We just got back from our June trip to Disneyland and WOW! The Pixar Pier transformation is Incredible! Disneyland and Disney California Adventure are almost always super busy now but you can still do EVERYTHING in California Adventure if you follow these 5 tips for Pixar Pier!
We rode the Incredicoaster 5 times in 3 days WITHOUT A WAIT plus did all of our family’s favorite rides and attractions in both Disneyland and California Adventure. We saw the huge crowds, but Pixar Pier didn’t feel crowded to us because we followed every tip on this list!
Here’s how to navigate Pixar Pier like an Annual Passholder and make the most of your day at the Disneyland Resort!
[Tweet “5 tips for #PixarPier at Disney California Adventure when Disneyland is CRAZY BUSY! #familytravel”]
Pixar Pier Tip #1: Stay at a hotel within walking distance to Disneyland!
We can’t emphasize this enough: parking at Disneyland can ruin your magical vacation! Not only will you wait in line to park, you can get routed to off-site Disneyland parking lots even if you arrive at the main parking structure (Mickey and Friends) early.
How to avoid the Disneyland parking nightmare? Stay at a hotel within walking distance to Disneyland! You can read more details in these All Day Mom Disneyland posts:
Be Part of the Story at our Favorite Hotel Across the Street from Disneyland!
Hotel with a View of Disneyland Fireworks: The Fifth Rooftop Lounge at Grand Legacy At The Park
Do you see a theme here? We love to spread the word about our favorite hotel across the street from Disneyland, Grand Legacy At The Park! We’ve been Disneyland Annual Passholders for 12 years, and we estimate that we’ve spent more than 100 nights at Grand Legacy At The Park.
Grand Legacy completed an extensive renovation a couple years ago, including adding a brand new hotel tower with family suites offering Disneyland and Disney California Adventure views, and The Fifth rooftop lounge where you can watch Disneyland fireworks!
Of course we wondered if Grand Legacy’s prices would skyrocket since the renovated and new rooms are now among the nicest—and roomiest—at any hotel near Disneyland. We’re happy to report that Grand Legacy At The Park still offers amazing value and outstanding customer service for families visiting Disneyland on a budget!
More money for churros thanks to free rollaway beds at Grand Legacy At The Park!
Since we’ve written extensively about Grand Legacy’s modern rooms, resort pool, Disneyland views—and especially that 6 minute walk to Disneyland!—we want to detail another great benefit Grand Legacy offers for families with teens and tweens: free rollaway beds!
Our family needs 3 beds: Jefferson is 14 and Jameson is 11, and once Jefferson turned 11, he did not want to share a hotel bed with his little sister! That’s totally understandable, but we usually book the least expensive hotel room so we can visit Disneyland at least once a month; we rarely go “all out” and book a suite.
How much money can you really save at Grand Legacy At The Park just by requesting a free rollaway bed? Well, we saved $61.50 on our 3-night stay at Grand Legacy At The Park compared to another Disneyland hotel we’ve stayed at that charges $20.50 a night for a rollaway bed! (Plus the room rate was cheaper at Grand Legacy, so we saved even more!)
Disneyland tip: Check for hotel rooms that fit 5 and you’ll always have room for a rollaway bed!”
Here are a few photos of our Premier Room at Grand Legacy At The Park! Read on for all 5 tips for Pixar Pier!
Scroll all the way down past Pixar Pier Tip #5 for our best tips on how to get the best rate at your Disneyland hotel!”
Our kids ALWAYS jump on the bed the second they walk into the hotel room! If your little monkeys do too, you can request a first floor room so you won’t bother other hotel guests!
Pixar Pier Tip #2: Use Fastpass or MaxPass!
We arrived at Pixar Pier after it had been open for 2 days, and as expected, it was packed! We still rode the Incredicoaster 5 times in 3 days without a wait thanks to MaxPass!
Related: Is Disneyland’s MaxPass worth it? 9 People Who Shouldn’t Buy MaxPass
You really need to get Fastpasses if you want to experience the 2 biggest rides in Paradise Pier without wasting half your Disneyland day in line:
- The Incredicoaster
- Toy Story Mania!
MaxPass is expensive at $10 per ticket per day, but offers these benefits over getting free Fastpasses:
- The maximum time you have to wait to book another Fastpass is 90 minutes with MaxPass (vs. 2 hours for a regular Fastpass).
- With MaxPass, you can control your Fastpass return time from either Disneyland or California Adventure right from your phone—so you can get a night time Incredicoaster Fastpass without having to be inside California Adventure—and you’ll never need to walk to or wait at a Fastpass kiosk.
- When Fastpasses run out for the day, you can sometimes snag Fastpasses with MaxPass if people cancel their Fastpasses. This isn’t guaranteed, but you definitely can’t get a regular Fastpass once they run out for the day.
- You get free Photopass downloads with MaxPass. At $18 per print in the Parks, you could have paid for your family’s MaxPass for the day if you printed just 2 Photopass photos.
You absolutely do not need to buy MaxPass to ride the new Incredicoaster at Pixar Pier! If you get inside California Adventure when it opens (“rope drop”), send one person with all of your party’s tickets to get a Fastpass for the Incredicoaster, and take the rest of your group to the Standby line for the Incredicoaster. Even if they are only running one side of the track, you should get through the early morning line within 20 minutes. You’ll get to ride the Incredicoaster at least twice that morning (once in the Standby line and once with Fastpass).
Pixar Pier Tip #3: Ride All of the Other Rides in California Adventure!
Every time a new ride opens at Disneyland (or re-opens after a long refurbishment), everyone heads straight for what’s new! If you don’t give in to “Pixar Pier” pressure, you can practically walk on to every ride in California Adventure while you wait for your Incredicoaster and Toy Story Mania Fastpass return times.
On our first day in Pixar Pier this week, we rode 8 rides—including the Incredicoaster twice!—and had lunch before 11 a.m.!
Here’s how we did it:
- Walked into California Adventure at rope drop and rode Standby on the Incredicoaster (20 minutes); used MaxPass to book a Fastpass for the Incredicoaster for 10 a.m.
- Silly Symphony Swings (no wait).
- Goofy’s Sky School (5 minute wait).
- Jumpin’ Jellyfish (no wait).
- Golden Zephyr (no wait).
- Ariel’s Undersea Adventure (no wait).
- Grizzly River Run (single rider; no wait).
- The Incredicoaster (no wait with Fastpass!)
- Early lunch at Smokejumper’s Grill (the line gets really long after 11 a.m.!).
Radiator Springs Racers still gets busy fast every morning, but we’ve noticed on our last several Disneyland trips that the Standby time is totally inflated for that ride. We often see Standby wait times for Radiator Springs Racers listed as 90+ minutes, but when we get into the line, there is only a 10 minute wait!
It seems to us that Cast Members are trying to discourage people from riding Standby on Radiator Springs Racers by posting extra long wait times; we’re not sure why, but you can always walk through the Standby line to check it out for yourself, and just exit or move to the Single Rider line if there is really a long Standby wait.
You can walk on to the other Cars Land rides Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree and Luigi’s Rollicking Roadsters while everyone else heads to the bigger rides.
Pixar Pier Tip #4: Don’t accidentally get in a Disneyland Hipster line!
One reason we waited a couple days to visit Pixar Pier after it opened was to let all of the Disneyland Hipsters get their Instagram photos during the opening days. Our strategy worked, since California Adventure was much less busy June 25th–28th than it was on opening weekend.
Still, we noticed a ton of lines that were not for rides! Make sure you don’t accidentally get in a Disneyland Hipster line! The kids had a lot of fun posing like Disneyland Hipsters to illustrate this tip!
- The line for Adorable Snowman Frosted Treats backed all the way up to meet the Standby line for the Incredicoaster! If you can’t see this Finding Dory billboard, wait to get your “It’s Lemon!” soft serve after this silly line goes down. Another option: Get your soft serve at the Cozy Cones in Cars Land instead!
Here’s a Disney wall we haven’t seen a lot of: The Pixar Pier restroom wall! If your kids can hold it for another 90 seconds, use the restrooms between Paradise Garden Grill and Goofy’s Sky School instead—there’s rarely a line at that restroom!
If you saw the line at the Incredibles fountain outside the Incredicoaster, you’d think you were about to get on the ride, right? Wrong! We saw huge lines at the fountain—both when the Incredibles characters were there and when people were just waiting to pose with their Jack-Jack Cookie Num Nums (another crazy line)! It’s just a fountain, People!
This was the first time we took a pic at the Captain America shield in California Adventure—no wait tonight because all of the Disneyland Hipsters were posing with their Lamplight Lounge drinks!
Here’s a bonus tip to help you avoid waiting for the Paint the Night parade (or any Disneyland parade): Stand at a place where you can cross the street and you’ll get stopped by the Cast Members until there is a break in the parade (usually several floats). You get a great view and you won’t have to camp out on a curb to stake your spot for the parade instead of riding more rides!
Pixar Pier Tip #5: Go to Disneyland!
Again, if you zig while all of the other Disneyland guests zag, you can ride a lot more rides! If you feel like Pixar Pier is just too crazy, head over to Disneyland!
Evidently, the Pirates of the Caribbean re-opening with the new Red pirate scene was already old news when Pixar Pier opened, because we walked right on to Pirates several times even though Pixar Pier was super busy!
We don’t usually recommend Park Hoppers because of the extra cost, but since there will be a lot of new rides in BOTH parks next year—like Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge and the new Inside Out ride—AND the Annual Passholder system is changing, there can be huge swings in attendance between Disneyland and California Adventure on any given day.
SO while we still don’t think any family with kids under 10 needs Park Hopper tickets, we do recommend that families with teens and tweens get a Park Hopper AND MaxPass for at least one day of their Disneyland vacation.
Let’s Review Our Top 5 Tips for Paradise Pier!
- Stay at a hotel within walking distance to Disneyland!
- Use Fastpass and/or MaxPass to ride more of the big rides!
- Ride all of the NOT NEW rides in California Adventure while everyone else waits for the Incredicoaster!
- Do NOT wait in line for treats, popcorn buckets, or Disney wall pics!
- Get away from the crowds in DCA: Head to Disneyland!
Read on for more tips on how we do Disneyland on a budget with our favorite hotel across the street from Disneyland, Grand Legacy At The Park!
When you check out the rooms at Grand Legacy At The Park, don’t get confused over all of the room types. Go here to see the details for each room type at Grand Legacy At The Park and you’ll see that they all look great! If you need a rollaway bed, we recommend that you choose any room type with 2 beds except Classic, because you’ll need a larger room to accommodate the rollaway bed and have some breathing room.
Grand Legacy At The Park is a great value! Rooms as low as $107 a night!
All Disneyland hotel prices go up and down depending on the season (dates during Halloween Time, summer, and Christmas time are some of the busiest at Disneyland), and weekend rates are always higher than weekday rates.
Since we stay at Grand Legacy often, we look for a room rate under $150 per night, and we jump on any rate under $134 per night! When you’re comparing Disneyland hotel rates, remember to add 17% Anaheim hotel tax to all rates and fees, and any parking fee, resort fee, or rollaway bed fee.
Grand Legacy Specials!
The best rate to look for when you book your Disneyland hotel room at Grand Legacy At The Park is the Earlybird rate! We always choose the Earlybird rate when we plan our Disneyland trips in advance, because it saves us even more than the Annual Passholder or Park & Save (free parking) rates.
Grand Legacy also offers Military and Senior rates. You can easily compare the different rates for each room on a single screen on their easy to navigate website.
Fees at Grand Legacy At The Park:
There is only one fee at Grand Legacy At The Park: a $15 parking fee, which includes free valet parking on site. You are not charged if you don’t have a car, and Annual Passholders can get discounted parking ($10 parking per night) with the AP room rate.
One reason we love Grand Legacy At The Park is their rate calendar so we can see all the rates in an entire month at a glance! As of this writing, August 2018 rates are as low as $107 a night!
Book Direct with Grand Legacy At The Park!
We are Disneyland on a budget pros, so we check every hotel option for every trip. We’ve stopped checking Grand Legacy prices on Orbitz, because even with an Orbitz coupon, Grand Legacy’s direct price is better. Plus, if Grand Legacy’s rates decrease as your vacation dates get closer (which they often do!) you can call the hotel and they’ll adjust your rate to the new lower cost. (Or, do what we do and upgrade your room for the same price!)
Grand Legacy At The Park Specials: Annual Passholder vs. Park and Save:
A note for Disneyland Annual Passholders: Grand Legacy At The Park offers an AP discount and $10 parking (regular parking fee is $15). If you see the “Park and Save” rate for the room you want, book that instead of the AP rate and you’ll save $3–$5 per night. Example:
- Premier Room 2 Queen Beds Aug 20–23, 2018:
- AP rate: $125.10 + $10 parking per night: $135.10 plus tax per night.
- Park and Save rate: $132.05 per night, free parking.
- $3.05 per night difference.
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