SoCal Resident tickets: Disney Weekend

Disney has announced their annual Southern California Resident discount tickets!  These are a great option for those of living in Southern California.  The parks are not as crowded at this time of year so you can ride more rides, see more princesses, and generally have a more relaxed visit.  And, these are usually the best prices you are going to get for Disney tickets, This year it is $179 per person for a 3-day (1 park per day) ticket.

I found a zip code map, and I am impressed that Disney has a pretty generous definition of Southern California.  The zip code range is "Southern California residents within ZIP codes 90000-93599 and Northern Baja California residents within ZIP codes 21000-22999."  For US residents this covers from the US-Mexico border up past San Simeon on the coast and even farther north in the east part of the state.  The best Zip code map I could find was at "About Zip Codes": .  You have to really zoom in to see the zip codes on the California map.

This year Disney is only offering 3-day tickets at the SoCal price.  The usual restriction on multi-day tickets is that you have to use all the days in about 2 weeks.  I couldn't find that disclaimer on the SoCal tickets page, if you want to spread out the ticket's use you should probably inquire.  I expect that they have the same restrictions for any type of multi-day ticket.

Note that there are blackout dates for these tickets in April.  The website has details, but basically it is around Easter and Spring Breaks so check to make sure your dates are good.

Where to Buy:

These tickets are best purchased on the Disneyland website: https://disneyland.disney.go.com/.  If you want someone to plan your weekend for you there are quite a few independent travel agents around the web who can do that for you, they should get their commission from Disney and so shouldn't charge you much, if anything.  If you use an agent be sure to let them know you are a SoCal resident and make sure they can get the discount for you before you buy.

But for a quick trip it can be just as easy to do your own planning.  I'll be following up this post with some transportation and hotel advice posts, as well as some ideas for Disneybounding (clothes) and ear hats.

I actually recommend using the Disneyland website for buying tickets year round.  There really aren't very good discounts, you might be able to get some hotel discounts buying in a package, but most of the legitimate discount tickets are only discounted a few dollars if at all (as in a "good neighbor" hotel might eat a dollar or two of your ticket price if you are in their hotel).  If a ticket is discounted more than about $5 (vs the website) it is probably a fraud.*

Park Hopper?

Do you want Park Hopper tickets?  Each ticket is more expensive ($234 per person this year rather than the $179).  So the question you need to ask yourself is "will I get my money's worth?"

I have a small child, with another on the way, and the answer for my family is "No, the Hopper option really wont be used."  Each park (Disneyland and California Adventure) is pretty big and just walking around one each day is enough for a child.  The littles need time to absorb all of the Disney magic and won't be happy rushing between "lands" in each park much less between parks.  Also, you need to plan downtimes in the parks where they can eat and have some free play time to keep the kiddos from revolting.  I find I just don't have time or inclination to run across the square to the other park to stand in line to get in again.

If you don't have children (or they are older teenage type children).  Park hopper can be fun.  You can focus on the "cool" rides like the coasters each day.  If you use the Disneyland App on your phone you can keep an eye on where the lines are and get FastPasses before you head over for a ride.  And California Adventure sells alcohol in the park, so you can head over there for meals if you feel you need a drink.  I have friends with Annual Passes who basically just eat and drink at California Adventure.

So it really comes down to what kind of trip you want.

• Are you planning to leisurely enjoy the Disney experience? Go with one park per day.  
• Is there a group of rides that you want to hit everyday? Park hopper would be best for you.
• Do you need Booze to get through a day of Disney?  Actually, you can get drinks at the bars in Downtown Disney, the Disney Hotels, and most neighbor hotels have a fridge in room, so don't use this question as a deciding factor.

*There are many blogs already addressing ticket frauds so I am not going to do it here.  Just google for "Disney ticket fraud" and "Disney ticket discounts" if you want to read up on them.