Disneyland Part 2

To see Part 1, click here.

The weather was absolutely perfect in California while we were there--if anything, a bit too hot! Anaheim had highs in the low 80's and lows in the mid 50's, and I checked the weather for Orlando and it was cold and/or rainy every day while we were there so we definitely felt like we picked the right parks to visit that week! 

Disneyland has Sleeping Beauty's castle, while Disney World has Cinderella's. Aurora's castle is much smaller, but it does have a really cute walk through that tells wanders up and down narrow staircases inside it and tells the story of Sleeping Beauty. It's really simple but has cool visuals, and my kids loved it! I didn't get any photos because it's pretty dark and narrow, but you can see it here.

Last time we went to Disneyland, we rented a City Mini GT Double stroller through City Strollers and fell in love with it. We actually loved it so much that we came back and sold our other double strollers and bought our own. We bought the travel bag for it earlier this year, and even though it's absolutely massive, it's completely protected it in both gate checking it and checking it with our luggage. We went with this stroller because it has a higher height in the seats than a lot of double strollers, so it still fits Miles really well at 5, and hopefully will continue to fit for a few more years. It also reclines to almost flat and has separate sun shades that come down super low, so it's wonderful for the kids to take naps in.

While the kids napped, Brad and I would take turns riding rides the kids are too little for, like the Indiana Jones ride (amazing ride not found at Disney World, but very similar to the Dinosaur ride at Animal Kingdom) and the Radiator Springs Racers in Cars Land. I think that may be my new favorite ride, ever. It's so fun and everything around it is just incredible looking. While none of us are really fans of the Cars movies, the land is absolutely beautiful! It looks just like the world created in the film and it's really hard to capture it in photos, but it feels so immersive in person.

We LOVED this spot while the kids napped. It was absolutely breathtaking and feels so real, even though it's completely fake, haha! It was also shady and there was a nice cool breeze coming through.

We really love that Disneyland still has so many of the original rides from when they opened in 1955. There's so many that are just adorable, especially the Storybook Land Canal Boats. It's a really cute ride in a gondola that winds around miniature houses and places found in Disney movies. Casey, Jr., the train from Dumbo is a separate ride that also goes around Storybook Land, offering a view from above.

One of the most magical moments by far was going to ToonTown when it opened. ToonTown is a land in the park and it opens later and closes earlier than the rest of the lands. When they open the gates, some of the characters come out to greet everyone that is coming in. Goofy came out and Matilda ran up to him. He immediately took Matilda's hand, and walked her through the gates! A few minutes in, though, she saw Minnie and said "I want to hold Minnie's hand!" so she ran over to Minnie and grabbed it! Complete change from the 14 month old that cried when characters talked to her the last time we were at Disneyland! 

Minnie took her on a tour of her house and then took her to her backyard and had a tea party! (You can see video of the house tour in the video at the bottom of this post.)

ToonTown has lots of areas for kids to explore and all of the classic characters' houses. There's also a Roger Rabbit ride and a small roller coaster. We tried it out and thankfully it was very short, because neither of the kids really enjoyed it, haha!

Over the past couple of years, Miles has loved learning about Disney history, so he was really excited to meet Oswald, the Lucky Rabbit. Before we even came to the parks, he had a mission of getting his own pair of Oswald ears. We all enjoyed imagining a bizarro-version of Disneyland, if Disney had been able to keep Oswald, everyone might wandering the parks in Oswald ears instead of Mickey ears!

One of the main items on our list that we didn't want to miss was Frozen at the Hyperion Theatre. It's an hour long musical of Frozen, that was just as good as Broadway plays we've seen! It actually opened the day after we left Disneyland when we visited in 2016, so we just missed it! All four of us loved it, and I only wish we could have fit it in our schedule to see it twice! I only took one photo of the stage before it began, but you can actually see a pretty good filming of the entire show on YouTube here. There were some really amazing special effects and tricks, especially when Anna and Kristoff are racing from the wolves in the sleigh! (You can see that part here.) 

Matilda went as Doc McStuffins for Halloween this year and was so excited to meet Doc dressed as her! She was also so excited to meet Elsa and Anna from Frozen, and they were so kind, and took so much time talking to her! I feel like the characters that aren't hidden within a large mask really all seem to do that at Disney, which just makes it extra magical! 

After we got back, Brad took all of our videos from the trip and edited them together for the kids, and shared it with them on Christmas eve. They loved it and have watched it almost daily since then.

Disneyland Part 1

For his fifth birthday, Miles asked for a Disneyland-themed party, and I've been kicking ideas around in my head all year for it. As we got closer and closer to December, though, I just started to feel overwhelmed–Brad's travel has been crazy this year and by November we were all just pretty exhausted and in need of just some time off and time together with our family. We started considering the idea of just taking a trip and going for a few days instead of throwing a party. We decided to give Miles the option, and let him decide (we didn't want to take away his party if he'd really rather do that), and after thinking it over for a couple days (seriously), he picked trip. And a Disneyland party for next year. Haha.

We planned very last minute--only about a month before going, but that's one of the things we LOVE about Disneyland compared to Disney World--you can totally do that and you're not really at a disadvantage. In the past few years, Disney World has completely changed to be geared towards vacation packages, which can be amazing, but also a bit overwhelming. If you don't book dining and fast passes and everything in advance, it's a lot more difficult to just show up and have as good of an experience as someone who booked a year in advance. Disneyland isn't that way. You can't even book fast passes in advance–you can only get them once you're inside the park. There's also only two parks versus the many that now exist as part of Disney World, so you can plan a short vacation of 2-3 days and actually still see everything. 

One of the things I hate the most at Disney World is the transportation--it takes so long to get to the parks from parking, hotels, and to get from one park to the other. Disneyland really wins in this category--the entrances literally face each other (Disney California Adventure was actually built in what used to be the parking lot of Disneyland), so Park Hopper tickets are a great value--we walked back and forth between the parks multiple times each day. I actually timed our walk from the back of California Adventure one day up to the entrance of Disneyland and it only took 11.5 minutes (even with crowds!)

The parks are also right in the middle of Anaheim, so there are hotels within walking distance everywhere! There's three Disney properties, but since we knew we'd only really be in our room to sleep at night, we decided to book a Disney Good Neighbor hotel across the street from the entrance. We stayed at the Fairfield Inn Anaheim Resort, and we only had an 8 minute walk to the front entrance of the parks each morning! While not exactly a fancy hotel, it was clean, the beds were super comfortable after long days of walking, and everyone that worked there was so nice! I mentioned we were visiting for Miles' birthday at the front desk, and they even surprised him with gummy bears and balloons in our room, with a card that said they were from Mater and Lightning McQueen. Miles was so amazed and wondered how the cars were able to get in our room, since it was on the second floor! Haha!

We went the second week of December and the crowds really weren't bad at all. Moving from Central time zone to Pacific time really helps, too––we're all up super early so we can easily arrive at the gates right when they open, and experience way less crowds than later in the day. There aren't a ton of options for character meals, but we booked a breakfast with Minnie and Friends at the Plaza Inn, and a dinner at Blue Bayou--not a character meal, but the ride actually overlooks the beginning of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, which the kids loved!

We actually went to Disneyland for a few days in May 2016 when Brad was speaking at Living Room. I only brought a smaller camera then, but I also found it harder to take pictures because Matilda was only 14 months and basically in my arms or lap the entire time. Now that the kids are 5 and 2.5 years old, it's becoming much easier to actually get photos and document our trips better. I brought a DSLR for the first time in forever, and brought multiple lenses. I started off with a 24mm lens, but then ended up switching to a 10-18mm lens that I basically kept on my camera the entire time. I LOVED the wide angle and how we were able to capture so much more.

Miles and Matilda love wearing costumes, so I let them pick out which ones to pack. Each day, we brought in at least 4 different costumes per child so that they could wear whatever they wanted to in the park that day. We just kept the extra costumes in a packing cube in the basket underneath our stroller.

Our kids love the Winnie the Pooh ride and The Little Mermaid ride, and while the line queues and lead up to the ride look completely different than the Disney World versions, the rides are actually identical. For some reason at Disneyland, though, there's hardly ever a line for either ride. Usually only about 5-10 minutes when we've been there, so we usually ride them multiple times throughout our trip!

One of the biggest highlights of our trip was having our friend Correy join us with her adorable son, Hazel! Correy used to work for SoulPancake, and has been a huge part of our lives for the past 5 years, but it'd been over a year and a half since we'd seen her and it was our first time to meet Hazel! 

One of our favorite rides at both Disneyland and Disney World is Small World. It's just so adorable, and at Disneyland, it's extra awesome. They added characters from Disney movies all throughout the ride, like Pinnochio, Aladdin, Peter Pan and Tinkerbell and even Woody from Toy Story! It makes for a fun scavenger hunt, and they're created in a style that blends in well with Mary Blair's original designs. The queue for the ride is outside, and really beautiful as well--the exterior of the ride is huge and they decorate it with lights for Christmas and it's gorgeous. We also had the extra treat of visiting it at Christmas--the entire ride inside gets a Christmas makeover as well, including Christmas songs in other languages throughout the ride, and seeing Christmas traditions all over the world. 

The kids responded to characters SO differently than last time! Last time they were terrified and wanted nothing to do with them, but they absolutely loved them this time, and it was adorable to watch. It made the breakfast with Minnie and all of the characters so much more fun!

Miles was so excited that he was finally tall enough to ride almost all of the rides at both parks, and he after watching lots of YouTube videos of rides, he decided he wanted to ride lots of the scarier rides and was most excited to ride the Guardians of the Galaxy ride. It's a newer ride that used to be the Tower of Terror, so there's quite a few drops (actually, that's pretty much the point of the ride.) I tried to prepare him for it, but he said he really wanted to do it, so he put on his Rocket costume and he and I rode it. As soon as it shot up the first time, I knew he was not going to enjoy it. He grabbed my arm and said "I don't like this," but was brave through the ride and at the end concluded "It was a really great ride, but I do not want to ride it again."

He loved Star Tours and rode it with both Brad and me individually (Matilda isn't tall enough yet), but also freaked out as soon as the Matterhorn took off, even though he was also excited to ride that. He decided to forgo any other fast rollercoasters that included drops after that.

I broke this up into two posts, so click here for part 2 (and to see a cute video Brad put together for the kids for Christmas!)

Halloween (or failed attempts in selfie family photos)

For Halloween this year we went as characters from Alice in Wonderland!

Miles found out I already had an Alice dress, so he picked out what each person would be. We ordered Miles' Cheshire Cat costume online, pieced together Brad's white rabbit from mostly things in his closet (I also made him a vest), and I made Matilda a red queen costume.

At the kids' current ages, the best we can usually do for a family photo is to take a ton of selfies and see if one might turn out. It also makes for really fun gifs. 

Brad bought a new small camera in October, and this was one of our first times to play with it (hence all the out-of-focus photos.) It has a screen that you can flip up so that you can actually see yourself when you are facing the camera. It works great for selfies. When he was setting up the self-timer mode, he found a way for it to take multiple photos in a row without having to press the button to set it off each time.

However, we didn't realize until we loaded up the photos that it also apparently was filming a video documenting the time in between each photo. It's super awkward but funny, so...enjoy.