Cheapest Dates to Visit Disneyland in 2026

Disneyland is never a cheap place to visit, but certain times of year are significantly less expensive than peak travel dates, which can cost almost double the lowest priced dates. This covers days, weeks & seasons in 2026 that’ll have lower prices and crowds in the California parks.

For starters, we want to acknowledge that “cheapest” is a relative term and not an absolute one. Disneyland is an undeniably expensive vacation destination. For many people, a week at Disneyland will have costs on par with traveling to Europe (if you’re coming from the East Coast) or Asia (if based on the West Coast).

It also doesn’t help that park tickets, on-site hotels, restaurants, and more at Disneyland have all increased dramatically in price over the last 5 years. All of those costs are up by about 20% during that time, and that doesn’t even take into account the shift from free FastPass to the date-based pricing for Lightning Lane Multi-Pass. That’s the bad news. Now let’s discuss the good…

When Disneyland recently raised prices for 2026, the Tier 0 tickets did not go up at all. This $104 base ticket price has not increased at all since 2018, in part because it’s an important talking point for Disney. When costs of visiting are discussed in the mainstream media, there’s typically a quote from a Disney spokesperson reiterating that the base price has not gone up in 7 years.

That’s good, but we’ve seen something similar happen at Walt Disney World, and it’s more for the sake of marketing. There are very few of the cheapest dates, and they’re largely weekdays at Animal Kingdom during a 3-week stretch of the year. Not so at Disneyland!

Disneyland has actually dramatically increased the number of days available at the $104 price point as part of its push to improve guest satisfaction in the last year-plus. There are 46 of these dates on the current calendar through April 2026, versus only 26 days during the same timeframe last year.

Here are the $104 single day ticket dates at Disneyland in 2026:

• January 6-8, 2026
• January 12-15, 2026
• January 20-22, 2026
• January 26-27, 2026
• February 3-5, 2026
• February 10-12, 2026
• February 24-26, 2026
• March 3-5, 2026
• April 21-23, 2026
• April 28-30, 2026

Note that more dates are likely to be added in May, August, September, and November 2026.

It’s also worth noting that crowds tend to spike on $104 dates that have a period of higher prices prior to them. For example, the first $104 day in mid-August as school go back into session is always busy. The same is true at the very beginning and end of the Christmas season, too. Accordingly, it’s always a best practice to go on the second or third $104 date when there are a few in a row.

If you’re looking for cheaper multi-day tickets, there are deals throughout the year.

The first of these has already been announced for next year, with the 2026 California Resident Disneyland Ticket Deal that runs from January 1 through May 21, 2026. This discount is the best price we’ve seen on Park Hopper tickets since 2018-2019. It’s an insanely good deal, but only for California residents.

Although it has not yet been announced, it’s also possible that there’s a return of the Disneyland kids ticket offer. This has been offered for the last two years to all families–tourists and residents of Southern California alike. Last year, children ages 3-9 could visit a Disneyland Resort theme park for as low as $50 per day between January 7 and March 20th. We’d expect a repeat of that, albeit with an earlier end date in March 2026.

If past precedent is any indication, there will be another ticket dea for the general public that starts sometime around Memorial Day and runs until late September 2026. This will almost certainly be more expensive than the above-referenced resident deal. Last year’s version of this deal is not instructive since it differed due to the Disneyland 70th Anniversary.

At the other end of the spectrum, another thing to keep in mind is that the next major price increases are likely to occur in October 2026, so plan accordingly if you want to “beat” those.

With tickets out of the way, let’s turn to the more complicated question of the cheapest dates to vacation at Disneyland.

The dates here account not just for Disneyland ticket prices, but also for travel trends to Southern California, Anaheim Convention Center calendar of events, and more. All of which is downright essential for determining the cheapest dates for a multi-day trip to Disneyland.

Choosing cheaper dates to visit Disneyland will generally also improve your trip and can save you money. That’s because the dates with the highest prices are typically busiest, and vice-versa.

As a general rule, higher prices do not deter people from visiting or “redistribute” attendance. Crowds are almost always a good proxy for prices–the lower the prices, the lower you can expect attendance to be. Double win!

That’s one of the general “rules” when it comes to the cheapest times to visit Disneyland, and there are a few more. Another is that prices go up every single year. These increases take many forms, and are staggered across the calendar.

Typically, the cost of snacks, sodas, and other pre-packaged items increases in late January or February and potentially again in October. Tickets and parking follow a familiar pattern; the last several years, those have gone up in February.

Vacation packages and resort rates for the following year almost always show higher rates. Other things, such as souvenirs and regular restaurant menu prices go up at random without any real predictable patterns.

Consequently, it’s usually less expensive to visit sooner rather than later. If you’re debating between two years, there’s a strong chance the sooner one will be cheaper. If you’re waiting for prices to drop, history is not on your side.

However, there can be exceptions even to that. For example, if you book your vacation early and lock-in pricing on tickets and hotels, it will likely be less expensive to travel most dates in January or February 2026 as opposed to the previous October through December. That’s because prices usually decrease in the winter off-season as compared to the prior holiday season, and there are also typically better discounts for the off-season.

Another pretty important general rule is that Sunday through Thursday nights have the lowest rack rates for hotels, with Mondays through Wednesdays having the absolute cheapest rates. This is especially true on school nights; when school is out of session, the gap is less pronounced.

In other words, you’ll see this phenomenon less during the summer or holiday weeks. However, it exists for pretty much the entire year, as Disneyland is a popular long weekend getaway destination for Californians and others on the West Coast, and even if kids are out of school, people still work disproportionately on weekdays.

This pricing gap is most pronounced during holiday breaks. The reason for this is pretty simply–summer vacation is a long break that’s very spread out, thereby ‘diluting’ the concentration of tourists. By contrast, there’s only one week of Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc–so those crowds are consolidated into a tighter timeframe. More people chasing less capacity equals higher prices. The bottom line is that you almost will always pay less when school is in session than you will when it’s on break.

Aside from school breaks, the biggest driver of hotel pricing is major events at the Anaheim Convention Center, which is the largest convention space on the West Coast. Accordingly, it’s smart to consult the Anaheim Convention Center schedule of events–especially during the off-season–and avoid those dates.

Major events hosted annually at the Anaheim Convention Center that have the most noticeable impact on hotel prices around Disneyland are BlizzCon, NAMM, Natural Products Expo, Anime Expo, WonderCon, VidCon, and various cheer & dance championships–just to name a few!

When it comes to the impact on all things Disneyland, the biggest convention is, unsurprisingly, the 2026 D23 Expo. That will occur August 14-16, 2026 and will spike hotel prices for the entire week leading up to it. Book ASAP if you’re visiting during those dates.

It’s been a while since the city last released average daily hotel rate information, but it was $209 per night in 2022. Three years later, there’s every reason to believe it’s around $250 per night now. And that’s the average. Depending on the season, rates can be considerably lower or higher.

Visit Anaheim, the official destination marketing organization for Anaheim, announced a tourism milestone as 26.3 million visitors traveled to the destination in 2024, with visitor spending rising 2.3% over the previous year, totaling $6.6 billion. The city anticipates visitor spending reached $6.7 billion in 2025, reflecting year-over-year growth and strong momentum as Visit Anaheim works toward welcoming 30 million visitors ahead of the 2028 Olympics, now just three years away.

The two biggest drivers of these revenue and spending stats are Disneyland and the Anaheim Convention Center. According to data from the city, the ACC generates $1.4 billion in economic impact to the local community, thanks largely to an estimated $793 million in tourism occupancy tax revenue.

When there’s not an event in Anaheim, there’s a surplus of hotel rooms, and prices fall.

Hoteliers around Anaheim have spent the last decade-plus building capacity, replacing old mom & pop motels with big box complexes. However, the Anaheim Convention Center and Disneyland Resort have also grown–both in popularity and literal size–during that same time.

When a big event is being held at the ACC, there aren’t enough hotel rooms within walking distance, and prices roughly double, from the low $200s to over $400. This happens so consistently that it’s not as much a prediction as it is an inevitability. If you don’t believe us, hedge your bets by reserving something that’s refundable to see if prices fall later.

The least expensive time to visit Disneyland is the winter off-season starting in mid-January and running through February. This basically encompasses one full month after exceptions, which include the very beginning of the year when schools are still on Christmas break plus the weeks around MLK Day and Presidents’ Day.

This is essentially an extension of the principle that visiting Disneyland is cheapest when school is in session. Not only did holiday breaks just end, but it’s the off-season for tourism to Southern California, a place known for its sunshine…but also its cold weather during those months. As a result, January and February get the one-two punch of low demand from parents with small children and couples who want a warm weather escape from winter.

If you search for the cheapest dates to visit Disneyland, you’ll consistently see this timeframe mentioned, as that’s when ticket prices are historically the lowest. That recommendation is made almost entirely on that basis. However, there’s more nuance to it than that, and this is a great example of where tickets as a proxy for overall prices fails.

Since we have to exclude the week when Los Angeles and Orange County schools are still off on their Christmas/New Year’s breaks and the lead-up to the Disneyland Half Marathon (January 29 to February 1, 2026), that eliminates about half of January. With that in mind, here are winter dates when you can expect the lowest overall vacation prices:

• January 5-9, 2026
• January 12-16, 2026
• January 20-23, 2026
• February 2-6, 2026
• February 9-12, 2026
• March 2-6, 2026

Most Anaheim hotels charge higher rates on Friday and Saturday nights. In an ideal world, you’d arrive on Sunday night and have your first park day be Monday for the cheapest prices. Note that doing Disneyland on a Monday isn’t such a hot idea from the perspective of crowds. Since you’ll likely only be spending 2-4 days in the parks, visiting later in the week is the optimal, best of both worlds approach.

Prices spike for the week of Presidents’ Day/Ski Week, falling again the next week–but not as low as those early-year off-season dates. Following that, the first week of March 2026 is another sweet spot. Spring Break and Easter also bring with them significant spikes to both pricing and crowds.

Prices are always elevated during Spring Break, which starts in mid-March and continues through the week after Easter. This year, we’d expect prices to fall around April 13, 2026.

Los Angeles and Orange Counties have their Spring Breaks, as do many major school districts in Northern California, Utah, Nevada, and other areas of the West Coast, and they’re all spread out throughout March and April (again, minus the beginning and end).

Fast-forward past Easter, and that week (after the holiday) through the week before Memorial Day once again see lower prices. This is technically considered “regular” season, but it’s on par with some dates in mid-February and is the cheapest prices you’re likely to find until early August.

About a week before schools go back into session, prices decrease again. This occurs earlier on the hotel side of the equation than with park tickets, presumably because locals continue visiting after tourists stop traveling–and only the latter books hotel stays.

Starting the third Sunday of August, prices return to near their lowest levels of the year and stay there until the end of September (with the notable exception of Labor Day weekend). Crowds can be a different story, especially since Disneyland now starts Halloween in August.

Many of these fall off-season dates will have the lowest prices of the year, right in line with January or February. Due to price increases during the intervening months, various add-ons can be more expensive, though. (This includes everything from parking to food to souvenirs, among other things.)

However, it can also be more than offset by discounts that tend to be offered in the fall offseason. Not only are off-site hotels at their lowest levels throughout August and September, but Disneyland offers the best special offers during that time frame.

In general, you’ll find the biggest savings and cheapest rates from mid-August through mid-September. These two months might leapfrog January and February as a result, depending upon what kind of savings you can score.

The start of October is like flipping a switch at Disneyland. This is evident just from looking at ticket charts, which go from value season to peak pricing. Single day tickets increase by $55, and that ends up being the lowest price of the entire month. Many dates in October are $10 to $20 more expensive than even that.

And of course, this doesn’t just stop with admission. Hotels are likewise more expensive due to it being the heart of Halloween plus fall breaks throughout California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington.

Ticket prices are consistently bad throughout the month, but our experience has been that Columbus Day weekend is most expensive for hotels, along with the two weeks after that and the weekend before or of Halloween. When averaged out on a per day basis, October is the most expensive month of the entire year at Disneyland.

To be very clear, this is not to say that November and December are categorically cheaper at Disneyland. To the contrary, visits during these months can be as or even more expensive than October. The difference is that the holiday season is a veritable roller coaster depending upon whether it’s a holiday week/end or not. Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve all see massive spikes. If you visit around any of those holidays, you’ll pay more than the October average.

However, there are also lulls in both months. The very beginning of November before Christmas kicks off has value season pricing. Same goes for the Tuesday through Thursday of the week after Veterans Day but prior to Thanksgiving week. Starting Cyber Monday (after Thanksgiving), prices once again plummet. Single day tickets on these value season days in November can be over $50 less expensive than any random day in October!

The first two weeks of December are hardly inexpensive, but they are much less expensive than the grand finale of the year, which is bookended by the weeks of Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Again, this is only partly reflected in ticket prices–the difference is much more pronounced in hotel rates. That’s especially true if you find yourself booking late, and room inventory in Anaheim is depleted, causing rack rates to soar further.

Ultimately, that should answer some questions about when it’s cheapest to visit Disneyland…and perhaps raise a few more. Basically, the least expensive dates on paper as of right now are mid-January through mid-February and mid-August through September, followed by late April to late May, then summer vacation and early November–all minus long holiday weekends and the full weeks leading up to major holidays.

Against that backdrop and with that bias, if forced to choose 2 dates to visit Disneyland in the next two years–for a range of reasons both qualitative and quantitative–I would not pick the winter months. As much as I love low crowds–and January and February tend to be great for that–the weather is a bit too cool for comfort. Unless you don’t mind layering. Even then, the beginning of the year has tons of refurbishments and there’s nothing all that special happening (Lunar New Year is underrated, but it’s not a destination event).

Instead, my second choice would be in mid-September. With the fall, you do run the risk of unseasonably hot weather, but it’s absolutely nothing like Florida. Most of the time, it’s pretty pleasant by autumn in Southern California and the crisp coastal air in the evenings is blissful. Not only that, but Halloween Time at Disneyland is incredible, and you can put the money saved on accommodations and everything else towards Oogie Boogie Bash Halloween Party tickets.

My #1 choice would be mid-November, after Veterans’ Day weekend but before the week leading up to Thanksgiving or one of the first two weeks of December. This is truly the sweet spot of everything–lower prices, mild weather, and the best seasonal celebration of the entire year. It’ll be slightly more crowded and expensive, but that tradeoff is absolutely worth it for Christmas Time at Disneyland!

Planning a Southern California vacation? For park admission deals, read Tips for Saving Money on Disneyland Tickets. Learn about on-site and off-site hotels in our Anaheim Hotel Reviews & Rankings. For where to eat, check out our Disneyland Restaurant Reviews. For unique ideas of things that’ll improve your trip, check out What to Pack for Disney. For comprehensive advice, consult our Disneyland Vacation Planning Guide. Finally, for guides beyond Disney, check out our Southern California Itineraries for day trips to Los Angeles, Laguna Beach, and many other SoCal cities!

YOUR THOUGHTS

What do you think about this look at the cheapest times to visit Disneyland? Think discounts will continue to improve throughout 2026 or hotel rack rates will come down, putting a reality-check on runaway prices? Any favorite dates for the sweet spot of the best prices/crowds/weather/etc? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!