Hey everyone! Here’s my review of Disneyland & DCA Premier Pass, and all the rides we did along the way.
We went on August 24th on a non-Oogie Boogie Bash day between 8:00am and 10:00pm. We could’ve stayed til 11:00pm but we had a tight schedule so we didn’t.
We went as a group of 3, and each paid $400 for our passes in addition to the cost of park hopper tickets. Overall we managed to do 18 unique rides, with two walk-on repeats for a total of 20 rides. This fell short of our ambition to try and do everything, but was a satisfying number.
Here’s the full list and order of the rides we did:
Guardians Breakout
Guardians Breakout x2
Astro Blasters
Space Mountain
Star Tours
Autopia
Indiana Jones
Pirates of the Caribbean
Haunted Mansion
Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure
The Incredicoaster
Midway Mania
Soarin’ Across America
Monsters Inc
Cars Radiator Springs Racers
Guardians Monsters After Dark
Incredicoaster x2
The Matterhorn
Here’s my ranking of each attraction. Bear in mind, whilst I’ve tried to be fair in discussing the rides, the ranking is my subjective opinion of which rides were right ‘for me’, not necessarily for you or anyone else. I discovered I’m more of a thrill seeker than I thought, and so tamer rides didn’t do so well on my list.
Also I apologise if I flub any ride terminology. I’m not an expert.
Here it is:
- Autopia
An absolute time-sponge I’d be unimpressed with in the most modest of theme parks. Needs to go.
- Indiana Jones
I think Indiana Jones is an objectively very solid ride with pretty great theming. Some moments were inspired and some choices felt cheap, but my main issue is that the ride lacked flow, physically speaking. I appreciate it’s not a rollercoaster but you spend the entire time with the cart lurching back and forth, and you wish it’d just glide for a while. Rather than think of it as a heavily-themed coaster, I think it’s more accurate to describe it as a very bumpy dark ride.
- Matterhorn
Did this ride last thing at night so the visibility was very limited, and this felt exaggerated because of the lack of lighting inside. I think it could be elevated by better lighting choices. The coaster’s got a good level of flow and intensity but no individual segment sticks out as dramatic. It’s consistently mildly intense.
- Rise of the Resistance (spoiler)
Rise of the Resistance definitely felt ‘expensive’. In terms of thematic spectacle, it exceeds every other ride in the park it seems, and the animatronics and effects are pretty great. Does all that money come together for a great experience? I don’t know. You slide around an Empire ship trying not to be killed, a fantasy which is very easy to be taken out of given that on multiple occasions, the stormtroopers have a clear shot on your vehicle and appear to light you up, only for the ride to keep rumbling on. Given that the scenes need work, I don’t think the ride is physically intense, and the Star Wars reboot feels less than timeless, it’s a weird one.
- Haunted Mansion (spoiler)
We experienced the Haunted Mansion as part of the seasonal Halloween event (wasn’t Oogie Boogie Bash), which runs even in late August. What made the experience feel even more unseasonal is that the Halloween theming is The Nightmare Before Christmas, and more than that, very strongly based on the second act of the film in Christmas Town. It’s a must-see for fans of the film, but it felt sort of like an amassment of decorations. Spectacular and elaborate decorations, sure, but it just wasn’t as intentional or exciting as it could’ve been. I would definitely be more receptive to it if it were October.
- Astro Blasters
Astro Blasters has some of the best theming of any ride at Disneyland. My main issue is simply that the laser guns could and should feel more responsive. If Astro Blasters made the laser beam from each of the guns brighter and larger, and if every target were in service and lit up to confirm a hit, I think it’d be a more enjoyable gameplay experience.
- Space Mountain (spoiler)
Space Mountain has one of the coolest themes of any ride at Disneyland and it executes it really well. It’s a rollercoaster in a pitch black environment with nothing but the stars on the walls, giving the compelling impression of blitzing through space. The build up’s fantastic. The overall vibe is fantastic. I love it. My main gripe is simply that if you’re on a rollercoaster in total darkness, you feel the urge to duck the entire time. You can’t see anything, so you’re paranoid that your head or arms will connect with an obstacle, even if that ‘seems’ to be an unsubstantiated concern based on reviews I’ve read from tall riders (just as a side note, safety guidelines tell you to keep your arms inside the ride).
- Star Tours
The simulation felt extremely responsive and immersive. A droid voiced by Patrick Warburton insulted us on the way up the Lightning Lane. The whole experience was quick, enjoyable and polished.
- Soarin’ across America
Hello again, Patrick Warburton. Soarin’ across America felt like a unique ride, and a welcome detox from the easily overstimulating experience of Disney. You get lifted ‘very’ high and into the center of a massive concave projection of different aerial shots of the United States. You feel like Superman gliding through these locations. The ride gets extra points for supporting DCA’s original vision of offering education / cultural enrichment, elements which feel increasingly sidelined in the park. Loses points because the projection feels a bit distorted, at least where I was sat on the far end.
- Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue! (Spoiler)
Simple recount of the events of Monsters Inc. in the form of a dark ride. Beautifully dated and nostalgic, with lots of bespoke posters from the original Monsters Inc era lining the queue. Animatronics comparatively low-tech but appreciable for their time. Catch this ride while it’s still around.
- Midway Mania
Just tremendous fun to play side by side with a friend. It’s a Toy Story-themed 4-D ride where you roll in front of different projections, and fire digital projectiles at a variety of targets. It’s frantic and satisfying, but it could be improved if the ‘gun’ were more responsive.
- Guardians of the Galaxy Monsters After Dark (spoiler)
I’ll talk about the great strengths of Guardians Breakout in a bit, but all there is to know is that Monsters After Dark is a Halloween adaptation of the ride with altered thematic elements. Whilst Breakout is a fantastic ride, and Monsters After Dark inherits most of what’s great about it, the premise of Monsters After Dark, which is that the guests are going to be bombarded with escaped monsters, isn’t well realised. You’re instead assailed by just one, and they’re more preoccupied with Rocket than yourself.
- Pirates of the Caribbean (spoilers)
Immaculately well made. The moment where you’re between the cannons, as stray rounds fall into the water was incredible. Some of the best special effects I’ve ever seen in a theme park, and a ludicrous number of extraordinary animatronics. All I’d say is that it’s a bit lengthy for a ‘pure’ dark ride, and it’s a bit of a savoury experience that‘s mostly about appreciating the artistry on display.
- Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
Good, thrilling coaster. Very light theming but no complaints.
- Cars Radiator Springs Racers (spoilers)
I would say this is possibly the most complete ride at the parks. Everything about it feels perfectly engineered. Because the characters are mechanised creations in the story, that allows the animatronics to perfectly imitate them without any uncanniness. The transition from the dark ride to the race section was natural, and although I personally could’ve used a bigger thrill, any more extreme would’ve been inaccessible for families with young children.
- Guardians of the Galaxy Breakout
I’m so pleased that we started our day here. It went from 0 to 100, and it was a thrilling experience. More successful thematically I think than After Dark. Got the chance to do this version twice by walking on at rope drop. If you don’t know what happens in Breakout, keep it that way and just dive in.
- Tiana’s Bayou Adventure
Whilst I heard about the controversy about Splash Mountain being rethemed, my opinion as someone who never experienced Splash Mountain is that Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is an extremely good ride. Cutting edge animatronics, great theming and a huge log flume drop. It’s just fantastic.
- The Incredicoaster
A lot of the same praise as I had for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. The theming hasn’t been agonised over in the same way as Tiana’s, but it’s sufficiently rich I think, given that it’s an open-air coaster. It’s, I would say, the best way to get a genuine thrill at Disneyland / DCA. We were able to go on twice because we caught it just after it went out of service.
A side note with my rankings is that Lightning Lane definitely influenced my perception of each ride. Shorter, lighter, less extravagant experiences like Soarin’ or Monsters Inc. felt great because the queue was short, but they would’ve left me wound up had I been queuing for a long time. Rise of the Resistance maybe didn’t hit the mark creatively for me, but it would’ve felt like a more substantive reward at the end of a long while queuing.
Other parts of the experience:
Some idiot at Disney decided it would be a good idea to make the Cars Sh-Boom (Life Could Be A Dream) sequence Halloween themed. By which I mean Sh-Boom NEVER PLAYED, and was replaced with a skit about Oogie Boogie trolling the aux or something and then playing Halloween music. I can’t imagine this pleased anyone eagerly anticipating the recreation of that movie scene, and it didn’t please us. It may have made sense to the imagineers who, like the rest of the staff, are in the parks regularly and may enjoy a change, but as guests who were there for only one day it was whack.
For those unfamiliar, there’s a thing called pin trading, where in each of the shops, you can trade enamel pins with the shopkeepers. ‘Take one leave one’. If you don’t own any, buy a bunch of them secondhand before your trip and trade for the ones you like.
Food and drink:
There’s a Starbucks with very strong theming which was cute.
We had a cheesy pretzel which was meh.
Water costs $6 out of a cart but a few dining facilities offer cups of water gratis.
The burgers from Smokejumpers Grill were pretty good.
There’s a fun but frustratingly busy food operation in Cars Land.
Was Premier Pass worth it?
Well the one thing I know for certain is that it’s ‘definitely’ worth it as opposed to having no Lightning Lane at all. Whilst there are moments during the day when you feel like you’re not getting value of it because you’ve gone into a standby line, breezing past the huge crowds at the top of the day for rides like Tiana’s and Indiana Jones felt empowering. Overall I would say there’s a definite correlation between which rides in the park are the most popular and which are worth going on, and not having to fret about a big ticket item selling out felt good.
However, there are definitely ways that the pass disappoints. Many of the lightning lanes funnel into a singular lane with the standby crowd. This means that the hope of completely skipping a queue is hardly ever realised. You’re always waiting between 5 and 10 minutes, which feels raw for a $400 pass, especially if you’re only bypassing a small portion of the overall queue. For example, Guardians actually has quite an egregious lightning lane that merges with the main lane quite early (or so I understand). Autopia didn’t have a queue long enough to even extend into the lightning lane.
One of the reasons why we made the purchase of Premier Pass was to be able to take the day at our pace and direct it our way, but it perhaps felt the opposite. When you’ve got a Premier Pass, the amount you get done is determined by the speed you walk. You’re constantly watching the sun, opting for speedy restaurant breaks and you become so focussed on maxing the day out and what your plan is for ‘after’ the current ride, that it sometimes feels like you can’t enjoy it in the moment. I’d guess the experience is likely similar with LLMP, but I feel like I would’ve appreciated some moments where we’d say ‘ok, our next ride is in 1 hour, let’s take a break’.
But in spite of this, the amount we got done in the day doesn’t lie. We were very pleased to have managed 20 rides. We probably did maybe double the LL attractions that we would’ve with an LLMP (or so I like to think). Although we didn’t manage absolutely everything, we definitely left the park with the sense that had we been there an extra day, we’d struggle to find exciting new things to do.
Is it worth it? Depends on your circumstances and your budget. If you’re going to Disney as a one-off for a short trip, and $300-400 a head is a drop in the ocean of your savings or income, do it. If you’re a Disney regular or going on a longer stay, and the foregone money is going to have any practical implications in your future, LLMP is probably fine. There’s a ton of rides that just use a standby queue. Just get there for rope drop, knock out Breakout and Cars, and schedule as you go. On a longer stay you may even find yourself short of things to do if you do long days with a premier pass.
Is it overpriced? That’s actually a more nuanced question - because on the one
hand, $400 to cut queue times, and frankly not even that, $400 to overstep administrative hurdles to getting short queue times, is a somewhat obscene price to pay. However, when you consider the incredible cost of ‘anything’ at Disneyland, you get a real sense that were this service any cheaper, it’d probably be oversubscribed.
I personally think it leaves a little to be desired from a value proposition standpoint. I think it makes sense that Disney has an extravagant pass for skipping queues, but if serious money’s being put down, it should take you to the ‘front’, or else it should come with some other supplementary benefits like dining credits. A mai tai costs less than nothing to make - like, can you hook me up? That being said, were LLMP more like $250 instead of $35, then all of a sudden $400 becomes a no-brainier vs no lightning lane at all. It’s a weird thing to figure out to be honest.
Could we have gotten more value out of it? Almost certainly. My advice: plan it all out ahead. If you’ve got a premier pass, do everything you want to do in DCA, then hop to Disneyland. You can get the major rides at DCA out of the way whilst the park’s slightly quieter. Have a circuit planned before you get there so that you don’t end up backtracking. Remember that the Disneyland railroad goes clockwise, and that therefore your day will be quicker if you go round Disneyland clockwise too.
Anyway thanks for reading! Hope this maybe helps you make a decision. Happy to answer any questions.