Multi Day…Park Hopper…Lightning Lanes…3…2…1… Buying tickets for Disneyland can feel like a complicated launch sequence. You will need to decide how many days you plan to visit, whether you would like to “park hop,” and if you would like to pay for Lightning Lane access. If those terms seem confusing or overwhelming, we want to help you understand them. And, if you are not sure what value the various options offer, we can help with that too. This guide to the best Disneyland ticket for you is part of a collection of articles on MouseBrief.
Our strongest tool for helping you understand and select your best Disneyland ticket is a flow-chart and detailed guide for general admission tickets: click here for that page. We (humbly) think that is a great place to start, and we hope it helps clarify terms and options; we created the flowchart especially for folks who work well with visuals. If you are trying to decide what Disneyland ticket options work best for you personally, we want to help with that too.
We have created this post to share some of our personal experience with tickets, and we hope this aids you in your decision. Here are five things to consider when making your ticket purchase and choosing the best Disneyland tickets for you:
Three days is a sweet spot for a visit to Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure Park.
General admission tickets are available in increments of one, two, three, four or five days. When you buy a ticket with admission for multiple days, the cost per day decreases as the length of ticket (and overall price) increases.
There is so much to see and do at Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure Park: we would love to advise everyone to go for five days. Realistically, we know that vacation time and budgets are limited. When purchasing general admission tickets, we think a three-day ticket is nice for occasional visitors. In our experience, three days is ample time to hit everything on your “must-do” list and to repeat favorites without feeling rushed.
Really any length that works for you is your best Disneyland ticket, but we think three days leaves you feeling satisfied but excited to come back soon.
You can take “rest” days between visits to the parks.
This is one of our favorite pieces of advice, especially for families with young children: if you purchase a multi-day ticket, you can actually take days-off between days in the park. If you are considering a multi day ticket but think you might be overwhelmed by all of that park time, remember that you do NOT need to use all of the admission days in a row.
You could try putting your parks visits at either end of a longer visit to Southern California. Or, you can stay nearby but take “rest days.” We recommend doing something you find relaxing with low crowds. When we are visiting with young kids, we also think it is helpful to find some time and space for unstructured play. Hotel pools or recreation areas and Orange County’s gorgeous beaches are great places to spend a day away from the parks. And remember, you can still enjoy the offerings of Downtown Disney and the Disneyland Resort Hotel restaurants—including character meals at the hotels—on days when you are not using park admission.
We think rest days can really help you get the best value out of your Disneyland tickets, so we wrote a whole article about it here: Maximize Value: Take a Rest Day at Disneyland
At the time of this posting, all admission days on a general multi-day ticket must be used within thirteen days of first use. This is subject to change. We recommend always checking terms and conditions prior to purchasing tickets. Some special ticket offers include a longer window of time, including the 70th anniversary ticket deals in 2025.
Park Hopping is easy at Disneyland Resort
Park Hopping is the ability to visit both parks at Disneyland Resort in the same day. It comes at an extra cost, so you will need to make your own calculations about whether purchasing the Park Hopper add-on is worth it for you. When considering the value of a Park Hopper, remember that Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure Park are very close to one another. They are so close that you can see the entrance for one from the other (they are divided only by the Esplanade).
Park Hopping at Disneyland Resort is a different experience than Park Hopping at Walt Disney World. You will not have to go through security again while switching parks. Unless the parks are particularly crowded during your visit, switching from one to the other is generally quick and easy. Park hopping does require an extra cost, but it does not take much extra time.
Park Hopping can affect the value of a Lightning Lane Multi Pass and vice versa.
With a Lightning Lane Multi Pass, guests purchase the ability to make reservations to access priority queues at a bundle of attractions. We made a guide to the particulars of this paid service here. We recommend reading that guide, as this service works differently than the previous offerings of MaxPass and FastPass. Lightning Lane Multi Pass also works differently at Disneyland Resort than at Walt Disney World. The following advice will make more sense if you are familiar with how this service works.
Unlike previous ride reservation services, guests using Lightning Lane Multi Pass can only make one reservation a day for each attraction in the multi pass bundle. If you are efficient in making reservations, you may find that you have run out of reservations with hours left in your day. If you have the ability to hop between parks, you increase your potential pool of reservations. Importantly, Lightning Lane Multi Pass is the same price whether you are using it in both parks or just one.
On particularly busy days, you do run the risk of attractions being “sold out” of reservations early in the day. In these cases, by the time you hop to the second park, there are few reservations available at that park, and the Park Hopper plus Lightning Lane Multi Pass combo may not be as useful. Conversely, on days with light crowds, standby waits may be so low that you are not getting much added value out of a Lightning Lane pass.
All of this is difficult to predict in advance of your visit, so we hope we are not tying your brain in knots by sharing these insights. Ultimately, we do think the combination of these services adds an extra dimension to the value calculation for either.
A Word on Lightning Lane Premier Pass
The new Lightning Lane Premier Pass is the most flexible… and the most expensive Lightning Lane pass currently offered. Like Lightning Lane Multi Pass, it gives you the ability to use Lightning Lanes at a bundle of attractions. Unlike the other Lightning Lane pass options, you do not need to reserve a ride time to use Lightning Lane Premier Pass. You get to enter the Lightning Lane for each included attraction once per day, and you get to enter spontaneously. You do not need to reserve an arrival window, and that is why it costs (a lot) more than the other Lightning Lane options.
During its pilot phase, you can buy the Lightning Lane Premier Pass up to one week before your visit. Because of this timeline, it is not something you will necessarily be offered at the time of ticket purchase. Still, it could play into your evaluation of whether to purchase a Park Hopper. A Lightning Lane Premier Pass costs the same whether you are using it in both parks or just one. You do need a Park Hopper in order to use it in both parks. Having a Park Hopper increases the total number of attractions you can access with your Lightning Lane Premier Pass, so we think that is something to keep in mind.
For more on the different Lightning Lane passes, see: Disneyland Lightning Lanes: How to Super-Charge Your Visit. That guide includes the third Lightning Lane option: Lightning Lane Single Pass. The Single Pass applies to just one ride at a time and can only be purchased on the day of your visit, so we will leave further explanation in that article.
Keep an eye on special offers and discounts.
All of our advice up to this point is based on the purchase of regular general admission tickets. However, there are other admission types available like Magic Keys and tickets to special “hard ticket” events. Occasionally, Disney also offers special limited-time ticket deals.
For the summer of 2024, Disneyland Resort offered nicely discounted three-day tickets for all guests. There was an even steeper discounts for guests willing to use those three-day tickets only on Mondays through Thursdays. In this case, we found that a three day ticket was cheaper than a two day ticket for the same time period! For Disneyland’s 70th anniversary in 2025, the resort is offering another great summer ticket deal.
Be sure to keep an eye on special ticket offers by visiting the Disneyland website or signing-up for promotional emails. Even seemingly busy times of year, like summer months, can come with surprising discounts.
So what Disneyland ticket is best for you?
Purchasing Disneyland Resort tickets is a big decision. It makes up a significant portion of many families’ vacation budgets. We hope that we were able to provide you with some helpful insight.
We encourage you to check-out that ticket types guide to see the choices laid-out in visual fashion. For everything having to do with Disneyland Resort tickets, see Essential Tips for Disneyland Tickets and Reservations. That page is part of our complete (and free) Step-by-Step Disneyland Prep. And for ongoing articles, please consider subscribing to our newsletter below. Thanks for reading!
