Top 5 Hacks We Use All the Time at Disneyland

There is so much to do and see at Disneyland, and it’s important to know how to maximize your time so that you can experience the most! Over the course of countless Disneyland visits, we have discovered certain tricks at both parks that help us to save time and enjoy the best experience possible.

Here are the top 5 hacks we use all the time at Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure!

1) Using Single Rider for Radiator Springs Racers at Disney California Adventure is perhaps one of the most helpful Disneyland hacks there is! This is the most in-demand ride at the park, with wait times often soaring to 60-90 minutes or more. Many are tempted to rope drop Radiator Springs Racers in the mornings, but we caution against this because the crowds will all rush to this ride, meaning that the wait time is very high right off the bat.

To avoid the Disneyland Lightning Lane Single Pass cost for this attraction, use the Single Rider line to cut your wait time in half. You won’t be seated with your party, but there is a decent chance that you’ll end up in the same car (usually front row and back row) or in the opposite cars that end up racing each other.

2) A hack for both parks is to request specific ride rows! For a few rides, especially thrill rides, asking for a specific row will give you a whole new experience. One of our favorite ride rows is the back row of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, which gives a more thrilling sensation going around the turns, especially if you use the “goat trick," where you keep your eyes fixed on the goat as you descend into the turn after the second chain lift.

We also love asking for the center section front row (Row 1 Section B) on Soarin’ for a perfectly centered experience without any dangling feet obstructing your view. Requesting this ride row makes the experience completely immersive!

While it’s not guaranteed that Cast Members will be able to accommodate your request, they usually will if you ask politely. See more of the best seats on Disneyland rides that we recommend asking for!

3) During the festivals at Disney California Adventure, you can save a lot of time ordering all of your items at one marketplace. This is a great tip if you’re visiting during one of the special events with marketplaces during the year, like the Disneyland Lunar New Year celebration, Disney California Food & Wine Festival, or the Disney Festival of Holidays.

Instead of going to each individual marketplace to order, you’ll look ahead at the food guide to see which items look most appealing, find the marketplace with the shortest line, and order food from any marketplace all at the same time. Then, you’ll hold onto your receipt, which you’ll use to redeem each of your items, and go straight to the pickup line at each marketplace. This is a great time-saving tip so that you can bypass the ordering lines at the different marketplaces, which tend to get long around peak mealtimes.

4) Going to the second showing of entertainment is a great way to save time if you’re willing to stay up a bit later. For entertainment offerings that have more than one showing a night, the first showing is always more heavily attended, and you won’t need to arrive to stake out a spot quite as early if you go to the second show. For example, if you didn’t get a virtual queue spot for Disneyland World of Color and are trying to see it as a walk-up, you’ll have the best luck doing this with the second showing, which is always less crowded.

If you’re not interested in entertainment but still want to take advantage of the less crowded hours in the late evening, this time is ideal for getting on popular rides with much shorter wait times. See our Disneyland evening strategy for the order you should go in to tackle everything!

5) Lastly, one of our favorite and often-used Disneyland hacks is using the “modify" feature to keep refreshing Lightning Lane reservations until you get a better time.
Especially during some of the most crowded times of year at Disneyland, Lightning Lane return times for popular rides will quickly get pushed to late in the day, which can be pretty inconvenient as it holds up your availability.

However, you can use the Lightning Lane “modify" feature to keep refreshing the page until a more preferable time pops up. This hack takes some patience, but the majority of the time, you will be successful in grabbing a better time if you’re persistent enough. See more details on this hack to get the Lightning Lane reservation you want almost every time here.

You can see more of our top hacks for Disney California Adventure and hacks for Disneyland Park for more helpful tips!

At Mickey Visit, we share the most important tips for planning your trips to Disneyland, Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Universal, and beyond and share the latest Disney news. Each week, we’ll share some of our top tips here on Laughing Place.