Odds and ends for your Disneyland trip

In the posts about when to go, we talk a little about waiting in line for rides, but before you do that you need to get into the park, and there can be three distinct lines for that.

One is the line for buying tickets. We have always gone with tickets, but there have been issues with them twice, that came up at the third line, for park entrance.

The last time it happened, I had not gotten the right dates for our trip. There will often be specific promotions but the travel needs to be within a certain time frame. Check this carefully. Otherwise, if you have perhaps purchased at a discount that has expired, you will need to pay the extra and get the passes reissued.

Obviously, you can simply purchase on site, and the lines don't seem terribly long, but I like having that done, and being able to go straight to the entrance. I have been curious about the packs at Costco. I suspect they are good for a broader range of time, but I would check before purchasing. I always get them at http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/.

You can search for deals here, not just on passes, but on bundles with hotel or meal plans. You can also check out annual passes. I think I mentioned in a different post that at every checkout they asked us if we were annual passholders. We're not, because we only make it every other year. However, there are various discounts, including on hotels, so it might be something to consider, at least for one person.

I look at different deals, but we pretty much always end up getting the 5-Day Park Hopper pass, allowing us to go between the Magic Kingdom and California Adventure, and including on Magic Morning early park admission, which we don't really use, but we totally could, and this works for us.

You can get tickets at the park, you can print passes, or you can pre-order and get passes mailed. If you do this, you will notice a place for a signature on each pass. Do not sign this. We used blue ink, and they needed black.

I don't want any of this to sound like I am complaining. They do a great job of taking care of you, and part of that is that the passes are expensive, and if you lose them, you will be unhappy. They want the passes to be readable, and associated with you, which is why sometimes on entrance they will take your picture. We thought maybe it was a homeland security thing, but they said it was that if you lose your pass, you can get it back. It's just something that happens. My point is, sure, if you use a black pen at home, it may work, but they have the right kind of pens there at the entrance, just wait.

So, you have the ticket lines, which you can avoid, and you have the park entrance, but there is one more line, and that is where they check bags. They're not too picky. People take in food and everything. However, they are looking for safety issues, and again, there are things you might not think about. Someone ahead of us had a football. They didn't confiscate it, but they didn't want it being thrown around the park, which could lead to injuries, so they just stressed it needed to be left in the bag. It goes even faster if you don't bring the ball in the first place. There's not really any good place for playing ball, but there's a lot of other fun stuff to do. It's just common sense.

None of these are huge issues, but if they make your morning run a little more smoothly, that's what I'm here for, whether it's a magic morning or not.