Disneyland early entry

Question

Hello! We can't wait to make our first trip to Disneyland in a few weeks (been to WDW many times). We will be staying at the Disneyland Hotel. Question: What is more important for doing as many rides as possible - early entry or going on days with fewer park crowds?

We only have 2 park days, and chose to do DCA as our first day (a Saturday), and Disneyland for our second day (Sunday), based on crowd calendars I found on Magicguides. However, early entry is not available every day- so if we wanted to take advantage of early entry, we'd have to switch the order of our park days and do Disneyland on the day that is predicted be more crowded. Would you switch your park plans so you can do early entry?

Thank you for any thoughts!!

Answer

For Disneyland Resort, both early entry and lower overall crowd levels help you do more rides — but they don’t help you equally. Early entry is a very powerful tool, especially for Disneyland Park, because most people do not wake up early and those 30 minutes often feel like having the park nearly to yourself. However, an entire low-crowd day still benefits you for many hours beyond rope drop. The best choice depends on which park you’re talking about and what your goals are.

Because you’re staying at the Disneyland Hotel, early entry is something you can use only if you visit the corresponding park on a qualifying day. So the question becomes: is 30 minutes of extra time more valuable than choosing the less-crowded day?

Here is how each factor practically affects your ride count:

Early Entry (Disneyland Hotel perk): lets you access a limited set of rides before general rope drop. At Disneyland Park, this is extremely valuable for attractions like Space Mountain, Peter Pan’s Flight, Alice in Wonderland, and potentially a first Lightning Lane stack. At DCA, early entry helps for Guardians, Incredicoaster, and WEB SLINGERS — but DCA opens fewer lands for early entry compared to Disneyland Park, so its overall impact is smaller.
Low Crowd Day: affects your entire day from morning until nighttime. Shorter waits at noon and evening often save you far more total time than early entry alone.
You only have 2 days: which means any wasted time is amplified. Your goal is efficiency and maximizing ride count, so the strongest strategy is usually mixing both early arrival and the less-crowded day when possible.

Now, should you switch your planned park order so you can get early entry at Disneyland even if it’s the more crowded day? Disneyland Park benefits from early entry more than DCA does. That means switching can make sense — but not always. The deciding factor is how crowded the “more crowded day” is expected to be. If the predicted difference is minor (for example, Saturday = heavy, Sunday = moderately heavy), early entry at Disneyland may outweigh the slightly higher crowds. But if the expected difference is large (e.g., Saturday very heavy, Sunday moderate), then the all-day lower crowd level may be more advantageous than 30 bonus minutes.

Based on typical crowd patterns, here is the most practical recommendation:

Stick with DCA on Saturday and Disneyland on Sunday if Sunday is meaningfully less crowded. You’ll have a better full-day experience at Disneyland, and rope-dropping without early entry still gives you strong ride count.
Switch only if the “crowded” day is not dramatically worse and early entry at Disneyland lets you hit high-demand rides early (Space Mountain, Peter Pan, Alice, Nemo, Matterhorn once open). Early entry at Disneyland is especially powerful for Fantasyland because lines balloon quickly.
Do NOT switch for early entry at DCA since DCA’s early-entry advantage is relatively small. You’ll get more benefit from choosing the less-busy day there.

If this were my trip, I would keep DCA on Saturday and keep Disneyland on Sunday unless your early-entry day is the only day you could realistically ride several Fantasyland classics with low waits. Early entry at Disneyland is great — but two full days of better crowd distribution usually beats one 30-minute jumpstart, especially when you’re already planning to rope drop.

Whatever you decide, using rope drop, Genie+, and arriving well before park opening will matter more than which day you use early entry. Disneyland is far more forgiving than WDW, and with a solid morning strategy you’ll get plenty done either way.

Disneyland early entry

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