A very big highlight of our recent trip to the US was our time at Disneyland.  We all know it is the happiest place on earth and honestly you can’t help but just be consumed by the Disney atmosphere while you are there – we went into the bubble and didn’t reappear for a few days.  Every person who has asked the kids what was the best part of our trip has had the same response!  DISNEYLAND!

In my previous post I talked about our time in LA and Santa Monica (you can read about it here) so our trip to Disneyland begins after we had been in the US for 4 nights.  The drive to Anaheim took an hour but that was mainly because there is so much traffic on those freeways!  With our trusty GPS (who we named Monica seeing as she began our journey for us in Santa Monica) the drive was simple and easy and we arrived at our hotel at 4pm in the afternoon.  The hotel we stayed at was the Paradise Pier which is one of the three Disney hotels.  We decided on this one mainly because we just wanted to save a little on accomodation and it was the cheapest of the three.  We definitely were not disappointed that we went this way as our room was big enough and close enough so we had no complaints.  We parked our car in the on site parking area and that was the last we saw of her until we left Disneyland – we definitely just immersed ourself in Disneyland which I had not predicted us doing.  I did expect we might try and find a supermarket close by and get some snacks or go elsewhere to eat but we didn’t.  We ate all our meals within the Disney precinct and to my surprise we were able to find a few decent things to eat.

Our room at the hotel was called a Standard room so it had 2 queen beds and a day bed which converted to a single bed.  The room was the biggest of our standards rooms during our entire trip with there being plenty of room between all the beds so we didn’t not feel at all cramped – I suspect from looking at the photos on the hotel website that we may have lucked out and received one of the bigger standard rooms.  The hotel is a little older than the Grand Californian which is next door but it was clean and comfortable which was all we needed seeing as most of our time we were in the Park.   We didn’t even go to the pool as we were so busy in the park and when we came back for a rest we didn’t want to go anywhere else.

After check in we decided to head straight into the park.  We had a 4 day hopper pass and we didn’t want to wait any time.  Originally I had only planned on getting a 3 day pass and not heading into the park on the day we arrived but I am really glad we went with 4 days as it allowed us to take a little more time each day.  I was also really pleased that we opted for the hopper pass over the standard pass that only allows you entry into one park per day.  The last time I was in Disneyland was 27 years ago and there was only the original “Disneyland Park” back then so I couldn’t imagine why you would want to visit both Disneyland and California Adventure land in one day but we did.  The closest entrance to our hotel was also through California Adventure Land so it made it very convenient to be able to walk through there when we needed to.  It really gave us a lot of flexibility with where we wanted to eat and which shows to watch so if you can I would go with a park hopper pass.

We had a wonderful first evening at Disneyland that really helped us to get our bearings and to get on loads of rides without too many queues.  It had been an incredibly hot day with temperatures around 40 degrees so we think this meant a lot of people left earlier to escape the heat as on day 2 the crowds seemed bigger.  We decided to head into the Disneyland park first and knocked over a few of the big well known rides like HyperSpace Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Buzz Lightyear, Indiana Jones Adventure, the Haunted Mansion.   Queues for rides also dropped down once the parades started so our strategy for continuing on the rides really meant we got to do these rides much quicker than usual!

Day two was an early start with us being at the gates to Disneyland at 6.40am (yes I know!!) ready to hit the rides.  By staying at a Disney resort you get early entry into the park at 7am (everyone else can enter at 8am) and from everything I had read you want to make the most of it!   The early arrival still didn’t save us from the queues as the crowd was ready and waiting when we arrived but it was great to be able to get in and get going early before the heat of the day.  We spent the morning and some of the afternoon in the park before heading back to our room for a little rest before hitting the pavement again for the evening.  Each evening there is an amazing parade in the park followed by fireworks and if you want to get a front row seat you need to have your spot saved well before the event.  It was around 7pm when we noticed people starting to sit along the parade route and the parade doesn’t start until 8.45pm!  We followed suit and found a spot and made friends with our neighbours which was fun.  During the almost 2 hour wait I would take one of the girls and find a ride with a short line so that we kept them amused which worked well.  It was a long night though as the parade finished at 9.30pm and then the fireworks started finishing at 9.50pm.   Both the parade and the fireworks were amazing – I would have to say the fireworks combined with the soundtrack and the setting was the best I have ever seen – truly amazing and something I will remember for ever!

Day three was similar to day two but this time we were in California Adventure Land for the majority of the day.  Again it was an early start by me (the others slept in a little longer but I was determined to be hard core!!).  We went to the World of Colour night time performance on day three and once again it was spectacular.  Yes we needed to get our spot early – for a 9pm show we had to start lining up for our spot at 7pm but so worth it.

On our final day at Disneyland we started by going to have breakfast with Mickey and his friends in our hotel.  We booked this before we went away and while I was a little reluctant before the event (it cost us approx AUD$300 for the breakfast) it was a huge highlight for the girls.  We were celebrating Indi’s birthday while away so they really did make a big deal of it with badges, a special cake and a sing along.  The three girls loved having cuddles and photos with all of the characters and while the food was nothing to write home about the experience itself was wonderful.

After breakfast we headed back to the park splitting our day between both Disneyland and DCA.  We attempted to go on the rides we had not yet made it to and go back to our favourites one last time.  The ride that we went on most was California Scream in DCA – it was Sofia and Indi’s favourite and the queues were never more than 15 minutes.  My other favourite was Soaring Around the World which was also in DCA- huge queues if you didn’t make the most of the fast pass system (more about that soon!)

So a few other tips – learn about and make the most of the fast pass system!  The fast pass system allows you to jump the queue on a number of the really popular rides within both parks.  Sounds simple but some planning is required if you want to get the most out of it!  My first tip is get a fast pass for the busiest ride the minute you enter the park.  The system does not allow you to get another fast pass for a different ride until you have used your first fast pass so you need to work out what is most popular and get that pass early!  If you wait too long to get your fast pass you may find that your return time to use your pass is well into the afternoon or even the evening so you cannot even attempt to get another fast pass for another ride until after this – that could potentially waste you 4-5 hours where you have to join the regular queue on every other ride.  Some of the rides are so popular that they run out of fast passes – this seemed to happen a lot on the rides in DCA like Soarin and Radiator Springs Racers so grab them early!  It doesn’t take long to work the system out once you are there but it is definitely worth having a plan.  Our plan worked well and it also meant I did a lot more walking than hubby and the kids as I was the fast pass runner!  The minute we used one fast pass I would take everyones park ticket and go straight to get a fast pass for another popular ride while the others went to queue for something different that had a short wait time.   There are 8 rides in each park that use the fast pass system and they cut our wait times from 2 hours to 10 minutes – so worth it!!  

There are two shows that require a fast pass for entry and you need to get your fast pass early – before 10am – they only have a certain number of fast pass tickets they allocate and once they are gone that is it for the day.  The shows are both in DCA – World of Colour and Frozen.  We didn’t get to see Frozen but World of Colour is a must.

Another tip when fast pass hunting is to make sure that everyone in your party has entered the park for the day – I made the mistake on day 3 of taking everyones ticket and heading into the park at 7am to grab a fast pass for all us. Sadly as my ticket was the only one that had scanned through at the gate it meant that I could only get a fast pass for me!  Bonus for me – annoying for the others (that will teach them for wanting extra sleep!)

Favourite food in the park!  Our favourite place to eat was in DCA at Pacific Wharf.  We found a great asian option in Lucky Fortune Cookery – highly recommend the teriyaki chicken which was a great size serving and delicious.  Chicken, veggies and rice – ticked all the boxes for all of us!  If you are looking for a nice sit down table service restaurant our pick was Naples Ristorante which was in Downtown Disney.  Two other great options were both in DCA – Smokejumpers Grill and Fidler Fifer and Practical Cafe for coffee.  Starbucks coffee was located in both parks and downtown Disney but warning if you want coffee before entering the park you need to go early as the queues were out the door!

Photo’s – as you can see by my photos in this pass I am appearing in them!  This is because we decided to do a Disney Photo Pass.  As I am always the photographer I tend to not be in many shots so I decided that I was not going to take my big heavy camera with me to the park but leave it up to the many photographers they have available to capture our time!  So pleased I did as not only do we have lots of great family photos around the park but there is also a picture of us on a number of the rides – those fun pictures where you are screaming on a rollercoaster pictures!  Great memories to have!  I used my iPhone to capture quick shots here and there and of course to film snippets of our 4 days so I could create the mini movie below!  

So there you have our time in Disneyland – the best and most exhausting 4 days!  I collapsed into bed at around 8pm on day 4 – my step counter told me I had done 75,000 steps over our few days – I certainly felt it as well!  Please feel free to ask any more questions in the comments if you want more info and I will add more info over time if I remember important tidbits!

 

Disneyland |June 2016