Welcome to planDisney, Angie!
I'm so glad you stopped by. It's a joy to help a fellow Guest plan their next adventure to The Happiest Place on Earth. A visit to the Disneyland Resort sounds like a "practically perfect" way to begin the new year.
Angie, you're still able to purchase a theme park ticket at the Disneyland Resort main entrance ticket booths on the day of your visit. However, due to the current capacity limits in the parks, I believe your best option is to
purchase your ticket online and make a theme park reservation ahead of time. If you look at the
Theme Park Reservation Availability calendar, you'll notice that certain days in the near future are completely booked up. Other days only have availability for one theme park. Since the theme parks are so popular, the best way to ensure you can enter your desired theme park(s) on the day you'd like to visit is to purchase tickets ahead of time. Another benefit of purchasing your tickets online is that the
theme park reservation step is done automatically during the ticket purchase process.
If you want to maximize your Disney day, consider purchasing
Disney Genie+ on the day of your visit. Disney Genie+ allows you to skip the regular standby lines and take advantage of the Lightning Lane entrances. We used Disney Genie+ on our most recent Disneyland Resort trip and were able to ride so many attractions per day. Another benefit of Disney Genie+ is being able to enjoy unlimited
Disney PhotoPass digital downloads from the day. I highly recommend it.
Thanks for choosing to be our Guest, Angie. See ya real soon!
Mike