Updated 10/9/23
If you are planning a trip to Disneyland and/or California Adventure with your preschooler, you are in for a treat! Disneyland is amazing for 3-year-olds, and amazing for the parents of 3-year-olds as well. Kids in the 3-4 year range are big enough for most everything in the resort, will be familiar with many of the characters or at least will BECOME familiar with them, and will have the stamina to handle the excitement that is Disneyland.
On a recent trip, we got to explore Disneyland with not one, not two, but THREE 3-year-olds. All three kids had an unforgettable time, and were truly a joy to be with the entire time. Having that third – 3 year old there really gave us some great insights into the overall experience of having a 3 year old (not just OUR 3-year-olds) at Disneyland.
So here are our top 10 tips for visiting Disneyland with your 3-year-old, or preschool-aged child!
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Ready to book? Check out this amazing offer from our partner, Get Away Today. Beginning October 24, 2023, kids ages 3-9 can get Disneyland Resort theme park tickets for as low as $50 per person, per day. Choose from 1, 2 or 3-Day Park tickets, with or without Park Hopper and/or Disney Genie+ service. These limited-time child tickets will be valid for use between January 8 – March 10, 2024 (no blackout dates, theme park reservations required)
1. Use a stroller!
I know, I know. It seems ridiculous for your wild and full of energy preschooler to be riding around in a stroller, but trust us on this one. On a recent trip to Disneyland, we walked nearly 12 miles in one day. We NEVER use our stroller, and my kids are generally full of energy and able to walk quite far, but there is absolutely no way they could have walked 12 miles.
Another big plus? The stroller keeps your child contained. You don’t have to worry about your child wandering off, or getting lost when they are in the stroller. So the parents, and the kids, can relax a little and just take in the sights, the sounds, the smells of Disney.
Finally, using a stroller allows us to stay out at the resort later, knowing that if the kids got tired, they will fall asleep in the stroller.
The stroller is an easy place for kids to snack while on the move, and can hold a jacket, water bottle, or anything really. Plus Disneyland is MADE for strollers. There are tons of areas designed for stroller parking, and stroller theft is very uncommon.
Looking for a great Disneyland stroller? Check out our post on the best lightweight double strollers (ALL Disney-friendly) here.
In the photo above, we are using the Twin Triumph (double) (the single version is the Triumph) and we LOVE it- it’s lightweight with fully reclinable seats, a full sunshade, plenty of extra storage, and good up to 55 lbs per seat so it works great for big kids too!
2. Go on off season, if you can
If you are taking your trip to Disneyland with just a 3-year-old, or withOUT any school-aged kids, take advantage of the date flexibility. Disney parks are busier whenever school is out, so going during school months, and/or mid-week can mean a quiet park with short lines. It’s just easier for your preschooler to miss school than it will be once he or she is a bit older.
I love looking at crowd calendars like this one help pick the best days. Another great indicator? Check the one day ticket price on the Disneyland website. Higher prices means Disneyland is expecting heavier crowds, and lower prices means lower crowds. As a general rule, whenever school is out, you can expect heavier crowds.
For my family, choosing dates with low crowds is a priority. But that may not be the case for you. Picking the lowest crowds day may mean that there are more ride closures – lots of ride refurbishment is done in January. Or you might have questionable weather – February is the rainiest month in Anaheim. Or you miss out on magical Christmas or Halloween decoration. But if you have the flexibility to not follow the school calendar, you’ll likely find a lower crowd day!
One other thing to consider: park hours are shorter on less busy times of the year. But if your 3-year-old is anything like mine, you’ll be good to get up early for rope drop, but probably won’t want to stay out until midnight. So parks closing at 8 or 9pm is hardly a con. Even on the shortest Disneyland days, you’ll have 11-12 hours to enjoy the park.
3. Know how tall your child is, and be aware of ride height requirements
Many of the rides at Disneyland do not have height requirements, so your kid is free to ride tons of rides at any age. However, there are a number of rides with height requirements that’ll want to be prepared for. Check out this helpful Disneyland height requirement here and keep in mind, MOST rides are not listed because they have no limits at all.
Most 3-year-olds are in the 35-40 inch range, so shorter 3-year-olds may find some fun rides that they are not yet tall enough to ride. To prevent disappointment and frustration, I recommend measuring your child ahead of time, and taking a look at which rides your child can, and cannot ride. Also, be aware that Disneyland will not allow your child to ride even if he or she is JUST under the limit.
There will be some rides that your child cannot ride at Disneyland. And that’s ok- Disneyland will not be a disappointment, I promise. Be prepared and don’t hype up a ride until you are sure they are tall enough to ride. There are so many options, and 3-year-olds can be amazingly agreeable at Disneyland.
4. Know the rides, and your children’s fears
If you are new to Disneyland, take some ahead of time to do a little research on rides. This will help you steer your children to the rides they’ll love, and give them a heads up before going on a ride that MIGHT be a bit too much. There are a million great ride videos out there, plus the Disneyland website attraction guide tells you if there are drops, darkness, etc.
And of course, not all three-year-olds have the same fears. My twins have no fear when it comes to physical rides- drops, spinning, fast movement, etc. However, darkness and loud noises, or something jumping out at them freaks them out. On a recent visit with friends and their 3-year-old, we found her fears are basically the opposite; darkness, monsters, or any kind of psychological scary factors don’t impact her at all, but drops and spinning can be pretty scary for her.
Perhaps you know what scares your child. Perhaps you don’t. Either way, the ride videos, and a discussion ahead of time can help you understand what might freak them out.
Pro tip: start out with nice, easy rides to build confidence. Then try challenging them to try the bigger ride, if you think they are up for it. Too much? Don’t worry, kids are resilient. One scary ride isn’t enough to ruin the trip for them. But it might take a little time and some super gentle rides to get back on track.
For many young kids, a ride that is a bit scary the first time becomes a favorite ride the second and third time. And don’t forget, many Disneyland rides are designed JUST for young kids. Those rides are not intended to be scary and are really enjoyable for toddlers.
5. Use the Disneyland app
It doesn’t matter if you are going to Disneyland with 3-year-olds or 33-year-olds, you need the app. With the app, you have a great interactive map, wait times on every single ride, you can check height requirements, check in to Genie+ rides, purchase Individual Lightening lines and even order food! Download it before you get there and so you are familiar with it. You don’t want to be another phone zombie, or miss out on anything huge at the Happiest Place on Earth!
And speaking of Genie, they’ll also be a new Genie+ service that gives you access to the new Lighting Lane for certain rides. The Genie+ service essentially replaces the MaxPass/Fastpast service (with some differences). This isn’t yet available (and MaxPass/FastPass has been unavailable since Disneyland reopened), but I know we’ll add it to our ticket for our next visit. It is an extra cost of $20/day, but it’ll save tons of time and waiting-in-line boredom and frustration.
And I will say, having everything under control will really make your child’s experience that much greater. Short lines, no waiting for meals, no confusion on which rides the child can and cannot do means much less frustration and a happy happy happy kiddo. And let’s be honest- we are spending a lot of money for this trip to Disneyland because we want our kids to have the most amazing time ever!
6. Remember, 3-year-olds DO NOT care about the coolest/biggest/newest ride at Disneyland
Hey, you are the parents and you probably paid for this trip, so if you want to go to Star Wars Rise of the Resistance, you should get to! But the truth is, your preschooler doesn’t care which ride just opened up, or which ride is supposed to be AMAZING. Basically every ride is amazing for a 3-year-old.
And honestly, I’m pretty sure that in the mind of a 3-year-old, a ride that you have done 500 times and have memorized every twist and turn is the BEST kind of ride. I bet if you picked 3 rides, and did those 3 rides over and over for your whole trip, your 3-year-old would be thrilled.
(I can’t blame you if you don’t want to do that- I know I don’t want to ride the same silly ride all day long at Disney. And honestly, I won’t do that but it’s nice to know there is absolutely no pressure on Lighting Lanes, or waiting in line for the most EPIC Disneyland ride, or at least no pressure coming from your 3-year-old).
Also semi-related; let your preschooler choose the ride sometimes. It feels like we always have our rides scheduled, and we need to get to the right place at the right time. So sometimes the kids’ desires to stop at the amazing ride they see wind up getting ignoring. And after all, you are there because of them. Make sure you don’t skip over the amazing ride that you didn’t notice.
7. Bring carefully selected snacks
As you probably already know, Disneyland food prices are HIGH. But the other important thing to consider is that most of the readily available snacks or meals are … not healthy. Sure if you are paying attention, or if you are able to stop at a real restaurant, healthier options are certainly available. However, many younger kids end up so distracted and having so much fun at Disneyland that they likely won’t know they are hungry, or even be able to focus on eating until they are HANGRY. And when that moment hits, you may find that the closest options are popcorn or a churro. Maybe it’ll stop the hangry, but they certainly won’t leave them feeling their best. And if you carry on that pattern for a couple of days, they can end up feeling pretty rotten.
It’s nice to have some snacks that will fuel them up without the stomachache. We prefer snacks that won’t get smashed or have to be kept cold, like z bars (or any kind of protein bar) or dried fruit and nuts. If you are willing to put up with the hassle of packing a full lunch, you’ll be even better off, but we prefer to just bring emergency food supplies.
And when it comes to meals, it’s honestly easy for EVERYONE to forget about real food. Making a plan for one real meal (at a sit down restaurant) a day can help keep everyone on track, and give you a bit of forced downtime to relax a little bit (if you can ever relax at a restaurant with a younger child).
Remember, dining reservations are available 60 days out and they can go FAST. Check out MouseWatcher or MouseDining to get alerts when dining reservations become available. But I’d also recommend keeping an open mind- not getting the most coveted dining reservation isn’t enough to ruin your trip. We promise, you’ll still have fun!
8. Come up with a plan ahead of time on what you will buy your child at Disneyland
With gift shops at the exit of every ride, and around every corner, temptation is HUGE. You can expect your child to ask for a toy or a treat about every 8 minutes. And we all get swept up in the fun and excitement of it, so you’ll want to buy them everything. But, to stick with your budget, and manage your sanity, you’ll want to have a plan you feel confident in. We all know that if you hesitate in the gift shop, or you show any sign that you are buying the toy, and then don’t buy the toy, you are asking for a tantrum.
Perhaps you decide that your child doesn’t need any toys at Disneyland. Perhaps they are allowed one, or one per day, or whatever. Tell them what the rule is, and it’ll be easier to stick with it. In my experience, setting dollar limits just doesn’t work for younger kids. They will spend hours trying to understand the pricing of every single item, and everyone will end up frustrated.
One thing that might work is to have them pick out their toy at the end. That way, they will have seen every toy and only one or two will stick out in their memories as something they REALLY want. It does mean you could end up walking across the park at the end of a long day, but your chances are better of not ending up with some dumb impulse purchase.
9. Familiarize your kids with the characters and scenes
It’s so fun for your younger child to recognize a familiar character. So if your child is not already familiar with many of the Disney and Pixar characters, have your child spend their screen time on the days or weeks before your trip catching up a bit!
For example, Cars Land is super fun for Cars-loving kids. The entire area is identical to Radiator Springs, and will be immediately recognizable if you child has seen Cars a time or two. If they haven’t, they are missing out on some of the fun!
The same is true for Star Wars Land- the sight when you walk into the area is awe-inspiring and so much fun. Star Wars might be a tougher one for your 3-year-old to get into, but we wound up picking a few fun (non-scary) clips of the movies to show them. You gotta know who Chewy is! Plus we found some YouTube videos of Star Wars Land that they were pretty excited about. Or maybe they just wanted to be like daddy who is the ULTIMATE Star Wars nerd! Either way, they loved seeing it in real life.
And it’s not just the scenes. There are TONS of Disney characters out there your kids might not be familiar with. Many of the classics characters, even Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, may not be in the forefront for your child. And for young kids, recognizing the characters and sights seems to be half of the magic!
10. Their Disneyland Stamina May Surprise you
Typically my kids will tell me when they are done with a thing. Even with things that are super fun and amazing, the kids will just let me know when they are ready to go. So I expected that at Disneyland, they’d be pretty exhausted around 5 pm. I thought they’d be telling me they were ready to go. But as it turns out, that does not happen at Disneyland- ever.
There is just nothing quite like Disneyland! My kids never stop having fun, and never seem to feel overwhelmed (much to my surprise). They just keep going, super happy, until they fall asleep (and I’m typically not at all relaxed about sleep and nearly always stay strict on sleep routine, but we are all just happy as clams at Disneyland and can’t make ourselves leave).
So be prepared to stay a bit later. Bring warm clothes for the evening, and maybe even a blanket for cooler months. Don’t make plans to be back at the hotel at 5 pm because you just might not WANT to.
Instead, you might prefer to take a mid-afternoon break. If your kids are nappers, maybe head to the hotel for a quick nap. Then you can head out, refreshed, and ready to go for the evening.
Of course, visiting Disneyland with your 3-year-old has its tricky moments, but with these few great tips, you are bound to have an amazing time!
For more tips on travel with preschoolers, check out our post here.