cherry_bomb
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2022
- Messages
- 5
We just got back from our trip to California, including Disneyland Park and CA. None of us (me, husband, 11yo and 8yo) had been to WDW or any other Disney parks so this was really completely new to us!
I thought I’d write a bit about our experience, particularly for anyone else in the same boat. When I was planning the trip I felt totally overwhelmed with all the tips and information, and found it hard to put it in context without any experience. We only had 1 day in each park and I felt a lot of pressure to make the most of it and not waste any time. However I honestly feel like the days we had were absolutely perfect and couldn’t have gone any better!
We’d already done most of our trip and had been to Laguna Beach and a couple of other coastal stops, San Diego, and Palm Springs/Joshua Tree before arriving at Disneyland. We stayed at the Desert Palm Hotel & Suites and it suited us great. Decent breakfast, nice little pool (although it often quite busy, but we weren’t there for the pool so wasn’t really bothered) and 15 minute walk from our room to security gate.
We did DP on Easter Sunday and CA on Monday. I thought Sunday in particular would be heaving, and it was busy, but I have nothing to compare it to and didn’t find it overwhelming (we went on to Universal Hollywood as our next stop and that was WAY busier). The two things that massively helped were Genie+ and getting there for rope drop. We whizzed through all the rides in Fantasyland apart from Peter Pan (as I’d seen good advice not to waste precious early morning time queuing for this) in the first couple of hours, walking straight onto them.
It also helped that my kids are not fans of rollercoasters/thrill rides so didn’t want to do a lot of the rides with longer wait times eg Indiana Jones, Matterhorn Bobsleds. My daughter loved the gentler animatronic rides eg It’s A Small World and Alice and we all loved Pirates. We did manage to go on Peter Pan later in the day just before Fantasmic, we waited about 25 minutes and I think that was the longest wait we had all day.
We had a break in the middle of the day when it was very hot which worked well for us and got us through the evening. One of the joys of going as a first-timer was stumbling across things we hadn’t planned to see that were amazing - like the parade! I’d seen it was on but didn’t know much about it and nobody in the family was that bothered about making a special effort to see it. However we came across it starting just as we happened to be passing Main Street and it was fantastic, one of the highlights of the trip! Next time I’d try to make sure we planned to see it so we could get a better spot for viewing.
We ate at Hungry Bear to get Fantasmic reservations in the evening. After we’d been on Pirates I did kind of wish I’d made Blue Bayou reservations as it looked really cool to be dining inside the ride. But actually the HB food was pretty decent (and a lot cheaper
) Fantasmic was amazing - I must admit I was a bit of a Disney cynic before going and thought it was something I’d be enduring for the kids rather than actually enjoying. But it really was a magical show and our viewing spot was fab. We stayed in the same place for the fireworks too which were equally spectacular.
It was hard dragging ourselves out of bed at 6am again the next morning but the early start really had been worth it the day before so we did it again. I didn’t feel like we used our time quite so well in CA. I got a LL for Webslingers almost first thing, so we went on the Mater ride first and then Webslingers, then to Pixar Pier. However a lot of the rides seemed to keep going down and I didn’t manage to line up our LLs for things that were near to each other at the same time, so it felt like we did a lot of walking back and forth. We didn’t manage to get on Radiator Springs Racers which I was sorry to miss, but nobody in our party was willing to wait an hour+. I also didn’t realise how early the Pixar Pier rides closed for WOC, we had LLs for Toy Story at 8.25 which suddenly just disappeared as the ride closed. However we did get on most of the rides we wanted to do, some more than once, and we also enjoyed spending time one some of the lower key stuff though, in particular my son loved the Animation Academy.
Again we took a break and came back for dinner and WOC. We had reservations at Storytellers Cafe which I was really quite impressed with. Hotel buffet food can be hit and miss but they had cut of prime beef and lamb, good quality salads and lots of choice. Again we had a good spot for the show, I didn’t think it was quite as impressive as Fantasmic but still really enjoyed it.
All in all, an excellent 2 days, I was so impressed with the quality and professionalism of the whole experience. I think I may be a Disney convert
I thought I’d write a bit about our experience, particularly for anyone else in the same boat. When I was planning the trip I felt totally overwhelmed with all the tips and information, and found it hard to put it in context without any experience. We only had 1 day in each park and I felt a lot of pressure to make the most of it and not waste any time. However I honestly feel like the days we had were absolutely perfect and couldn’t have gone any better!
We’d already done most of our trip and had been to Laguna Beach and a couple of other coastal stops, San Diego, and Palm Springs/Joshua Tree before arriving at Disneyland. We stayed at the Desert Palm Hotel & Suites and it suited us great. Decent breakfast, nice little pool (although it often quite busy, but we weren’t there for the pool so wasn’t really bothered) and 15 minute walk from our room to security gate.
We did DP on Easter Sunday and CA on Monday. I thought Sunday in particular would be heaving, and it was busy, but I have nothing to compare it to and didn’t find it overwhelming (we went on to Universal Hollywood as our next stop and that was WAY busier). The two things that massively helped were Genie+ and getting there for rope drop. We whizzed through all the rides in Fantasyland apart from Peter Pan (as I’d seen good advice not to waste precious early morning time queuing for this) in the first couple of hours, walking straight onto them.
It also helped that my kids are not fans of rollercoasters/thrill rides so didn’t want to do a lot of the rides with longer wait times eg Indiana Jones, Matterhorn Bobsleds. My daughter loved the gentler animatronic rides eg It’s A Small World and Alice and we all loved Pirates. We did manage to go on Peter Pan later in the day just before Fantasmic, we waited about 25 minutes and I think that was the longest wait we had all day.
We had a break in the middle of the day when it was very hot which worked well for us and got us through the evening. One of the joys of going as a first-timer was stumbling across things we hadn’t planned to see that were amazing - like the parade! I’d seen it was on but didn’t know much about it and nobody in the family was that bothered about making a special effort to see it. However we came across it starting just as we happened to be passing Main Street and it was fantastic, one of the highlights of the trip! Next time I’d try to make sure we planned to see it so we could get a better spot for viewing.
We ate at Hungry Bear to get Fantasmic reservations in the evening. After we’d been on Pirates I did kind of wish I’d made Blue Bayou reservations as it looked really cool to be dining inside the ride. But actually the HB food was pretty decent (and a lot cheaper
) Fantasmic was amazing - I must admit I was a bit of a Disney cynic before going and thought it was something I’d be enduring for the kids rather than actually enjoying. But it really was a magical show and our viewing spot was fab. We stayed in the same place for the fireworks too which were equally spectacular.It was hard dragging ourselves out of bed at 6am again the next morning but the early start really had been worth it the day before so we did it again. I didn’t feel like we used our time quite so well in CA. I got a LL for Webslingers almost first thing, so we went on the Mater ride first and then Webslingers, then to Pixar Pier. However a lot of the rides seemed to keep going down and I didn’t manage to line up our LLs for things that were near to each other at the same time, so it felt like we did a lot of walking back and forth. We didn’t manage to get on Radiator Springs Racers which I was sorry to miss, but nobody in our party was willing to wait an hour+. I also didn’t realise how early the Pixar Pier rides closed for WOC, we had LLs for Toy Story at 8.25 which suddenly just disappeared as the ride closed. However we did get on most of the rides we wanted to do, some more than once, and we also enjoyed spending time one some of the lower key stuff though, in particular my son loved the Animation Academy.
Again we took a break and came back for dinner and WOC. We had reservations at Storytellers Cafe which I was really quite impressed with. Hotel buffet food can be hit and miss but they had cut of prime beef and lamb, good quality salads and lots of choice. Again we had a good spot for the show, I didn’t think it was quite as impressive as Fantasmic but still really enjoyed it.
All in all, an excellent 2 days, I was so impressed with the quality and professionalism of the whole experience. I think I may be a Disney convert
