Southern California Amusement Parks, some thoughts

We've officially been on vacation for a week, during which time we have visited 4 theme parks: LEGOLAND California, Disneyland, Disney's California Adventure, and Universal Studios Hollywood.

Those are all of the parks we'll be visiting on this trip (theme, anyway; we're going to a National Park soon!). We definitely had good experiences in all, and some less good. I'm going to start with the less good.

For each of these parks, we got there for rope drop (Mal was very worried that "rope drop" was an extremely scary ride he did not want to join; had to fill him in on the lingo). The first hour or two we were in each of the parks, we got to do a lot of rides (well, most days; Mal didn't feel great the day we went to Disneyland, and we wasted some time doing the monorail instead of riding rides that would be too busy to ride later, but he REALLY wanted to ride the monorail and we were trying to keep him happy). After a couple of hours, lines got longer.

However, there was a HUGE difference in what this looked like at LEGOLAND and Universal vs. what it looked like at the two Disney parks. 

This is the first time I've ever been to Disneyland. When we planned the trip, the days we were going were predicted to be fairly middling. Disneyland Resort was forecasted to have medium crows, with 4/10 at Disneyland and 6/10 at California Adventure. I just looked and the crowd calendars were just way off. Our day at Disneyland, crowds were at a 7. DCA day, 8. And we felt it. After noon, there were just wall-to-wall people. We couldn't have a chat as we walked around; we just let one person lead with the others following behind, bobbing and weaving and trying not to hit or cut off people. It was overwhelming and unenjoyable at points in a way I've never felt (even with pretty significant crowds) at Disney World. 

We DID enjoy the things we did and saw. But I don't think I'll be in any hurry to return to Disneyland. It's just too compact and too packed. I think what's happening is that Halloween is just so popular, the crowd forecasters need to understand that people are just going to pack the parks regardless. Also, it looks like Sundays are less busy that weekdays, which feels counterintuitive. In case anyone else is planning a trip.

LEGOLAND was the perfect speed for Mal. We got to go in half an hour early because we were staying on property, and we did the dino coaster first... whoops. Mal was excited, but it was WAY too wild for him. We learned that he just can't do any rides where you feel pressure from changing/redirecting inertia. But we followed that up with a tame boat ride he loved so much, we ended up riding it three times. 

We were able to walk around most of the park in about 5 hours, and saw the rest that we missed the next night. It was pretty cool: I hadn't planned a second day at LEGOLAND, but when I bought my ticket, they were having a buy one/get one sale and since their Brick-or-Treat Monster Party isn't a separately-ticketed event, we went over for that. It was super chill, we rode a couple of things we hadn't seen or ridden before, and then Mal finished it up with the dino boat ride. We got so much candy, we'll probably take some home next week. We've been snacking up on it in the room.

Today, we went to Universal. We'd paid $30 to be able to go into Super Nintendo World an hour before the park opened. That was a super choice. After an hour, James was able to ride the three rides in the lower lot before the other visitors got down there. Mal and I rode "The Secret Life of Pets" a couple of times with no wait between. The early-entry ticket also gets you onto the studio back lot tour with no wait, but there wasn't much of a line when we got to that, anyway. There was when we left!

We'd made reservations at the Toadstool Cafe and had our first and last (so only!) sit-down meal in a theme park. Then James and I both got to ride Harry Potter very quickly through the single rider line. Mal rode "SLOP" (what he calls The Secret Life of Pets ride) with James once, then he and I went shopping while James rode HP. We left the park a bit before 3 PM and had done everything we wanted to do, except maybe the Simpson's ride. I didn't want to double our ticket price to pay for the Express Pass, and it wouldn't have been worth it.

LEGOLAND and Universal were busy enough, but we had comparatively chill days at both of those.

I do want to talk for a moment about the Single Rider lanes... What an amazing time-saver! Between Lightning Lane at Disney (where you pay $30 extra to be able to skip the main line one time for each ride) and single rider, we didn't wait more than about 15 minutes for any ride, except Rise of the Resistance, where a lot of the "line" is an immersive experience, anyway. If your party doesn't mind splitting up, it's so much faster than the standby line, especially if you don't have Lightning Lane. In fact, Radiator Springs Racers doesn't have a normal Lightning Lane: You have to pay about $25 PER PERSON for just that ONE ride if you want to skip the line. But we got to do it super fast (it was under 5 minutes from the time I got in line until I was sitting in a car) because of Single Rider.

All of this to say: I know how to strategize avoiding crowds and lines. But, holy cow, that did not work at the Disney parks. We had fun doing what we did, but the experiences left us worn out and threadbare. We did not feel as chewed up and spit out after our days at the other two parks. 

Just a brief FYI.

We've done other stuff on the trip, too. We went to the very informative and fun Museum of Making Music, we watched the sun set over the ocean, we have spent HOURS by different pools (today is the last day Mal can swim on this trip; our next places don't have pools), and have enjoyed each other.

Tomorrow, we head north. We'll get to a beach, then to a little Danish village, a National Park, and eventually the capital of the state! I think we'll be ready for a day of driving instead of walking miles and miles!

If you want to see vacation pictures, they're here.