Hey there, Paul - welcome to planDisney! I'm thrilled to hear about your upcoming visit to the Happiest Place on Earth, and what a great time to visit! The weather should be beautiful.
I'm glad you asked this question because the parks most certainly can reach capacity, especially in busy seasons. To enter the parks, you'll need both
valid tickets and a theme park reservation for the day you're visiting. It's the theme park reservations that can often reach capacity and become unavailable for certain days. I would definitely be nervous about showing up on the day you were hoping to visit and there not being any reservations available for that day. You can see the current reservations for the parks on the
Theme Park Reservation Availability Calendar.
If you haven't already done so, I would highly recommend purchasing your
theme park tickets from the Disneyland website. As part of the purchasing process, it will allow you also to make your theme park reservation. Since you can
change your theme park reservation, it might be worth making the reservation now when you purchase your tickets - just to get it secured!
Additionally, since it sounds like you and your group are visiting for one day, and there are two parks at the Disneyland Resort, I would highly recommend adding the
Park Hopper option. While one day wouldn't be enough time to do every attraction at both parks, a Park Hopper would allow you to go back and forth between parks to see everything from
Cars Land in
Disney California Adventure Park to
Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge in
Disneyland Park.
I do hope this was helpful, Paul! I would love to help with any additional questions you might have while you continue to plan, so please feel free to
write me directly if you think of any follow-ups.
Have a Magical Day,
Greg