically and don’t wing this trip. Take the time to really think it through and make a clear “game plan” for your time at Disneyland. Pre-plan each day.
Standing in the middle of Main Street with hungry kids, packed crowds, trying to figure out where to eat for lunch is NOT the Disneyland memory you want to have.
Review food options at Disneyland (Youtube has many content creators dedicated to this). Consider dining reservations (these open up 60 days early and go fast). Think about your snack bags or a picnic.
Mostly, think your family’s daily schedule: If you wear the kids out on day one, skip naps and stay up late…how will the following days go? When our kids were toddlers, we stayed pretty much to our normal daily schedule, came back to the hotel for naps each day in the afternoon, and were tucked into bed (a little later than normal) at about 8 pm.
Our last day is when we go wild and break with our traditional family routines, because we didn’t have anything the next day other than a the plane ride home. That’s a perfect day for the kids to be wiped out.
Please just promise me you will go into Disneyland with some type of game plans: ride plans, meal plans, rough timelines, priorities. Planning ahead is everything.
Ride “order” matters: Take a look at RideMax if you are new to Disneyland. This is a $15 app that creates you an “order of operations” for rides based on when you plan to arrive at the park, number of people, ages, and ride preferences. It will help you maximize your time and minimize wait time. It’s a really cool app, I’ve used it before, and it works.
Other best practices, tricks, and hacks for Disneyland magic
Disneyland is one of my favorite places, but it is like traveling to another country. There are things to know, do, try, and avoid just like there are when going abroad.
This next section of my way-too-long post will give you some helpful ideas to maximize your Disneyland trip.
Bring a simple stroller
Even when my kids were 5, 7, and 8 – we brought a double stroller to Disneyland and thank goodness we did. It was a simple umbrella style double stroller (the same style we brought when they were toddlers). Do not bring your fancy stroller to Disneyland but bring something.
Pack some food
Disneyland is delicious, but the food adds up. Good news is, Disney allows you to bring in food. Make sure to pack at least some. Bring in your snacks, have comfort/safe foods, pack a picnic. One of our favorite meals at Disneyland ever was buying supplies at CVS Pharmacy for a simple picnic and eating it on Tom Sawyer’s Island.
Carry ponchos
If you have kids wanting to do Tiana’s Bayou Adventure (formerly Splash Mountain) …take our word for it: bring ponchos. We forgot these for our first trip down Splash Mountain in 2018 and it’s been a family legend since. Now we always have these with us and they are a life saver.
Grab a locker
Disneyland and Disney California Adventure both have large lockers for rent. The price is reasonable and it saves you from lugging everything around all day. We often snag a locker around lunch and put our morning sweatshirts into it. It’s also great for storing food, souvenirs, and even luggage.
Tom Sawyer’s Island & Redwood Creek Challenge Trail
Do not skip these. I know they aren’t “rides.” I know from the outside they don’t have the zhuzh of a fancy Disney attraction, but you would be mistaken and it would be a miss to skip these. Both are fantastic places to let kids run around, explore, get some gross motor movement going, and take a much needed brain break from the park. Trust me: these two spots will hold so much magic for your family.
Bring toys for long waits
Even if you buy the Lightning Lane service, you will still have wait times on some rides at Disneyland. Bring a few toys for kids to play with in line. We often bring fidget style toys like pop its and spinners. I’ll link to our favorite three:
- Pop Its
- Fidget spinners (seen in the photos)
- Twisty toys
Get to the park early
Rope dropping is the way to go. The first few hours of every day at Disneyland are the lowest and easiest to navigate. It is worth getting up and getting going in the morning. Arrive at the park at least 30 minutes before opening to get through security and ticketing. You may need to go an hour early if you are visiting during a school break.
Mobile order all your food
You do not wait in line for food at Disneyland (well, except for Churros, popcorn, and Jack Jack’s cookies). The Disney App had mobile ordering. The line to order food at various restaurants is often 30-45 minutes long, but mobile ordering is typically instant and by-passes everything (or pick a time frame to get your food, do a ride, and it’ll be ready). This makes getting food and getting it quickly into hangry hands so much easier.
Skip the Starbucks
Look, I’m from Seattle so I know how important morning coffee is. The Starbucks in Downtown Disney and on Main Street are not where you want to spend your time. The lines are huge and absolutely unreal. Instead, mobile order coffee from Jolly Holiday bakery (Disneyland) and the Cappuccino Cart (DCA), then thank me later for all the time you saved.
What are your favorite Disneyland tips for families?
At the end of it all (this massive blog post) the key to Disneyland is in the planning: Think ahead. Talk to friends. Google lots. Get yourself oriented before you leave and be ready for the time of your life.
It really is the Happiest Place on Earth.
Share your Disneyland tips in the comments below.
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Debby says
Love your Disney tips!!
One thing I would add is that the Baby Care Centers at Disneyland are AMAZING. They offer nursing rooms, changing rooms, toddler-size toilets, and vending machines with diapers, wipes, formula, and pacifiers. Such a better experience than trying to squeeze into an over-crowded Disney bathroom to change your little one!
Kristen says
So grateful for this post! Thank you thank you thank you!!!
Brooke says
This was so so helpful! Thank you so much!