The Sorcerer's Guide

Height restrictions keep kids safe, but they can be frustrating. If you have ever taken kids to the parks, you know what I mean. Every cast member measures a little differently, so sometimes you make it all the way to the loading zone and then get turned away. Other times your kids are just slightly too short, and you wish they would have worn taller shoes. One of the most difficult things, in my mind, is planning trips and figuring out how long it will be ’till your kids can meet height restrictions. Especially when some can ride and some can’t, the younger ones want to know how much longer ’till they’ll be big enough. I don’t know any parents that have memorized a growth chart and can say, “My child will grow 1 inch in the next 9 months, so we should plan a trip then.” When we plan trips with our kids, we just keep measuring them and telling them to eat a bunch in hopes they’ll be tall enough for more rides. Fortunately, the CDC (Center for Disease Control) has released  data ...

Welcome back to Part 2 of taking a baby to the park. I have a few more tricks to make your visit to Disneyland with a baby just a little smoother. Take advantage of the baby center Look for this symbol on your park map. Every Disney park has a baby center . It has changing tables, high chairs, a toddler sized toilet, and even a rocking chair behind a curtain so you can breastfeed your baby privately. They also have a bunch of supplies you may have forgotten that you can purchase: baby food, diapers, wipes, sunscreen, etc. It’s a nice place to give your baby some quiet time. Next time you’re in the park, go in and see. They are great! Bring a few different outfits You always want to have an extra outfit in case of spit ups or blow-outs. You’ll also want to have warmer clothes in case it rains or gets cold. While we were there it was a nice 75-80 degrees, but by 7 at night it was getting pretty chilly. It was nice to have an extra pair of clothes to keep her little legs warm. Of course, ...

Did you know you can’t take your baby on Astro Orbiter unless they have shoes or socks on? Well, neither did I. That’s why I found myself digging through the diaper bag trying to find socks. I thought I was prepared to take my 4 month old to Disneyland. I’ve been to Disneyland a hundred times, I’d read blogs, I did everything I thought of to be ready. But of course, you can never be completely prepared. So here are a few things that made our trip a little easier. Have realistic expectations To start, you have to set the right expectations; you are going to be a lot slower than you used to be without having kids or a baby. My husband and I used to be able to do at least 25 rides a day. With our baby in tow we slowed down to about 15. You have to go much slower when you have to take the time to park the stroller and take the baby out, or wait with the baby while the rest of your party rides an attraction and then use the rider switch, and of course taking the time to feed and change diap...

Disney vacations cost a lot of money and they’re just gonna get more expensive. People are always looking for ways to make it cheaper, so here’s what we do. Get Buttons as a Cheap Momento from your Trip All the Disney parks give out free buttons, whether you’re celebrating something or not. You can get a button that says “Happy Birthday”, “I’m Celebrating”, “Happily Ever After”, “Just Graduated”, or “First Visit”. Cast members at guest services have them, but sometimes they run out. If you’re looking for a particular button ask around, sometimes cashiers have them. Buy Disney Merchandise Outside the Parks We all know how expensive t-shirts, or mugs, or mickey ears are when you’re shopping at a Disney Resort. There are lots of other places that have Disney merchandise for much cheaper. You can visit stores like Walmart or Target, or shop online through Amazon or Etsy. Disney outlets are a great option too if you have one nearby. Even DisneyStore.com has some great sales to get official...

Picking a hotel is hard. You want a hotel that’s close to the park, clean, and inexpensive. But around Disneyland, you have to compromise a bit. If you’ve been to Walt Disney World, you may expect that the majority of the visitors stay in Disney owned hotels. That’s not the case at Disneyland. Lots of visitors stay at nearby hotels or the rely on the parking system. Disney Hotels Disney has three “on property” hotels. These hotels are owned and run by Disney and are part of Disneyland. These are high quality hotels with the Disney name, which means they can be a pricey. The Disneyland Hotel was built in 1955 for Disneyland’s opening. The hotel has gone through several expansions and upgrades over the years. It’s located at the west side of Downtown Disney. It’s very close to one of the two monorail stops (the other stop is inside Disneyland), so you can get into the park without walking through the shopping district. The Grand Californian opened with California Adventure. It has an ent...

Genie Genie is Disney’s free service for scheduling activities and attractions at their theme parks. It allows you to select a few things you’re interested in – including rides, shows, and dining – and then recommends related attractions you may enjoy. The day of your visit, it will assign times for each attraction. Genie’s approach is to come up with a schedule that you can meet with time to spare. So, you may see it give you over an hour for an attraction that only takes half an hour. Disney’s hope is that you’ll spend the extra time shopping and dining. This is different from RideRouter , which is built around optimizing your day, and getting you to all of the attractions that you’ve selected. RideRouter will also let you create a plan up to 30 days in advance. Genie also shows estimated wait times for the day. It won’t give specific numbers, but it does give a bar graph that can give you an idea about when lines will grow or shrink. You can access Genie through the Disneyland and W...

  Everyone needs some Disneyland tips these days. It's getting harder to avoid spending all day on your phone at in the park.  Genie+ , posted wait times, mobile orders, virtual queues, show times, park tickets, dining reservations, Photo-Pass, and customer service are all handled through the  Disneyland App . It's becoming a frequent complaint from park goers. And since the Disney apps are not well optimized for battery usage either, so many guests have to take battery packs to extend life. Some of it is unavoidable, but here are some tips you can use to reduce the time you spend on your phone. Prioritize experience over recording. There are Point of View (PoV) videos of full ride throughs and shows all over YouTube. You can find a video of just about anything you'd like to see, and it'll be higher quality than you can get. Focus on enjoying the experience, not recording it. Set alarms for Genie+. People using Genie+, the service that gets you into most of the Lightnin...

It’s October, which means we’re half way through the Halloween season! We want to report on the Crowd Calendar’s performance. We’ll make this a habit, so you can expect a monthly update with some statistics. This report will be about a combination of the two, but we post Disneyland and Walt Disney World calendars separately. Across Disneyland and Walt Disney World, our average error was 0.2, with a standard deviation of 1.5 points. 67% of our predictions were within 1 point, and 92% were within 2. There were only two predictions that were off by more than 3: September 10th at Disneyland was a 2, and we had predicted a 6. The lower crowds were likely because of the D23 expo. This was the day of the Disney Parks panel. So this would have been the day that the biggest park fans would be at the expo most of the day. We’ll need to take this difference into account for the next Expo. September 26th at Epcot was an 8, and we had predicted a 4. Magic Kingdom on this same day was a 7, when ...