Learn everything your family must do BEFORE flying to Disneyland California from the UK in 2022. Essential NEW tips for Covid tests, visas, park tickets, dining reservations & more

After 600 days of being closed, it’s so exciting that travel to the USA has opened again for the UK! We have just come back from an amazing family trip to Disneyland and California Adventure. And now that my Disney blues have finally eased, here are all the things I learned that you will find essential when you are going to Disneyland California from the UK.

The essentials you will need when travelling to America from the UK after the 8th of November 2021

There are lots of new things to be aware of when travelling post-pandemic. I am going to show you how to navigate the 4 key points including:

• The visa waiver or ESTA you’ll need for entering the USA
• Using the VeriFly app your airline may require
• Booking your pre-departure Covid tests, how they work and how much they cost
• Masks at the airport and on the plane

PLUS: All the must-have information for UK visitors to Disneyland California BEFORE you travel

Once you have read through that, it’s time to organise Disneyland! You will need to know these important tips before you travel to the Happiest Place on Earth:

• What’s different in 2022 about the hotels
• Why the Disneyland app is essential
• Where to buy the cheapest Disneyland and California Adventure Park tickets from the UK
• How to make your park reservations BEFORE you go (you can’t just turn up at the gate anymore!)
• Learn which Disney restaurants you will need to book in advance – and what to do if you can’t get a reservation
• Save money! Find out how we use cashback websites when booking hotels

ESTA – the visa waiver 

If you will be travelling on a UK passport, you will need to apply for an ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorisation) for each member of your party. Filling out your ESTA application online costs $12 each (around £9), and it usually won’t take more than 15 minutes. 

Despite stories I had heard from other UK travellers of a 2-3 hour wait at the airport check-in to clear their ESTAs, our visas worked without any delays. The staff at London Heathrow could see the ESTAs were linked to our passports, and they didn’t ask to see the printed documents (although I had them with me as a precaution, and I suggest you do, too). 

VeriFLY

VeriFly is an app your airline will ask you to download before you fly. It gives you a helpful checklist of everything you need to do.

One thing to know ahead of time about the app is that it is slightly confusing at first. Once you are on the VeriFly app home screen, you will need to click the search button located in the bottom menu. Then, in the search bar that pops up, put in ‘USA.’ There are bars that will then say ‘A Trip to the USA – Confident Traveler.’ YOU are the confident traveller, so don’t be put off when you see that, you have actually done it correctly!

Tapping on the bar for ‘A trip to the USA’ will guide you to the checklist where you will upload your NHS Covid vaccine QR codes and your pre-departure Covid test results. Plus, you will need to sign your attestation forms for LAX. 

One Verifly account is enough for the whole family; you can add companions to your account.

Tip: the app will ask you to upload a passport-style photo for each member of your travelling party, so it’s helpful to have these saved on your phone.

Covid tests

Travellers to the USA are required to take pre-departure Covid tests. Anti-gen (also known as LFT) tests are accepted, and they are the cheapest. Check with your airline for a full list of approved testing companies and for discounts, too.

We ordered our tests from Chromatics and found them to be very reliable. We paid around £76 for 4 tests, and they were delivered 3 days before we flew. 

Tip: You will need to perform the tests within a window of 4 hours to 3 days before you fly. 3 days is 3 physical days, not 72 hours. For example: If your flight is on Saturday, you can take your test anytime on Thursday up to 4 hours before your flight on Saturday. 

Children will need to take them too. Chromatics anti-gen tests are the kind of test that you only need to use in your nose, not your throat. Results are quick (within 15 minutes on the test stick). 

With Chromatics, there is a QR code on the test instructions and scanning that will take you to their website. You need to register all of the tests for everyone in your party on their website. However, you only need to set it up with one email account and you can share that email with everyone in your family or travel party. 

After you get your result on the testing stick, you will immediately take a picture of it (see photo above), and upload it to your account on the website. The testing company will then email you their approval and give you a fit-to-fly certificate (you will find it in your website account). Save the certificate on your phone. 

Finally, you need to upload this fit to fly certificate to your VerifFly app. And then you are done! 

At the airport and on the plane when flying to Disneyland California from the UK

Masks are required while at the airport. We wanted to be as safe as possible, so we used FFP2 masks because they have more layers. They are also more comfortable, in my opinion. Especially for children because they use a clip that can extend the straps around their neck, instead of tugging at their ears. 

Our flight at the end of October was about 3/4 full. We booked directly with British Airways. We flew with them on the way out and on a codeshare with American Airways on the way back. 

Masks are required onboard unless you are eating or drinking (you have to wear them even when sleeping). The masks do get a bit annoying if you have a stuffy/runny nose (my son had a cold and struggled with it) on an 11.5-hour flight. But I can see why they are required to wear. 

Tip: Pack multiple masks for all the members of your family

Changing the masks every few hours or after you’ve been napping makes them feel cleaner and more comfortable.

There were two meals served on board. No menu was provided but the stewardess called out chicken or vegetable as she walked by. Snacks are no longer served on the flight (the ice cream used to be the best part!), but they did give us a little packet of sour cream flavour pretzels with the drinks served before the meal. I was able to get a bloody mary and was offered a wine to go with the meal as well. Water was not brought round aside from the drinks service (before the two meals). But you can go to the back of the plane to ask for it.

Tip: Bring food on the plane.

We picked up delicious sushi trays from Itsu in Heathrow knowing my kids wouldn’t enjoy the meals on the plane. We also took snack bags from home with popcorn, apples, carrots and chocolates.

A review of our Disneyland California area hotel (and where to grab breakfast nearby!)

We stayed at the Kings Inn Anaheim Hotel. It is relatively inexpensive and located close to the parks (about a 17-minute walk to the park entrances). 

The hotel is basic, but clean and feels safe. The staff are really helpful and friendly. 

Like many other hotels post-Covid, no breakfast or housekeeping is provided. Nearby is a 7-Eleven (i.e. a corner shop) which has juice/smoothies/water and fruit/muffins/doughnuts/snacks. We grabbed these for our breakfast when not eating out. Near to the Kings Inn is also a Walgreens and CVS, where we picked up cereal and milk. 

Tip: We always bring bowls and spoons from the UK (the plastic ones from IKEA work well) to eat cereal in the mornings. It makes a very cheap brekkie before dashing to the parks!

The pool and spa at the Kings Inn were pretty small but clean, and the staff will give you pool towels at reception. 

Tip: I check TopCashback.com for offers on hotels. The best deals are usually from Booking.com or Hotels.com. I then use one of those sites to look for the best deals on hotels. I have a referral code for Topcashback, which is free to join and helps you earn money back on over 5,000 retailers. I save all of my earnings for Disney trips!

Why is the Disneyland App important?

Before you do anything else, sign up for a My Disney account.  Or, if you have an account from a previous Walt Disney World trip, then you are already set up. 

Tip: Download the Disneyland app before your trip to look at the park maps and wait times. You will need the app for practically everything you want to do, so get really familiar with it before you go.

If your kids are savvy with apps, they might like to have a play on it, too. They don’t need to have their own Disney account to use it (anyone can use it without signing it). However, if you have older kids, you may choose to sign in with your Disney account on their phone to help with gaining Virtual Boarding passes (more on that later). If they are 16 or older, they can have their own My Disney accounts. 

Tip: Make sure to link your party’s tickets together on at least one person’s Disneyland app. This will be super important for those Virtual Boarding passes I’ll talk about later. But it is also helpful to have those tickets all together when you are entering the park, as one person can show the cast member all of your party’s tickets at the same time. 

Once in the park, you will be using the Disneyland app to do many things! Some of these are:

• Order your food (aka ‘Mobile Order’)
• Check on your place in the queue for two of the most popular rides
• Find attraction wait times and plan your day
• Navigate around the park using the map
• And more!

Make sure you know how to use the Disneyland app before you go, and you will be very glad you did.

Buying tickets in the UK and making Disneyland Resort and California Adventure park reservations

As you know already, there are 2 magical parks in Anaheim, California – Disneyland Resort and California Adventure Park. 

It is essential to know that you need to make your Disneyland Resort and/or California Adventure park reservations before you go. We nearly missed out on the dates we wanted because we waited too long! So, do it early, perhaps a month ahead, or as soon as the dates become available. 

We bought our 5-day park hopper tickets in the UK from Attraction Tickets Direct. I found them to be the cheapest, but use Topcashback (as mentioned above) to get even more value. Within minutes, they will email your digital tickets. 

Then, you will go on the Disneyland website to link your tickets and reserve the parks you want to do each day.

Tip: If you change your mind later and IF there is availability, you can cancel your reservation and book the other park. But be careful. In busy periods, you could lose your original park reservation while trying to get a booking for the other park. It is best not to try this unless you are very confident of availability. 

If you purchase the park hopper ticket, then from 1 pm you can visit the alternate park. 

It is recommended that you also print the reservations, but we were never asked for them as they are saved in the app. 

You will receive paper tickets on your first entry to Disneyland or California Adventure, and we found those easier to use than messing with the digital tickets in the Disneyland app (having an international phone means sorting WiFi first thing at the park isn’t my thing!). 

Restaurant reservations and other options

If you would like to dine in one of the park’s table service restaurants, book it as early as you can. You will do this through the app even before you have tickets or on the Disneyland dining webpage.

Tip: If you don’t do it early enough, and the reservations are full, you still have some options. One is that you keep checking the Disneyland app as often as possible for cancellations. The second is to use an alert service. 

People will often cancel their restaurant reservations in the weeks or days leading up to their trip. If you go on the app regularly, you can often snatch a cancellation closer to the time.

There is a second option if you don’t see a reservation available. Some companies will look for reservations for you for a modest fee. We have used the Mouse Dining alert service with mixed results.

Unfortunately, Mouse Dining is designed for US users, and they do not send a text notification to mobile phones in the UK. So you have to rely on an email notification from them when a reservation becomes available. With highly competitive restaurants, this isn’t always fast enough, but you could try it if a particular reservation is important to you. Or if you don’t want to keep checking the app.

Our experience: We got lucky with making a Lamplight Lounge reservation a month before our trip. But Blue Bayou never became available, and neither did Minnie’s breakfast in the Plaza. We had already been to Oga’s Cantina in Walt Disney World before and weren’t that bothered about doing it again, but I noticed that Oga’s never came up as available either. On the other hand, it wasn’t hard to get dinner at Goofys Kitchen a few weeks before our trip.

So if you are flexible, you can still find some reservations even after they get booked up. 

How do I find out more? 

These are all the must-have pre-departure tips for UK travellers planning to go to Disneyland or California Adventure in 2022. Using these tips you will be able to travel confidently and even save money. 

But I have so much more to share! For all the essential tips for when you are in Disneyland and California Adventure, check out my follow up article: How British families can get the most of going to Disneyland California from the UK.

Subscribe for notifications so you don’t miss new posts about Disney travel for families. I send a newsletter on Fridays with creative ways to have fun with your family whether in the UK or in the USA. Make memories with your kids to last a lifetime. 

And if you enjoyed this post about going to Disneyland California from the UK, you might also like How to plan a last-minute Disneyland Paris trip (even in half-term) or How to use the Eurotunnel and stay off-site like a pro at Disneyland Paris.

PIN FOR LATER: Flying to Disneyland California from the UK in 2022