I won't be reviewing Disneyland , I'm just assuming you are going and I will offer a few tips. We have three kids ages 7-10 so you Know my perspective.
We had a fantastic time and I think we maximized our opportunities.
1. If you have two days, spend one day each in Disneyland park and California Adventure Park. If you have three days then alternate Disneyland park, California Adventure, Disneyland park.
2. If you spend three days buy your tickets in advance through a ticket broker - we got the genie plus service included for free As part of the deal.
3. You must get the Genie plus service, it is essential. It's the single most important thing to do or you will likely be at least 50 % less efficient. The Genie plus allows you to book a ride every two hours and return to the lightning lane entrance during your one hour return window. This will cut down your wait time by at least 75% for all rides you use genie plus to book. In between such bookings you can wait on the regular lines for other attractions, or eat, or shop, or whatever.
4. download the Disneyland app to your phone in advance, link your whole familys tickets so one person can book everyone on the same ride during the same return window (if you all want to stay together all day). Link a credit card so you can do mobile food ordering around the park. This is essential so you won't have to wait on lines. Yes, you just find a nice place to sit , order your food on your phone, and pick it up when ready.
5. With Genie plus you get free downloads of photos taken on rides (like splash mountain and space mountain). When you exit these rides find your photo on the display monitor and snap a picture of it with your phone so you can remember the numbered code to be able to link that photo with your phone app so the picture will transfer over automatically into the Disneyland app. From there you can download a 5 MB digital copy to your photo library. Remember the days when Disney used to charge $20 for each picture? Now it's free in Genie plus. Also, you will see Disneyland photographers around the park. Get them to take your picture and they will help you link it to your account also free. This is great for shots in front of the castle, the Christmas tree, In front of characters, or in front of Star Wars . Honestly we have our annual Christmas card this year because of a photo taken by a Disney photographer.
6. Pay up the $25 to go in the Rise of the resistance experience. It's the single best thing Disney has ever done in a theme park. If you don't want to pay then you can wait at least 90 minutes on the standby line, that's also an option. Don't think you can beat the long standby line by showing up when the park opens. Disney magically keeps the standby line shut down initially in order to sell $25 entrances. Then when they finally open the standby line it's a long wait.
7. ****now here is the best strategy to maximize your day with the genie plus. You book the attractions that offer the nearest upcoming return time. You do this because the two triggers that allow you to book the next one is either two hours have elapsed, or you actually scan into the ride during your return window. Once you scan in you can immediately book the next genie plus attraction. So for example if you have a choice to book thunder mountain railroad with a return time just an hour from now, or space mountain with a return time three hours from now, you book the thunder mountain because if you return in one hour you can scan in and then book something else. Otherwise, with the space mountain example you will hit the two hour mark before you get to your return window and then you can book another one. That's called stacking because once you book another one you will be holding two genie plus reservations (space mountain plus another one you booked). The stacking works well later in the day when the return times get pushed out further because the park is more crowded. That's okay because after a busy morning you might want to relax a bit and push out additional rides till later. However, in the morning you want to do as many attractions as possible before the park get busy.
8. Definitely get into the park before 8 am and be there for rope drop when they actually let you start going on rides. Please note that they will scan your entry ticket into the park before 8 am and as soon as they scan it you can book your first genie plus attraction, even if before 8 am.
9. Not all attractions are on genie plus (ie pirates of the Caribbean and jungle cruise). The wait times for these in the afternoon are going to be around 40 minutes but may be only 10 minutes during the first couple hours of the day. It's because everyone else is trying to get on the hard to get on rides. That's also the beauty of genie plus, you have a one hour window to return to the lightning lane so you could go do pirates then come back and do the genie plus that you booked, then book another genie plus, etc.
10. We found an interesting anomaly. Towards the end of every hour certain rides that previously had long pushed out lightning lane return times suddenly had much shorter availability. This would last for a matter of a few minutes then be very long again. I suspect it has to do with how Disney handles the flow. I noticed this many times and only towards the end of the hour. So I would say that if you are looking at three hours return times for rides you really want to go on then check your app starting around a quarter to the hour and every few min check again. You may find a return time of just one hour or even 30 min has appeared. This happened to us several times.
Have fun