Insider Note: DCA gets treated like the second park and that's a mistake once you've actually spent a day here. Buy Radiator Springs Racers Single Pass the moment you're through the gate — it sells out before 9am on peak days, same as Rise of the Resistance next door. Then go find the Animation Academy in Hollywood Land, which nobody talks about and which I still consider the single best air-conditioned break in either park. If you're a teenager or an adult who cares about thrills and food over meeting Mickey, DCA is genuinely the stronger of the two parks for your day — Guardians, Incredicoaster, Grizzly River Run, and a food scene that's not close to Disneyland's.

Insider Note: Everyone shows up thinking they need a full day at USH and they don't — this park is smaller than Universal Orlando and you can hit every major ride in an afternoon if you're smart about it. Here's the move nobody tells you: skip the Lower Lot rush at rope drop and go straight up to Studio Tour first while the line is still short, then work your way down through Super Nintendo World and Wizarding World once the crowds catch up to where you already aren't. Also — eat at CityWalk, not inside the park. The food inside is mostly forgettable outside of the themed lands, and you're paying theme park prices for it. Get in, ride hard, eat outside the gates. That's how a local does it.