If you’re visiting Disneyland and staying at one of the three Disney hotels, you’ll have access to an exclusive perk—Early Entry. The Early Entry perk grants you extra time in the parks before other guests. While more time is theoretically always a good thing, in practice you might sometimes find that this perk is more trouble than you bargained for. In this post, we’ll outline the basics of Early Entry at Disneyland before moving onto specific park strategy, including explanations of why you might and might not want to take advantage of the perk. Read on to learn all about Early Entry at Disn ..read more

Disneyland Hotel got a major upgrade in 2023 when the Villas at Disneyland Hotel debuted. The new tower came with some new amenities, but also some more modern rooms that elevate the resort as a whole. Check out our review of the new Deluxe Studio at the Disneyland Villas! About This Post and Related Posts This post will be strictly a look at a Deluxe Studio at the new Disneyland Villas tower at Disneyland Hotel. We have a more comprehensive review of the hotel including the additions that opened with the villas at our Disneyland Hotel Review. That review also includes a look at a room in the ..read more

Disneyland Resort finally debuted Pixar Place Hotel, a refurbishment of the old Paradise Pier Hotel, and we were very excited to check it out during our recent trip to the resort. In this post, we’ll cover our time at the hotel, including our room, the grounds, and the exclusive Pixar Place Hotel entrance to Disney California Adventure. Read on to learn all about Disneyland’s Pixar Place Hotel! About Pixar Place Hotel Pixar Place Hotel is one of three Disney-operated hotels at Disneyland Resort. The other two are Disneyland Hotel and Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel and Spa. Pixar Place Hotel ..read more

Star Wars Nite at Disneyland is a popular nighttime event held only select nights in April and May. Since a recent trip coincided with an event night, I finally had a chance to check out the famed event. In this post I’ll review my experience, including what’s offered, what worked for me, and why I think this event works for some fans even if it wasn’t perfect for me. Read on to see how my time at Star Wars Nite went! Star Wars Nite Basics Disneyland After Dark: Star Wars Nite is a ticketed event held on select nights at Disneyland. It is part of the “Disneyland After Dark” series of events, w ..read more

A cornerstone of any trip to Disneyland is meeting the Mouse himself—Mickey! In this post, we’ll discuss how you can meet Mickey Mouse at Disneyland. We’ll start with where you can find greetings in the park (and when and how we recommend doing those) before discussing the only way to book a Mickey greeting—character dining! Read on to learn all about meeting Mickey Mouse at Disneyland! Checking the App for Character Info Before we get to the specifics of meeting Mickey in the parks, I want to remind you to check the Disneyland app. The Disneyland app lists when and where the characters will b ..read more

As part of a recent trip to Disneyland Paris, I had the opportunity to stay in Disney Hotel New York - The Art of Marvel. Formerly “Disney’s Hotel New York”, the reimagined hotel opened in 2021 with the “Art of Marvel” theming. I’ve been excited to see how this ambitious re-theming worked out. Read on to learn all about my stay at Disney Hotel New York - The Art of Marvel! Basics, Pricing, and Booking Disney Hotel New York - Art of Marvel is a Disney-operated hotel at Disneyland Paris resort. As a Disney hotel, it gets various perks, the most important of which is Extra Magic Time at Disneylan ..read more

One of the key perks of staying at a Disney hotel at Disneyland Paris is access to Extra Magic Time—bonus time in the parks before they open to other guests. In this post, we’ll cover everything you need to know about Extra Magic Time at Disneyland Paris. We’ll start with the basics—when it’s offered, how to get it, and what rides are included—before moving onto the best strategies for getting the most out of this bonus time. Read on to learn all about Extra Magic Time at Disneyland Paris! Basics of Disneyland Paris Extra Magic Time Before we get into the strategy (where to go when, at both pa ..read more

It’s hard to keep track of all the “skip the line” systems across Disney parks, and if you’re heading abroad to Disneyland Paris, you probably don’t need yet another thing to stress about. In this post, we’ll breakdown Disneyland Paris’s “Disney Premier Access” system—their version of FASTPASS / Genie / “skip the line”. We’ll start with the basics before diving into our personal experience and thoughts on whether and when Premier Access is worth it. Read on to learn about about Disney Premier Access at Disneyland Paris! Basics of Disneyland Paris Premier Access We’ll start with the basics… Wha ..read more

Yesterday marked the debut of bookings for 2025 trips to Walt Disney World (well, January through October, at least), along with some other small updates. These are things that will eventually make their way into all our other posts, but immediately they’re worth noting here. Most 2025 Dates Now Available for Disney World Bookings Packages, room only reservations, and tickets for arrivals January through October 2025 have debuted at Disney World. That means if you’re looking to book a trip that starts anytime before November 2025, now is the time to start planning. Disney World has relatively ..read more

In this post we review MouseDining, an online service that helps you track down and book hard-to-get Disney dining reservations. We’ll talk about how the service works, the basics of setting up alerts, whether and when it worked for us, and what you need to know to get the most out of it. Read on to see what we think of MouseDining! About This Post In this post we review the MouseDining service. Their homepage is here. We are not affiliated with MouseDining in any way, and they haven’t been consulted about this post. We’ve used and reviewed the service, and now we’d like to give our opinions ..read more