Is going to Disneyland after Christmas worth it? This year because of a late Thanksgiving, our kids had a long Christmas break after the main holiday so we had a little extra time and decided to check out the Happiest Place on Earth all decorated for Christmas. Here are our key takeaways:
*Getting the genie pass is worth every penny spent. This also gives you free photos so you get all the fun ride photos and any pictures from photographers throughout the park that you can then download to your phone.
*Park hopper tickets are worth it if you don't mind walking - a lot.
*Those Disney foodies are legit right about some amazing food finds - I'm going to dedicate a whole post of what we ate at Disneyland & California Adventure.
*Be at the park for rope drop - it is 10000% a time saver and you will ride more rides that day in the hour and a half before the park gets busy than you will the next two hours. Do it!
*Order all of your meals on the app. Super convenient and so easy.
Here is what we did on a 3 day park hopper ticket over a Friday, Saturday and Monday at the very end of the Christmas decoration season. (Monday was the last holiday day!)
Friday: January 3, 2025
This is a picture right after security in the Mickey and Friends Parking Garage. We are sitting on the tram waiting to go into the park. This is around 7:30am and the park was opening at 8am. It was not busy at all - we walked right onto the tram.
When you purchase your park hopper tickets, you have to designate which park you are starting in and then at 11am you can start "hopping" to the next park. We started off in Disneyland.
By far one of the best perks about going during a holiday: Disney knows how to decorate their parks. Mickey garlands over the top of Main Street and holiday themed rides, (Haunted Mansion and It's a Small World) are super fun - not to mention their themed food and drinks and fun holiday parade.
If you get to the park before it opens, everyone starts lining up around the center circle area in front of the castle. We decided to start off the day by going to Star Wars Land and so we worked our way over to stand in front of Frontierland. Once they let everyone in, we walked right onto Rise of the Resistance, rode Smugglers Run, Pirates of the Caribbean and then hit our first line of only about 25 minutes at the Haunted Mansion.
When my kids were little, this was the only time of year that they would go on the Haunted Mansion because it is all decorated from the movie, "The Nightmare Before Christmas" which is more kid friendly than the standard Haunted Mansion. It's a fun change for the year and there is always a line because of it.
It's a Small World is decorated for the holidays from each country. It's so fun to ride through and spot all of the different add-ins that are there just for the season, (although the addition of "Jingle Bells" does get a little old if you ride it more than once!).
The outside of the ride is also so magical and a great photo taking spot. This is right at the exit of the ride, through the small gift shop and directly to the right.
I love all of the holiday details - like this special "honey garland" over the Winnie the Pooh ride!
Another tip - if you can time it and don't want to stake out a space for the parade, get in line for Alice in Wonderland during the afternoon or evening parade. You will get a pretty good view of the dancers and floats going by, you'll get stuck on the music, and then you will also see it when the ride exits to the outside towards the end of the ride. We ended up seeing parts of the parade twice this way and it was really nice.
This is a view of a float from the top of Alice in Wonderland.
And finally - the Castle at Christmastime is also so fun with snow-capped turrets and twinkling lights. It's worth staying until nighttime to see it.
Since we had been up so early and had ridden all of the rides we wanted to hit, we called it a day at 8:30. This was our tram heading back to the parking garage. (We also had 2 more days - so we wanted to pace ourselves!) I don't think I have ever ridden an almost empty tram back to the parking garage...but it was lovely and we had a fantastic first day!
Day Two: Saturday at California Adventure - January 4, 2025
We were also at the park super early and made it a little later to the "rope drop" moment - around 7:50. Those 20 extra minutes caused this picture above. This is the line to get into the Lightening McQueen racing cars ride. You cannot use a genie pass on this ride - you could pay extra to ride this ride. It would have cost us over $100 to walk to the front of the ride so us and all hundreds of our friends - decided to ride this first. We were in line for an hour to ride this ride. I have never been so far from the front of a line - we were in the middle of the Cars Land Main Street. It was a little insane - and it continued behind us:
So if you were going to be in California Adventure for multiple days, do this first and then on another day go ride all of the other rides. BUT - it was also a Saturday...so we were fully prepared for the crowds.
And like Disneyland, California Adventure has lots of fun holiday decorations out all over.
A fun tip to do with teenagers (we had 3 of them with us!) is to go into the Animation Academy where they teach you how to draw a Disney character.
We learned how to draw Oswald. It's one of the only souvenirs that you can bring home from free! If you don't finish your drawing or want to spend more time on it, head across the building to the Sorcerer's Workshop where they have drawing pencils and some fun animation spinning contraptions that are really cool to see.
They also had long strips of paper that you could create your own animation and could place it in a spinning circle and see it come to life.
The only new experience we had was getting stuck on Soarin over California. The ride ended and instead of being brought back down to the ground....the ride just left us up in the air. We were in the middle section, (which is still pretty high!) and were just told that there was a malfunction and they were working on it. We hung out there for about 10 minutes and then they were able to have us back down and get out of our chairs. 
If you happen to have the Chase Disney Visa Card, you are able to have a private meet and greet with a character - it is over by the Monsters Ride. Our teens were a little less than excited to do this with us - but we talked them into it. We waited for maybe 3 minutes. The Disneyland picture is located in the Carousal of Progress building and is usually a Star Wars character.
Right before Pixar Pier is the main food area of the park - and the location of the Boudin Bakery Tour. It's a self-guided tour of the process of making their sourdough bread and ends with a sample of their delicious sourdough bread. They also have a restaurant and a bread cart.
Finally, at the end of a long day - you want to know where you parked! We take a picture in the parking garage and so we know how to find our way back. Look for part 2 to learn more of our Disney Christmas experience!