Disneyland

What have we learned?

1. Never go unprepared
If you go unprepared, buy tickets in disneyland, get a little map there, you are in for a horrendous day of stress and waiting. Even at 3:00pm there was a line of at least 400 people getting tickets. Buy tickets online, check rides online, check parade times online, use ridemax, see number 2.

2. Use Ridemax
For the first time in 5 years we actually paid for software. This program, ridemax, was extremely valuable to us and saved us hours a day. It "knows" the busy rides and it also "knows" the waiting lines. It also takes into account the "fastpasses" , which is basically the only way to attend a ride without waiting 90 minutes for it. (in statistics it is called shortest path theory, see nokiagame: tunnels)
Ridemax is made and updated by some addicted Disneyland visitors. It received extremely good reviews: example 1 ; example 2, other numerous reviews can be found on the inet.
It gave very useful tips and it printed out a list of attractions to do on that particular day within the timeframe you had chosen. Our family will never visit Disneyland or Disneyworld without it. Tickets were $500, so this 15 dollars was very well spend.
The maximum time we waited was about 30 minutes! (and we stayed there Dec 31st and Jan 1st...)

3. Take a day off after your Disneyland visit
We went 3 days in a row and that is extremely tough. Next time we would go 3 days to the parks but spend a day in between resting.
Disneyland day - rest day - Disneyland day - rest day - Disneyland day

4. Use the "Hopper advantage"
With a hopper pass you can access both parks on the same day. That helps you exit Disneyland at around noon, when it gets extremely busy and visit the other Disney park, California Adventures.
8:00-12:00 Disneyland
12:00-3:00 California Adventures
3:00-7:00 Break/hotel/nap
7:00-12:00 Disneyland

5. Hotel location, location, location
If possible try to stay as close to the park as possible. We were staying in the Crowne Plaze which was a very nice hotel, but located 1 mile from the park. They had free shuttles to the park every 30 minutes. The problem however is that is takes at least 30 minutes to get back to your hotel.
Most hotels close to the park are cheapo motels and the hotels in Disneyland are extremely expensive. It's a difficult trade-off. We took the priceline roulette so the location determination was out of our hands:-)

6. We were the only ones in the park without an iPhone or Blackberry

The people in the US are in for a rude awakening when their standard of living will implode, with the collapse of the dollar. 13-years old kids having such a phone, is not normal and it will end as more people lose their homes, jobs and cars. You can't eat an iPhone or Blackberry.