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Technology is everywhere and the Happiest Place on Earth isn’t any different. While I love to disconnect from the world while I am at Disneyland, I have to admit, I have found that there are some great apps that help my vacations go smoother, save memories, and more. Today I am excited to share more about the Best Disneyland Apps to use for your Disneyland vacation.
Best Disneyland Apps for Your Disneyland Vacation
In this post, I will share with you all of the best apps to use alongside the classic My Disney Experience App while on vacation at Disneyland. The park specific apps are the best, but you will find others that come in handy for many things throughout your stay in the park.
Best Photo App for your Disneyland Vacation
If you are like me, your phone has kind of become your go-to camera. You always have it on you, and most phones now take pretty decent pictures. But, let’s be honest, sometimes those phone pictures still need some improvements. There are a lot of good photo apps out there, but the best one (in my opinion) is Photoshop Express.
Photoshop Express lets you really fix lighting, tint, and more. It is like having a mini-version of photoshop on your phone. And it is super easy to use. I strongly suggest getting the upgraded version. Sometimes you can get it for free on Amazon, but if not you can find it in the app store or Google Play. I also suggest getting PhotoSuite to use with it as that will allow you to do some cool special effects (see picture below)
Some other great apps for your Disneyland Vacation Photos are Snapseed, Instagram, and I strongly suggest a cloud storage system that you can upload your photos to each day in case anything happens to your phone.
Best Disneyland App for Your Dining Needs
Most Disneyland Resort guests tend to stay off-site, which means you may be looking for an offsite dining experience. Can you believe that there are apps just for dining? There are. And there are a lot of them. And a lot of good ones. You have probably heard of Yelp and Foursquare, which both can be used to find great dining options but I have some other apps that I love.
My personal favorite right now is Urbanspoon. Urbanspoon lets you break down your eating choices by distance, cuisines, popularity and ratings. It will help you find great choices that aren’t just your typical chain restaurants. You can find the Urbanspoon app on both itunes and Google Play.
Best Itinerary App for your Disneyland Vacation
Okay, if you have a full itinerary planned for your Disneyland vacation, it is great to have an app that can keep track of everything for you. I really love using Google Calendars because you can sync up your entire family, color code people, and activities, and even have reminders go off.
Best Disneyland App For Keeping Track of Everyone on Vacation
So maybe you have older kids who want to split up, or you are going with other families. Maybe you want to separate and meet back up but you know that ride wait times, etc can make it hard to say “meet right here at x time” so there are some great apps to help know where everybody is. My personal favorite app is Life360.
In Life360 you can add different people to your circles and you can check in on them whenever you want. You can also set alerts for like “when person x leaves this location, notify me” and so forth. I definitely recommend this app. It is in both iTunes and Google Play
Best Disneyland Specific Apps for your Disneyland Vacation
Okay, so let’s get to the Disneyland specific apps. Disneyland apps can let you know wait times, where characters are, and even let you connect with other guests in the park. There are two apps I want to share with you.
Mousewait– Mousewait is a community app. There are forums where you can talk to other members. This is fun when you are in the parks because sometimes people will offer up RAKs (Random Acts of Kindness) like FastPasses for World of Color they won’t be able to use, etc. This is the main reason I recommend this app.
This app does also have wait times, but they are entered by members. This can be both good and bad. It can let you know if Disneyland times are accurate, but users can also inflate wait times to try and keep other guests away from certain rides. So for wait times, I suggest a different app.
The Disneyland App– Walt Disney World has had My Disney Experience for a few years now and Disneyland guests wondered when there would be an app for the west coast that could beat out the independent apps like Mousewait. In 2015 Disney released the Disneyland app and let me tell you it is awesome.
The Disneyland app lets you know the posted wait times, where you can meet characters, can locate bathrooms, dining options, oh, and with an update earlier this year, you can see what the FastPass return times are so you know if you want to go get a FastPass for a certain ride or if they are out before walking all the way to the ride’s FastPass distribution kiosks. This app is THE APP to have for your day in Disneyland! You can find it on iTunes and Google Play.
UPDATE: The Disneyland app now also is how you can access Disney’s MaxPass service. The MaxPass is an app based FastPass system that is NOT free. While the jury is still out on if MaxPass is 100% worth the added cost, the fact that you can also now see your digital FastPass information in the app is helpful.
We also have some honorable mentions for apps….
Honorable Mentions for Disneyland Apps
To be honest, since the release of the official Disneyland App, I have basically stopped using other Disneyland apps, but I still like to check out these apps once in a while:
- Disneyland Inside Out
- RideMax (not technically an app, but yeah)
- Disneyland Lines by touring plans
Other Apps Useful for Disneyland Vacations
A couple of other apps that are useful for Disneyland:
- Heads up (great for using in lines to kill time) BONUS: If you open the app in the park, they often give you a free Disney themed pack.
- Pressed Coins at Disneyland: This app has great lists for getting all your pressed coins in the park.
- Countdown Apps: Because of course, you need a countdown app while waiting for your magical vacation.
If you were keeping track of all the apps listed in this post, that is more than a dozen apps to choose from! So my suggestion is to check them all out based on your needs, but the one that everyone should download for sure is the official Disneyland app.
More Disneyland Vacation Tips:
When are Disneyland Crowds Lightest
Can Your Kids Ride Alone at Disneyland?
I’m torn on the phone for my main camera, but that’s what usually ends up happening anymore. I love that they finally put out the My Disney Experience app for DLR! I hope we can get back out there someday.
I do love Mousewait. My husband and I used it religiously for our last trip to Disneyland. Thanks for the tip for PS. I am struggling with using my phone as my main camera but I do rely on it more than my regular camera these days so I may as well have a good editing app.