Guide to Early Entry at Disneyland & California Adventure
Guests staying in on-site hotels at Disneyland Resort have access to Early Entry. This strategy guide covers everything you need to know: eligibility, ride rosters, how the perk works, tips & tricks, and reports on our experience with this extra time at both parks. (Updated January 23, 2024.)
In terms of basics, Early Entry offers admission to Disneyland or Disney California Adventure Park 30 minutes early to enjoy a limited number of attractions, dining, and shopping locations. This is the spiritual successor to both Magic Mornings and Extra Magic Hour, two similar-but-different perks we’ll discuss in the commentary below.
There are a couple of big distinctions between the perks. First, Magic Mornings and Extra Magic Hour were offered on select days and at select parks, whereas Early Entry is offered at both Disneyland and DCA every single day. Second, the eligibility pool is significantly smaller for Early Entry. These two factors in tandem should make Early Entry a better experience.
However, there is one thing that might make Early Entry less attractive than Magic Mornings and Extra Magic Hour: it’s half as long. Extra Magic Hour was one hour long, hence the name. Early Entry is 30 minutes in duration. The obvious drawback is that it’s 30 minutes shorter than its predecessor, so you have less of a head-start on off-site guests than during Extra Magic Hours.
The big change to Early Entry for 2024 is that it’s no longer in both parks every single day. Now, either Disneyland Park or Disney California Adventure Park will open early each day, according to this schedule:
- Disneyland: Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday
- Disney California Adventure: Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday
We’ve done Early Entry roughly one dozen times at Disneyland in total, and twice in 2024 (so far) since the perk shifted to the every other day. Honestly, our experience wasn’t all that much different than before. Maybe it was slightly busier in Fantasyland at Disneyland, but still very manageable.
With that said, it’s currently the winter off-season and it’s entirely possible that hotel occupancy is lower than normal. That’s definitely the case at the new Pixar Place Hotel, which is in the process of its transformation and has rooms out of commission as a result. We’ll test Early Entry again once California’s tourist season arrives and see if there’s any material difference.
We’re guessing that, even scaled back, Early Entry at Disneyland and DCA will still be fantastic. It all comes back to that small eligibility pool, and we’re thankful that Disney “only” scaled back the schedule instead of opening up eligibility to Good Neighbor Hotels, select multiday tickets, etc., as was the case before. Back then, Extra Magic Hour/Magic Mornings were often useless.
Moving on, here’s a look at the eligible hotels for Early Entry at Disneyland:
Early Entry Eligible Hotels
- Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa
- The Villas at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa
- Disneyland Hotel
- The Villas at Disneyland Hotel
- Disney’s Paradise Pier Hotel/Pixar Place Hotel
That’s it. Unlike Walt Disney World, which has a list of two-dozen plus first party hotels plus another dozen third party hotels that are eligible for Early Entry, there are currently only 3 hotels at Disneyland Resort plus Disney Vacation Club wings at two of them that receive this early admission perk. This can and likely will change, but for now…only registered guests of those hotels are eligible for Early Entry.
Guests of Grand Californian Hotel, Disneyland Hotel, and Pixar Place Hotel are able to enjoy Early Entry on both check-in and check-out days, as well as all other days of their stay. In theory, this would mean that a 1-night stay gives you access to two days of Early Entry (so long as you check-in prior to Early Entry on your arrival day).
Next, what’s open for Early Entry at each of the 2 theme parks…
Early Entry Rides at Disneyland
- Alice in Wonderland
- Astro Orbitor
- Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters
- Disneyland Monorail
- Dumbo the Flying Elephant
- King Arthur Carrousel
- Mad Tea Party
- Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride
- Peter Pan’s Flight
- Pinocchio’s Daring Journey
- Snow White’s Enchanted Wish
- Space Mountain
- Star Tours – The Adventures Continue
Early Entry Dining & Shopping at Disneyland
- Esplanade Stroller Shop
- Little Green Men Store Command
- Little Red Wagon
- Main Street Fruit Cart
- Market House
- The Star Trader
Early Entry Rides at Disney California Adventure
- Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission BREAKOUT!
- Incredicoaster
- The Little Mermaid ~ Ariel’s Undersea Adventure
- Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree
- Monsters Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue!
- Soarin’ Around the World
- WEB SLINGERS: A Spider-Man Adventure
Early Entry Dining & Shopping at Disney California Adventure
- Cappuccino Cart
- The Collector’s Warehouse
- Esplanade Stroller Shop
- Fiddler, Fifer & Practical Cafe
- Fillmore’s Taste-In
As you can see, options are somewhat limited during Early Entry at Disneyland and Disney California Adventure. With some exceptions, these lists are pretty similar to Magic Mornings and Extra Magic Hour. Only certain lands in each park were open to start the morning for that perk, and the same is true here. (The bigger differences are at DCA, but that’s mostly because Avengers Campus didn’t exist when Extra Magic Hour was last offered.)
Moreover, the Early Entry schedule and available attractions are subject to change without notice. Applicable theme park, days and times of operation, attraction and service availability may vary and are subject to change without notice. Subject to capacity and cancellation. [Insert other boring boilerplate caveats.]
To enjoy Early Entry admission, all guests (ages 3+) must be staying at one of the Disneyland Resort hotels, have valid theme park admission, and a park reservation for the same park on the same date. Link theme park tickets or passes, theme park reservations, and hotel reservations to the Disneyland app to show verification of these requirements.
Tickets and passes can be viewed by selecting “Tickets and Passes” and hotel dates of stay can be viewed by selecting “My Hotel Reservation” in the Disneyland app. This too works the same way as morning Extra Magic Hour, with eligible guests having their park ticket media scanned to gain access either at the turnstiles themselves, or at a certain ‘checkpoint’ within the park to deeper areas while off-site guests await traditional rope drop.
Early Entry Strategy
Our recommendation is arriving 30 minutes before Early Entry starts at Disneyland or DCA. In other words, an hour before official park opening time. This is nothing new–we offer this same advice for normal days and will continue to advise off-site guests to get to the parks at least 30 minutes early.
This is because getting through bag check and the turnstiles can be unpredictable, and time-consuming. The time flies by, and you’ll want to be as close to the front of the pack as possible when Early Theme Park Entry begins so that you can experience as many attractions as possible.
Note that some of our recommendations depend upon whether you’ll be purchasing Genie+ or Individual Lightning Lanes for each park. See our Guide to Genie+ and Lightning Lanes FAQ for Disneyland & DCA for everything you need to know.
In general, we recommend at least one day of Genie+ while visiting the California parks. If you have Park Hopper tickets (which we highly recommend–see our Disneyland Ticket Buying Guide) it’s usually possible to complete everything that’s a high priority in a single day via Lightning Lanes in both Disneyland and Disney California Adventure. Whether you want or need Genie+ for subsequent days will depend upon your budget and if you want to re-ride favorite attractions.
Let’s start with Disneyland strategy, where the question is essentially whether you start in Fantasyland or Tomorrowland. This is pretty much identical to the big rope drop dilemma, and our mantra with Disneyland park opening is Fantasyland First.
Not only are these timeless attractions a quintessential part of the Disneyland experience, but several don’t offer Lightning Lane line-skipping access via Genie+ and are easy to knock out in the morning in quick succession.
The reason that Fantasyland is the “correct” place to start is quite simple: the time it takes to do each attraction in Fantasyland is significantly lower than alternatives in Tomorrowland. Fantasyland dark rides are mostly old school, no-nonsense attractions. They have short queues, no pre-show, and dump you right out near other attraction entrances.
The minimum ride time for most Fantasyland attractions is under 5 minutes. You can easily accomplish numerous Fantasyland attractions during Early Entry at Disneyland. By contrast, Space Mountain and Star Tours – The Adventures Continue each can consume a decent amount of time by virtue of the lengthy queues and load processes.
See our Early Entry at Disneyland Step-by-Step Plan for a full photo report, strategy, and (as the title suggests) a step-by-step itinerary for Early Entry at Disneyland. As of 2024, we’ve taken advantage of Early Entry at Disneyland over a half-dozen times, and the approach covered there has consistently worked!
Over at Disney California Adventure, the best approach for Early Entry isn’t quite as clear-cut since the operational attractions are spread all over the park. We favor starting with Avengers Campus, as this Marvel-themed land has two popular rides that will have long waits later in the day. You’ll likely want to start out with WEB Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure and bounce over to Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission Breakout from there.
Where you go next is up in the air, but the best approach if you’re speedy is crossing over to Cars Land for traditional rope drop at Radiator Springs Racers. The minimum time for all of the eligible attractions at DCA is higher, so you may not be able to do both Web Slingers and Mission Breakout while still beating the rope drop rush to Radiator Springs Racers. We’ve had mixed results with this.
You can read Early Entry at Disney California Adventure: Sarah’s Slingin’ Step-by-Step Strategy for a photo recap from DCA. Unlike Disneyland, our results doing Early Entry at Disney California Adventure have been much more inconsistent. This is mostly due to longer pre-shows and attraction downtime, and not long lines. We haven’t encountered long lines anywhere during Early Entry in either park.
Suffice to say, crowds during Early Entry at Disneyland and Disney California Adventure are minimal. Even though the attraction lineups are limited, so too is eligibility. With only three participating properties at Disneyland Resort, there simply are not that many hotel guests who have access to this perk.
That’s a far cry from the situation at Walt Disney World. Although Florida has double the parks, which obviously helps, there are also exponentially more eligible hotels. This means significantly higher demand on each park, even with 2 more parks than California.
As compared to Magic Mornings and Extra Magic Hour at Disneyland Resort pre-closure, crowds are nothing during Early Entry. We were not fans of Magic Mornings or Extra Magic Hour at Disneyland, because they were open to so many guests. Those days didn’t just have guests of the three hotels, they were also open to 3+ day ticket holders and those who bought qualifying vacation packages for Good Neighbor Hotels.
Our expectation is that Disneyland Resort will eventually expand Early Entry in a similar fashion, but not to that extreme. It’s likely that guests of the 3 on-site hotels won’t even come close to fully utilizing the parks during the 30-minute head start, and Disneyland management will want to expand the offering to other guests to incentivize sales of more vacation packages or tickets. That’s just a guess, though.
Ultimately, that’s everything you need to know about Early Entry at Disneyland and Disney California Adventure. We will undoubtedly be updating this strategy guide several times in the coming months, as we already have hotel stays booked to test drive this new perk and formulate specific strategy. Stay tuned–we’ll continue to cover all of the important Disneyland planning details and also share Early Entry photo reports from our experiences with this new on-site hotel benefit!
Planning a Southern California vacation? For park admission deals, read Tips for Saving Money on Disneyland Tickets. Learn about on-site and off-site hotels in our Anaheim Hotel Reviews & Rankings. For where to eat, check out our Disneyland Restaurant Reviews. For unique ideas of things that’ll improve your trip, check out What to Pack for Disney. For comprehensive advice, consult our Disneyland Vacation Planning Guide. Finally, for guides beyond Disney, check out our Southern California Itineraries for day trips to Los Angeles, Laguna Beach, and tons of other places!
YOUR THOUGHTS
Thoughts on Early Entry at Disneyland and Disney California Adventure? Would you book a night or two at Grand Californian Hotel, Disneyland Hotel, and Pixar Place Hotel in order to have access to this on-site perk? Excited to take advantage of this morning head start or think it’s too short to be useful? Disappointed about the eligibility rules or attraction lineups? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
https://disneyland.disney.go.com/guest-services/early-admission-options/
Disneyland quietly updated their website to announce a limitation to this perk. This is dropping from 2 parks down to 1 per day but same 30 min time and eligibility – January 20, 2024. FYI.
Yes, I wonder this hasn’t been updated in the article! important information to know, and it changes your strategy if you aren’t staying on site.
It has been updated in the article–towards the top.
You have nicely updated most of the article but this sentence still exists which might throw people off.
“There are a couple of big distinctions between the perks. First, Magic Mornings and Extra Magic Hour were offered on select days and at select parks, whereas Early Entry is offered at both Disneyland and DCA every single day.”
Was in Disneyland on Monday and Wednesday for early entry- both times rise was closed because broken- along with many rides including pirates. Tuesday at California adventure was worse- cars and toystory rides both down along with other rides- honestly early entry was a waste. The cars ride stayed closed till the afternoon . And the fact that haunted mansion is closed in august for Halloween is kinda dumb IMO paired with splash being gone. Might try it again in a few years but much prefer Disneyworld- wasn’t feeling the magic
You would be way more relevant if you dated your posts or put dates the article was updated. I tend to not consider you a reliable source since things change all the time and I don’t know how old your advice is so if I see you wrote the article 95% of the time I skip it.
Update… did early Entry Disneyland in April 2023…..
There’s a separate entrance line on the right just past past main street for those with Early Entrance. Just show your room key. We got there right at 7:30. Went straight to Peter Pan, probably waited 5 minutes. Our choice was then either Star Wars or Toontown. Glad we chose Star Wars as Mickey’s Railroad didn’t open for another hour due to a breakdown. NOTE: the path to Star Wars opened by Red Rose Tavern at about 7:51am. Get there early! There was probably about 75 people all rushing to Star Wars. Half took the first right, the other half the second right. I believe the first right was quicker. Got on Rise with about a 10 min wait. About 5 min after we were in line a gush of crowd came running from the main rope drop. We then doubled back to Mickey’s… only about a 30 min wait. Then we were tired the rest of the day. Did the same for Radiator Springs Racers. Sleep in the other days.. not worth being tired all day.
Am staying at Grand Californian and doing early entry at DCA, and am curious if I can/should enter via the entrance attached to the hotel, or if that isn’t open until the regular park opening?
Have booked Tom’s #1 hotel choice for a late January, early February trip. I am also considering Paradise Pier because of early entry. P. Pier is $950 more than the B. Western for our length of stay.
Is the additional cost worth it for 30 min. per day? I am inspired by how much Sarah was able to accomplish with the extra time!
We are four adults and approach our Disney trips with tactical precision!
Thought and comments please!
How much extra is Disneyland Hotel or the Grand Californian?
To each their own, but we hate Paradise Pier Hotel. It’s not up to Disney standards (and was literally a third party hotel until Disney bought it). It’s #38 on our Anaheim hotel rankings: https://www.disneytouristblog.com/disneyland-anaheim-hotels-reviews-rankings/
Any thoughts on when they might add Good Neighbor hotels to EE like they do at WDW?
Weird that radiator springs racers isn’t available (since it was during early magic hours before). Seems like a cash grab to maximize people buying individual LL. (Same for rise of resistance but that has weird hours anyway.)
What do you think the best strategy is for off site guests? Im going in September and was planning on doing Fantasyland first (specifically peter pan first) but now I’m not sure if Peter pan will already have a long line
Thank you for this, Tom. My teen daughter and I are finally going back to DLR in October (doing 2 days of park hoppers and including a Boo Bash night – glad I got our tix before they sold out in record time) and I see some of the old Early Admission rides that were open pre-COVID aren’t any more. I see they’re subject to change, though. If I had known back in 2019 (the last time I visited DLR – I’m in Colorado but used to live in SoCal from 1970 through 2003) that the parks would then close for such a long time (2020+), I would have done more (we skipped the fireworks because our feet hurt! And we skipped Villains Grove during the party for the same reason. Arthritis is bad. I’ll savor this next visit). And thank you for your recent articles that remind me of how Josh used to report on easyWDW (RIP Josh). I’ll ck your site more often now, if even just to see your glorious photos. I remember Josh admired your photo work so much he named his fancy camera Tom, back in the day. I tailor my park-touring advice notes (which I share with family and friends) according to what you and Corless’s people write…adding on to my old WDW notes from Josh from over the years. Keep up the great work.
Great to see a nice perk after dropping nearly $800/night at the Grand Californian. One benefit I see is that after the 30 minutes is up, you’ll have a head start geographically to get to Rise of the Resistance or Radiator Springs Racers, correct??
We just got back from DLR, and did traditional rope drop for both of those rides. I can confirm that the early entries were able to move past us for a faster rope drop – at DCA, you can get to Cars Land itself while rope drop is held at Wine Country Trattoria. In Disneyland, you’ll probably want to rope drop ROTR from the the route through Fantasyland. Adventureland/Frontierland will be held at the hub – you can go as far west in Fantasyland as possible, then I’d recommend taking the path straight (don’t take the first right into Star Wars by Milk Stand). Merge into the traffic coming from the hub and go up into Star Wars by droid depot, then straight towards ROTR. This should give you a distinct head start on the rope droppers from the Hub. Hope that helps!
Fantastic advice. Thank You Mike! Every second matters:) Beating the line as a Dad is sometimes better for me than the actual ride!
Love that you said take the path by the Droid Shop is better than the first right by the Mild stand.
Also I assume the path from Spiderman to Cars land via Luigi’s is the shortcut to RSR.
+1. Invaluable advice here. Can’t wait to put it into practice!
Maybe I’m just completely underestimating the level of crowds possible at both Disneyland and California Adventure, but my last visit to C.A. on July 17th (a Sunday that should have seen a substantial number of visitors) was largely uneventful. Even arriving at 10:00 AM, and not employing any plan (other than to leave in the afternoon, walk back to the Westin, and return in the evening) allowed for a regular day that saw us ride everything we wanted to, as well as see World of Color in the ‘Splash Zone’ at night. We did spontaneously pay for an ILL on Radiator Springs later in the day, but that was only because the ride was intermittently up and down all day. I know C.A. isn’t the largest park and it’s easier to accomplish most of what you want to in a single day; I also don’t think you need to ensure that you stay and be at the Grand Californian entrance exactly at 8:30 for 30 minutes of exclusive access to the park either. I guess that’s why I love Disneyland – you really can just “wing it” and still have a great day.
thanks tom, as always. since it’s only the 3 hotels currently eligible (we’ll be staying offsite), your assumption is the impact will be fairly minimal as long as offsite guests still get there plenty early for rope drop? should offsite guests follow a similar strategy as what you’ve listed here?
I am curious, do you think they will designate certain turnstiles for Early entry? Since other guests will likely be lined up for regular entry, I am trying to picture in my head how to get past those guests if I have early entry.
Not Tom but long time Disneyland guest. Just stay to the far left where you will see signs for early entry. Enjoy!
Thank you Beth. I have never been to DLR for early entry before. I will try to remember to look for some signs at the turnstiles.
Hi Tom,
Is there any advantage to rope dropping the Monorail entrance in Downtown Disney if you are eligible for Early Entry as opposed to lining up at the Esplanade Entrance?
Same question to this. Wondering if anyone can comment on whats the optimal time to get to the Downtown stop to get on first rail in to the park? Thinking if you want to hit Space Mountain/Star Tours and get TomorrowLand out of the way first thing, that would be the way to go. If you can get em both in before “Open” you can hit up FantasyLand right after to get all the non-Genie+ rides like Peter Pan and Alice before those queues grow to 30 mins plus. Even get your first Genie+ reservation in for Indiana or Big Thunder if you time it right for when you’re done there.
DCA’s is an oddball list. Mater but not Luigi? Incredicoaster but nothing else on the Pier? Baffling. I will not likely ever partake of an Early Entry since I have no need to stay at either of the two (2) official Disney hotels, but if I did, and if I wasn’t using G+, I would probably make it Guardians/Soarin over Guardians/Spidey. I have no qualms with Single Rider, and both Spidey and Radiator have efficient SR lines (RSR more so), so I’d get rid of the two biggies that don’t and then head to the Pier. I am grateful when people do have a qualm, because it means a faster SR line for me, a qualmless Single Rider. Anyway, might be able to squeeze in Incredi before the rope. I have become a HUGE fan of rope dropping for the Pier/Paradise Gardens since it takes everyone awhile to discover it. I was there just this morning and did everything around the Pier, including Incredi and TSMM without a wait over 2 minutes per ride. It was magical. Knocking all that stuff out quickly is a feeling of success comparable to the Fantasyland blitz in my opinion.