Top 5 Tips for Visiting During Disneyland’s 70th Anniversary Celebration
Disneyland’s 70th anniversary celebration has kicked off at the resort! The celebration runs from now through the summer of 2026 and includes the return of fan-favorite entertainment as well as some exciting new additions. This is a great time to visit Disneyland to enjoy the colorful decor, abundance of entertainment, and other special offerings!
There is a lot to do and see during Disneyland’s 70th anniversary celebration, so we will break down our top 5 tips for making the most of your visit!
1) Plan a 3-day visit during the celebration if you can. We always recommend 3 days as the ideal trip length for Disneyland, but during an anniversary celebration, this is even more the case, so you have time to do and see it all!
A 3-day trip with two days at Disneyland Park and one at Disney California Adventure will make it easier to spread out the nighttime entertainment across different days so that you don’t feel rushed to squeeze everything in. We recommend focusing on rides during the first half of the day, arriving for morning rope drop at Disneyland or morning rope drop at Disney California Adventure, and dedicating the second half of the day to enjoying the entertainment and special anniversary foods.
That being said, if 3 days is not an option for you, it is possible to fit everything into a 2-day trip, but you’ll need to have a solid plan for getting to all the highlights. This brings us to our next point…
2) Follow a strategy to get to all of the entertainment highlights. There is a lot of special entertainment for Disneyland’s 70th anniversary across the two parks! The majority of this takes place in the evening, so you’ll want to have a detailed plan of attack if you don’t want to miss any offerings. If you have your heart set on castle viewing for the fireworks, there is a hack to get prime viewing for both Paint the Night and Wondrous Journeys, or you can catch all of the earliest showtimes of the major 70th anniversary Disneyland Park nighttime entertainment near “it’s a small world," a strategy that is ideal if you have smaller kids.
Our Disneyland 70th anniversary entertainment strategy details all of the different options as well as the experiences you can skip if you’re short on time. While we recommend prioritizing the Disneyland 70th anniversary offerings, this strategy also takes into account how to fit in other popular entertainment like the new Shadows of Memory: A Skywalker Saga projection show in Galaxy’s Edge.
3) Consider the pros and cons of different times of year when planning your visit. The 70th anniversary celebration runs through the summer of 2026, so there is a lot of time to enjoy the special offerings. While most of them are already available now, there are a few more new additions that will debut on Disneyland’s actual anniversary date of July 17, 2025.
On this date, a new show will open featuring the “most lifelike audio-animatronic ever" of Walt Disney himself. “Walt Disney – A Magical Life" will highlight the story of Walt Disney’s life through remastered footage and audio recordings, culminating in the Audio-Animatronics figure of Walt Disney sharing stories and words of wisdom in his office. Alongside this new show, a new gallery experience will debut in the Main Street Opera House featuring the evolution of Walt’s dream of Disneyland. A new song verse will also added to “it’s a small world" on this date that honors Disney Legend Richard Sherman.
If you’d like to visit after these new additions debut, then make sure to plan your visit for after July 17. Keep in mind that during the seasonal celebrations, there will be some changes to the decor and entertainment offerings, so if you want to visit with the full anniversary decor and entertainment, you should aim to visit before the Halloween celebration kicks off in late August.
4) Try the fun Disneyland 70th anniversary foods across the resort. There are dozens of new foods now available for Disneyland’s 70th anniversary celebration, including some fun treats inspired by the past. These foods bring another exciting element to the celebration, and we’ve really enjoyed the cute theming of the ones we’ve tried! See our Disneyland 70th anniversary food review for photos and our thoughts on the items we’ve enjoyed so far.
Definitely make time to enjoy some of these new foods during your visit! We recommend perusing the Disneyland 70th anniversary food guide before your visit to see which items are of interest to your group.
5) Enjoy smaller in-park interactive experiences designed for the 70th anniversary. In addition to some of the major entertainment highlights, including the return of favorites like Paint the Night and a new World of Color show, there are also some really fun, smaller offerings that engage with Disneyland Park and its various lands.
There are new 70th anniversary interactive MagicBand+ points across the park that feature some cute special effects and fun freebies! The Key to Disneyland scavenger hunt is another great interactive offering where guests can “unlock the magic" of each of Disneyland’s 9 lands using a special key, ultimately revealing a special Disney pin! Be sure to engage in some of these smaller offerings that provide even more fun to explore during the anniversary celebration.
You can see our thoughts on the celebration overall in our ranking and review of all the Disneyland 70th anniversary celebration offerings.
At Mickey Visit, we share the most important tips for planning your trips to Disneyland, Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Universal, and beyond. Each week, we’ll share some of our top tips here on Laughing Place.