Mornings are an exciting time: full of anticipation and possibility. Whether you like to rise with the sun or sleep-in, there are lots of choices for how to start the day at Disneyland Resort. Here are five of our favorite ways to spend our mornings at Disneyland Resort. We hope they will get you dreaming and planning your own:
Start the day at Disneyland Park or Disney California Adventure Park when they open!
We love to be in the parks early, and we generally start our Disneyland Resort days by being right at the parks for rope drop. We arrive at Disneyland Park or Disney California Adventure Park turnstiles before official opening and relish our time ambling down Buena Vista Street or Main Street U.S.A. in the morning light.
Did you know that Disney parks typically allow guests through the turnstiles before official opening time? The attractions themselves usually do not start running until that official opening, but you can enjoy Main Street U.S.A. or Buena Vista Street while you wait for that enchanted time. For all of the particulars, see this article: What Time Does Disneyland Open?
That pre-opening period and the two(ish) hours that follows are a magical time of day! We have certain strategies we use to get ourselves to the parks early, and we share them in an article here: How We Get to Disneyland In Time for Opening (aka Rope Drop). We like hopping into the (short) queues for some must-do attractions while most guests are still filtering-in for the day. If you can handle the early wake-up time, we encourage you to do the same.
If you are ready to follow our lead and get to the parks early, we even have tips for what to ride first here What to Do First at Disneyland Park and here What to Do First at Disney California Adventure Park.
Have breakfast with Mickey or his best pals.
Mickey waffles with the Mouse himself or breakfast pizza with Goofy is a classic way to start the day on a Disneyland Resort vacation.
You get to enjoy your breakfast while Disney characters stop by your table for a visit and photos. At the time of writing, Disneyland Resort is hosting character meals at Plaza Inn (Disneyland Park), Storytellers Cafe (Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa) and Goofy’s Kitchen (Disneyland Hotel), plus a pricey princess breakfast in the Trillium Room at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel and Spa.
These are meals that you can book in advance, and they generally have a fixed menu and price per person. Meals in the parks (like the one at the Plaza Inn) require general admission, but you can book a meal at one of the hotels on a day that you will not be using park admission. Keep in mind that these meals do frequently change, so be sure to check the Disneyland website for the latest. For example, the princess meal should be moving back to the Napa Rose after that restaurant’s renovations are complete, and other meals have seasonal adjustments.
If you have someone in your party who simply MUST meet a special character friend, a character meal is a great way to start your day. You can take care of your must-do meeting first thing and take some pressure off of the rest of the day.
Character Dining Tip
While Plaza Inn in Disneyland Park is lovely, we would recommend choosing one of the hotel-based character meals and making a reservation for a day when you will not be using park admission, like departure day or a “rest” day. That way, you can have a little character magic on a day when you will not be in the parks, and you can devote your park hours to other thing… like visiting Mickey’s Toontown.
Stretch and sweat with a Disneyland fitness class.
Disneyland Resort Hotels offers early morning fitness and wellness classes for guests. Some of these classes even take place in the parks before they open for the day! You can start your day with some sunrise yoga in Disneyland Park or boot camp in Disney California Adventure Park.
These classes should be listed on the weekly schedule at hotel check-in, but you can also find the offerings online. These classes do require registration and an additional fee.
Have a rest.
We find that our whole vacation is enhanced by taking some time to relax between visits to the parks. In fact, we schedule whole days off between our days in the parks. We think this is the best strategy for keeping energy up and melt-downs away. On these rest days we sleep-in bit, and our kids enjoy some unstructured playtime.
Multi-day tickets do not need to be used on consecutive days, so we like taking a day here and there to rest and enjoy some of the other offerings around Disneyland Resort like the hotel pools or charming restaurants. We enjoy these special non-park days and return to the parks reinvigorated.
In fact, we believe in this approach so much that we wrote a whole post in praise of rest days and suggestions for how to spend them here: Maximize Value: Take a Rest Day at Disneyland.
Capture dazzling Disneyland photos.
Whether you are in the parks or elsewhere at Disneyland Resort, morning is a great time to snap some photos. We like taking some group photos first thing in the morning when background crowds are low, the lighting is favorable and (hopefully) no one has spilled on themselves yet. PhotoPass photographs can be especially helpful with capturing some great photos of your whole group.
Even if you have not purchased PhotoPass (or received it as part of your Lightning Lane Multi Pass), you can still ask a PhotoPass photographer to take pictures with your device. If you do have PhotoPass, morning is a great time to try-out some MagicShots. MagicShots are PhotoPass photos enhanced to include Disney characters or other surprises.
Thanks for reading! There are so many brilliant ways to start your day at Disneyland Resort.
We hope you find the wake-up that works best for you and that you have a good morning and a great day! If you need some guidance in planning your visit, we recommend our Step-by-Step Disneyland Prep guide.
And if you need some extra help getting-going in the morning, do not forget that article How We Get to Disneyland In Time for Opening (aka Rope Drop). Thanks again for reading.