First of all, this is not food related obviously, but bear with me –especially if you have little ones, or planning to, and would like to plan a Disneyland trip in the future. Whatever the reasons you are here, I am sharing all the details about our Disneyland trip.
I have never been to Disneyland, neither my kids, so anyone that knows me, knows how much I enjoy planning, and making sure we use our time and resources efficiently.
Tickets
We bought a 3-day pass to Disneyland/California adventures. The first thing we decided was to spend more time at Disneyland because it has more little-kid rides that we could enjoy as a family. So we spent two days at Disneyland and one at California Adventures. We did buy the lighting lane pass which it makes it more pricey, but it did saved us so much time. There were a couple of rides we were able to do because we had the pass and avoided a long wait time. I recommend this one, because being in a waiting line with toddlers could be daunting, there were a couple of times where my kids got a little desperate. They don’t really understand that sometimes we wait in line.
That being said, it is totally ok not having the lightning lane –especially, because the fantasyland doesn’t have lightning lanes and it’s where a lot of the little-kid rides are. Also, we could not use the lightning lane until we had redeemed the first ride. This makes it tricky because you can not book all the rides you want all at once. So, it is basically, plan as you go. You use the Disneyland app to do all the bookings, they call it virtual line/queue.
Plan
We started the day right when the park opens, because the kids are up early anyway. This also helped us to avoid some of the hot weather. We had a list of the lands and rides we wanted to visit according to our kids, and our preferences. We spent about four hours in the park, and then took a break. Then, we went back to the hotel for naps. This was such a great plan, the kids and us took naps and recharged. The park closes at 11 pm so we knew we had plenty of time to come back, plus I was there to watch the fireworks, and those are until 9:30 pm.
Hotel
We did stay in a hotel close to Disneyland that we could walk. It was such and easy, short walk, about five minutes. We love walking, so this was not a problem. We avoided paying parking at Disneyland which is $30 per day. Also, we were already paying parking at the hotel, because in big cities, and most of the hotels in LA and Anaheim, you need to pay parking separately. The price for hotels close to Disneyland could be more expensive, but we thought having a good place, with breakfast included would give us a good start.
Back to the Disneyland rides, we decided to visit the neighboring lands to avoid going from one side of the park to another. For example, we visited fantasyland, Toon town, and Tomorrowland the first day, and do rides in those lands only. The second day, we visited Frontierland, Adventureland, Star wars, and the Haunted mansion which is in the New Orleans Square.
We watched Fantasmic, and the fireworks from a far. The crowds are real, so we were ok compromising being in a smaller crowd but far to watch these shows. With kids, it is all about knowing them, what they like, when they are hungry and deregulated, exhausted, etc.
Food
Food, we did not buy food at Disneyland besides a funnel cake for dessert one of the nights. The way we handled food was: first, we had a big breakfast at the hotel, we made sure the kids ate eggs, and nourishing food that could help them enjoy more their morning. We had snacks with us, lots of them, things we knew they would like like popcorn, granola bars, apple juice, water, crackers, etc. Disneyland has lots of water fountains around the park where you can refill you water bottles. In my humble opinion, the food options at Disneyland were not very appetizing, plus eating with toddlers in a public settings is always a challenge for us. Second, for lunch, we packed sandwiches and had them ready in a lunch bag, but we ended up eating them back at the hotel when we went for naps, so it worked great. Third, for dinners, we decided to buy something before getting back to the park for our second round, this worked great, because it was almost out dinner time when we were ready to head back. We eat early though, so for some people this might not work, but you can still buy something outside for dinner and eat it later in the park.
I hope this information helps you, share it with those you might think would make a good use of it.
I end with my husband advise, it is ok not to follow all the details of a plan, it is ok to just enjoy the moment and play it as it comes. Be ok with things not turning the way you expect, and best of all do not lose your cool, because with toddlers that could easily happen. Just make sure their needs are met and everyone will have a great time!
Let me know if you have questions! Anything related, if it can help you in your planning, I would be happy to share more!