I went to visit family in LA and take my kids to Disneyland a couple of years ago. I had saved about $5k for the trip, and the whole trip ultimately cost about double that, even with my grandparents buying the Disneyland tickets for us. The tickets were set to cost about $4k in total (I can’t remember if that was 3 day passes or only 1 day passes)
If you have a reason to go to Disneyland, my advise is, don’t bother with the park hopper. California Adventure just did not have the same charm as Disneyland, so while I enjoyed seeing DCA, I don’t have any real reason to do it again. With normal tickets you can generally pick one or the other park for one entry per day, and there’s enough in each park to fill a full day. If you are doing DCA start there so you can truly be impressed when you enter Disneyland. Get the genie pass, because it’s basically required for timely entry to any ride that has a line, and employees give preferential treatment to Genie Pass lines over the General Admission lines. Pack sandwiches and snacks because everything is expensive of course (and reasonable outside food is allowed). For Disneyland, due to its age there’s a ton of older rides tucked into corners that are easy to miss, so do some research on the rides that interest you so you don’t miss the old gems with no lines. Also while there, put on your infrastructure nerd hat and look at all of the fixtures and watch for evidence of older rides/exhibits because the attention to detail and all is incredible, as well as the Easter eggs left for those who know the history
I went to visit family in LA and take my kids to Disneyland a couple of years ago. I had saved about $5k for the trip, and the whole trip ultimately cost about double that, even with my grandparents buying the Disneyland tickets for us. The tickets were set to cost about $4k in total (I can’t remember if that was 3 day passes or only 1 day passes)
If you have a reason to go to Disneyland, my advise is, don’t bother with the park hopper. California Adventure just did not have the same charm as Disneyland, so while I enjoyed seeing DCA, I don’t have any real reason to do it again. With normal tickets you can generally pick one or the other park for one entry per day, and there’s enough in each park to fill a full day. If you are doing DCA start there so you can truly be impressed when you enter Disneyland. Get the genie pass, because it’s basically required for timely entry to any ride that has a line, and employees give preferential treatment to Genie Pass lines over the General Admission lines. Pack sandwiches and snacks because everything is expensive of course (and reasonable outside food is allowed). For Disneyland, due to its age there’s a ton of older rides tucked into corners that are easy to miss, so do some research on the rides that interest you so you don’t miss the old gems with no lines. Also while there, put on your infrastructure nerd hat and look at all of the fixtures and watch for evidence of older rides/exhibits because the attention to detail and all is incredible, as well as the Easter eggs left for those who know the history