Welcome to Ask The Duchess – Vol. 71, a monthly Q&A post covering a variety of resort-related topics. Ask The Duchess answers questions submitted by readers. If you have a question you’d like answered, send me a message here.
1. How do I book an overnight stay in Sleeping Beauty Castle? (submitted by Gina)
You can’t – Disneyland’s castle does not have a suite. The interior room is home to the Sleeping Beauty Castle Walkthrough.
2. Do the same characters appear in each park, or are they “assigned” a park? (submitted by Nina)
It’s a mix. Some characters only appear in one park, and some span both. Generally, the princesses stay in Disneyland, and Pixar characters stay in California Adventure, but that’s not a hard rule, especially at Halloween time. The only characters that really stay in one park these days are Star Wars characters, hanging out in Galaxy’s Edge (with rare Tomorrowland appearances).
3. Do my kids need a carseat on the Disneyland Railroad? (submitted by Diane)
Nope, no car seat required. The train doesn’t have seatbelts, so I’m not sure how you’d fasten one in.
4. Can you recommend your favorite restaurant for gluten free options at the resort? (submitted by Lieah)
Tortilla Jo’s! I have a few gluten-free friends and they all pick that spot as having the best tasting and largest variety of options.
5. Pretending that the reservation/hopping system didn’t exist, how many times per day would you recommend hopping parks to make the most of your day? (submitted by Carlos)
Unfortunately, this depends wildly on crowds since it’s hard to answer. I would say I averaged 2-3 park hops per day before the reservation system. My general pattern was to start the day in Disneyland, hop over to California Adventure for the afternoon, hop back to Disneyland after dinner. Possibly one more back and forth or a Downtown Disney stop to avoid firework crowds.
Harrah for Tortilla Joe’s (before and after I was diagnosed with gluten intolerance!)