Chilly day, not at the park??

[Chemist]

We are arriving next Saturday, around lunchtime.

Since we're staying at the Disneyland Hotel, my plan was to enjoy the pools and then have dinner at Goofy's kitchen.

The weather forecast is NOT showing "Yippee, let's go swimming weather".
I grew up minutes from Disneyland, so I'm pretty comfortable reading the forecast and understanding what it means.

I don't want to do the park for a few hours mid-afternoon on a Saturday.

My boys are 3 and 8, I don't really want to do a lot of shopping with them. Mommy doesn't want to buy anything. They certainly love spending money on stuff we don't need.

Any suggestions for how to spend our first afternoon, besides potentially arriving slightly later?

 

[ADLFAN]

A movie at the DTD AMC?

 

[luulu1999]

We always go to DtD and do stuff on the day we arrive, do you still live in the area? If not things like the aquarium or something like that might be fun

 

[Chemist]

What kind of stuff is there to for children to DO in DTD besides a movie?
Does the Disneyland Hotel offer fun activities?
My younger guy is too young for Pinocchios workshop unfortunately.

We're not in the area anymore. We're pretty much sticking to the Disney bubble this trip. We won't have a car and are down visiting family enough to have done the major "good stuff".

Sorry to be so negative. I'm a bit bummed that the weather won't be as cooperative as I'd like. We were looking forward to the pools.

 

[nifferearly]

I was there once when it was in the low 60's and the pools were warm enough for swimming. You just need to move fast when you get out!

 

[luulu1999]

Are they not heated? Our last visit the kids had gift cards to build a bear for my DD and ridemakerz for my DS so that is what we did in DtD

 

[offwithyourhead]

I'm not sure where your boys grew up, but my family was swimming in February and had a grand old time. We're from BC and our May is Anaheim's February, so that may be part of it. If they haven't grown up somewhere incredibly warm, they'd probably still want to swim. Kids are resilient! When our above-ground went up, we'd jump in as it was filling with ice-cold hose water. They may still find it to be swimming weather even if you don't.

There's an indoor playground called Billy Beez in Gardenwalk. I assume you want to wear them down a little bit, so that might be an idea.

 

[bumbershoot]

Mid-60s, I would be in the pool. Or rather my kid would. He doesn't care if it's 50 degrees. The pools are heated, so it's not painful until you get OUT. And as a kid, you have a parent wielding towels to dry you off; hard life, to be a kid.

 

[pa. dad]

Are the Angels in town? maybe go to a ball game.

 

[robin2588]

ESPN zone has a game arcade upstairs with video games, skeeball, air hockey, a bowling game etc.. Also the lego store has the thing out front where kids can build a small lego car and race it on the small track. I believe that is free.

 

[nikkislaght]

http://anaheimindoormarketplace.com/

we like to go to the Anaheim Indoor Market on our non Disney day..
They have a free shuttle that will pick up from your hotel and drop you back.

 

[cmph]

I know the Lego store is hard to walk away from without buying anything, but that would certainly occupy your kids for a while. Tons of legos to play with there, not to mention the giant Disney characters made of Legos to pose with. We had to drag our kids away from that store to go to the parks when DS was 3 and DD 7. They could have stayed for hours. We only let them do the "build-a-minifig" thing, so it was fairly cheap for all the time we spent there. And if you're doing dinner at Goofy's Kitchen, a great thing to do around the DLH beforehand is check out the various towers and their lobby displays. Characters will wander around the main lobby too.

 

[LittleBlueFlower]

If your kids want to swim (as sometimes excitement can curb the fact that it is ugly out), they will have a blast.
However, if it isn't nice I'm sure that you probably wouldn't want to swim/ watch them poolside, so I recommend DTD. I don't know if the price has gone up, but last time it was around $10 to build three minifigs at the Lego store.
If it was me, I would head down to Marcelines and grab a treat, then visit the Lego store to play and build minifigs. Plus, you guys could take a long route back to the hotel, and check out the lobby of the Grand.

Also, do not underestimate the power of watching TV in a hotel room if you still have an extra hour to kill! We never had very much selection in channels at home, so when we go on vacation we always turn on the disney channel. Some of my best memories from vacation are of us sitting in a cramped hotel room watching a movie on Disney Channel.

All that being said, fingers crossed that the forecast is completely wrong and the weather will be lovely for the pool! Good luck!

 

[Angrose]

When you say next Saturday, do you mean Apr 16th? If so, the forecast on weather.com shows a high of 77. That is definitely warm enough for swimming! I was there the beginning of March an it was only in the high 60's and I hung out at the DLH pool on two afternoons. I only went in the Jacuzzi, but there were kids there having a grand time in the pool and on the waterslides!
If you mean this Saturday, the 9th, then yikes, it says 80% chance of rain

 

[yupikgal]

We will be there during this rainy weekend too...hoping it will subside sooner & have less chance of rain as the hours go by...we are going to enjoy it regardless, bringing rain gear just in case! The only thing I'm not sure about is the footgear, because I don't really have small rainboots, and my tennis shoes have mesh in parts of them, and other than that, I have my chacos which could work, but it may be too cold for them??

 

[mommy2mb]

We arrive on Saturday for 7 nights.. Yikes on the weather our first day or so.. Our plans were Downtown Disney and swimming on arrival day since no parks that day.. Change of plans think we are going to catch a movie in the afternoon at the Downtown Disney. We went last night and got some rain gear. And packing extra tennis shoes since they might be a little wet.. The chance of rain keeps changing each time I look at forecast.. I'm driving myself a little crazy with the weather.. This is our first trip to Disneyland from Illinois, and we were really hoping for sunny warm weather, however we are going to make the best of it, and have a great time!!!!

 

[yupikgal]

We arrive on Saturday for 7 nights.. Yikes on the weather our first day or so.. Our plans were Downtown Disney and swimming on arrival day since no parks that day.. Change of plans think we are going to catch a movie in the afternoon at the Downtown Disney. We went last night and got some rain gear. And packing extra tennis shoes since they might be a little wet.. The chance of rain keeps changing each time I look at forecast.. I'm driving myself a little crazy with the weather.. This is our first trip to Disneyland from Illinois, and we were really hoping for sunny warm weather, however we are going to make the best of it, and have a great time!!!!

Well the good news is you will be there for 7 nights, we only have 3, and so far, they all look to be rainy! I think there will be a lot of people in the theater It's Disney, and since we don't get to go often, we will still try and enjoy the parks as much as possible, and just stick to the indoor rides...I know what you mean about the weather changing every few hours! We are also bringing rain gear to accommodate for the weather, and good idea to bring more than 1 pair of shoes! I'm excited nonetheless!! Welcome to Disneyland, we LOVE it there!

 

[Laundress]

Rain or shine we go. Lower wait times. It was in the low to mid 60s when we were there and lots of children were swimming. Its heated
We also spent a bit of time in DTD. There is lots of entertainment .

 

[ImDMous]

We'll be there tomorrow and Sunday also. Packing panchos, extra shoes and trash bags to line our backpack with. Other than that, no change of plans. We went a few months ago when there was a monster storm with really high winds. Fireworks and parades were cancelled but we still had a great time.