Hello, Kathy, and welcome to planDisney! I'm happy to hear you're thinking about a trip to the Disneyland Resort - I'd be happy to help you get the details you need to get the planning started.
I've found it easiest to
purchase theme park tickets directly from the Disneyland website. They've made the process simple! From the
initial tickets purchase page, you'll select Standard Theme Park Ticket, then indicate the number of days you'd like to visit. Following that, you'll select the number of tickets you need, and then be asked to choose either One Park Per Day tickets or Park Hopper tickets.
The Disneyland Resort has two parks -
Disneyland Park and
Disney California Adventure Park. Their entrances face each other across an esplanade and are a very short walk between the two. If you choose the One Park Per Day tickets, then you'll be able to enter either Disneyland Park or Disney California Adventure Park for each day of your trip (you can switch off between the park for each day of your trip). However, with the Park Hopper ticket, you make a theme park reservation (more on that in a second) for one of the parks where you'll start your day, but then can hop back and forth between the two parks as you'd like after 11:00 AM. Personally, I love the flexibility of the Park Hopper tickets and that is almost always my recommendation!
Now that you've decided on your ticket type, it's time to make
theme park reservations. To enter either park of the Disneyland Resort, you need both a valid theme park ticket and theme park reservation for each day of your trip. Another reason I like purchasing my tickets through the Disneyland website is because they make it easy to purchase and make park reservations all at once!
On this park reservations screen, you'll see a calendar with icons indicating which parks have reservations available. You can now scroll through and select the dates of your trip, hit the blue "Continue" button, and then make your park selections for each day. If you selected the Park Hopper tickets, then these will be your starting parks for each day. One thing to note here is that the theme park reservation dates are typically released about four months out from the current date. This means that if you are scheduling your trip past July then you'll need to make your theme park reservations later when those dates open up for reservations.
Lastly, all that's left is to pay for your tickets then you'll receive a confirmation email in your inbox - next stop, the Disneyland Resort! If you also are looking for a good hotel recommendation, I love the
Disneyland Hotel, which you can also book through the
Disneyland website. It's close to the park entrances and helps you keep the Disney magic going through your whole trip.
Thanks again for the question, Kathy! If you have any other follow-up questions, please feel free to
write me directly.
Have a Magical Day,
Greg