September Disneyland Trip w/ a 2.5 yr old and 4.5 yr old

[DisSarahK]

Cast of Characters:
Me ~ 30 year old mama
Husband ~ 33 year old dada
Princess ~ 4.5 year old bundle of energy
Handsome ~ 2.5 year old bundle of energy

We left our home at 6:15am in order to get to the airport for a midday flight. Ugh! It took us a minivan, a boat, and a shuttle bus to get to the airport...our trip to the airport was as long as the flight to Disneyland. Anyhow, we flew Virgin America from SeaTac to LAX and were very impressed with the airline--and with the fantastic deal I scored on the tickets!

From LAX we took the Disneyland Express bus to Disneyland. Ugh, what a miserable experience! The bus ride took forever and the seats were more cramped than airline seats. I'm 5'10" and even with my backside jammed all the way back in my seat, there still wasn't enough room to get my knees in front of me in my seat...and that was before the person in front of me opted to recline her seat.

The bus did have two things going for it--#1, we didn't need our huge Britax carseats (we used a CARES harness for our 2.5 year old son on the plane and our 4.5 year old is the size of a second grader.) #2, it had a bathroom...which is a good thing when you're traveling with small children.

Our first Disney sighting was this big Mickey Mouse outside the Disneyland Hotel. When my little boy spotted it, he shouted "me found Disneyland!" That gave the people around us a good chuckle!

​

We finally arrived at our motel, the Desert Inn and Suites, 30-45 minutes after the first passengers were dropped off at the Disneyland hotel. It was a LONG bus ride. Of course it didn't help that the bus driver drove past our stop and had to let us off at the next stop and we hoofed it back to the motel.

Check-in was a breeze and soon we were heading up to the second floor to find our room. We booked one of the suites and it was decent--not a Marriott, but it worked for us and the location was ideal. Of course we ended up having other (very disgusting!) problems with the room, but I'll save those for a later post. By the way, the mattresses on the beds here are so thin--they're the thickness of my little boy's crib mattress! Really and truly they're maybe 4-5 inches thick! I've never seen a queen size mattress that is that thin.

As soon as you walk in the door of the suite, there is a teeny tiny area with a loveseat and coffeetable, a half wall, and then the main bedroom part of the suite. The bathroom (toilet only with exterior sink) is at the back of the room.

The other bedroom was very similar--except no half wall with couch. Instead it had a small table with two chairs and a desk with a chair. The second bedroom did not have an exterior door (perfect for us because our two little ones slept in here). The bathroom in here is a full bathroom--toilet and shower (with a terrible piercing spray of water!) in a seperate room and a sink and counter in the room. Everything seemed very clean.

By the way, the windows had plantation shutters and did not completely block the light. It was fine for me, but if you're super-sensitive to light, it might bother you. We did not hear many sounds from other rooms, however you could hear ALL the conversation from people walking along the outside corridor by the door to the room.

After dropping our stuff, we went out for a walk and tried to do a little geocaching, but we were too tired to be tolerant with our finicky GPS unit. Lucky for us, our 2.5 year old finally fell asleep in the stroller so we decided to hit Cold Stone for some ice cream. Our little girl was thrilled to have some time with our undivided attention and we all were happy to eat some ice cream. It was very warm and VERY muggy.

Next we went to Denny's (nothing like ice cream *before* dinner, right?!) and our son finally woke up in time to eat some mac and cheese. Next it was time to put our wee ones to bed!

After the little ones went to bed (which took forever because they were SO excited and they kept talking to each other and waking each other up!), we settled down with the Unofficial Guide to Disneyland and really finalized our plan for Wednesday. As an aside, we noticed a few random flying insects in our room...but nothing too major.

We decided to do the "Dumbo or Die in a Day Plan" with some serious modifications. Neither of us was interested in baby swapping or doing anything like that--we wanted to enjoy Disneyland with our babies...hopefully we have many Disney trips ahead of us to do the more "advanced" rides...so we decided to skip rides like Pirates.

 

[DisSarahK]

Day One at Disneyland ~ Wednesday​

Our children wake up early and vacation is no exception. I believe they were up at 5:15 on this day. They snacked on the dry cereal I packed for them while they opened the presents Minnie Mouse left for them--on this day they each received a pair of sunglasses.

The motel's continental breakfast finally opened at 7:30, so my husband went down there to grab some toast for the children and brought that back to the room. We sat down and had breakfast together--partly fueled by food I had delivered from Von's, part from the motel, and part from the suitcase. At any rate, it was fairly close to the type of food they eat at home (including fresh fruit and milk) and that made me happy...I didn't want any upset tummies!!

Finally we were ready to leave for Disneyland!! The children lined up for a picture before we left the room.

After that all we had to do was walk one hotel down and cross the main crosswalk...and POOF! We were on Disney property!! After bag check we lined up at Gate 13 and waited...and we were excited when the gates opened early!! Then, after a teary-eyed walk down Main Street (gosh, I was SO happy to be there!!!) we realized the rope didn't drop on Main Street yet...oh well!!

My husband hoisted each child up on his shoulder so they could see Disneyland--their expressions were priceless! All our son could say was "cassel, cassel!!" (He doesn't enunciate very well yet.)

Now the Unofficial Guide said we should head to Nemo first...but we opted to skip Nemo. I don't do well with tight spaces and we were skeptical about how the children would do in there. My husband was intrigued by the ride concept (he's an engineer and designed nuclear submarines for ten years in his last job) but agreed that we should skip it.

So instead we headed for Fantasyland...and we were the very first people on Alice in Wonderland! Then we went to Dumbo, Peter Pan, Casey Jr, and Mad Tea Party. Lines were almost non-existent...at this point the longest line was about five minutes.

The murals at the Peter Pan ride were so beautiful--I had to take some pictures.

I also got a huge kick out of the over-sized paper lanterns at the teacups--they went well with the over-sized teacups!

Next we headed toward Toontown!

Our first ride there was Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin. There was no wait--we walked right on. Nobody in our group was a big fan of this ride.

 

[DisSarahK]

Our 4.5 year old had been begging to go on a roller coaster (she's never been on one) so we all went on Gadget's Go Coaster...both children claim to have enjoyed it, but neither wanted to ride again.

As we walked through Toontown, who do we see? Why it is Minnie strolling along!! Both children started shrieking and RAN for her! She took ahold of their hands and they went skipping through Toontown together. It was adorable and a highlight of our trip.

Both of my children are HUGE Minnie fans and it was so perfect that she was the first character they saw. They hugged her and babbled a mile a minute to her.

After doing pictures with my little ones, she skipped off to the door of Mickey's house and waved and cooed at him (her handlers said she had to say "Good Morning!" to her boyfriend" and then she came back to take pictures with the line of children that had started to form.

Holding Minnie's hands while skipping through part of Disneyland is better than ANY moment I imagined my children could have on their first day at Disneyland. Truly, it was magical.

After visiting with Minnie, it only made sense to take a trip through her house and then take a trip through Mickey's house. I didn't get as much time to enjoy the details as I would have liked (my children were intent on seeing Mickey!) but there was SO much to see!

The line at in the movie barn to see Mickey was the longest we encountered thus far--it took 10-15 minutes to get through it, but the airconditioning was a welcome relief to us! It was so warm and muggy.

​

We had reservations for a late lunch at the Carnation Inn, so we took the Disneyland Railroad from Toontown Station to Main Street and went to lunch. The train was a HUGE hit with both children, especially our choo-choo obsessed 2.5 year old.

 

[kkheburn]

Sounds like you had a great time. I have to say I was not very impressed with Nemo. My six year old will ride Space Mountain but was scared of the Nemo ride It was not worth the long wait!

 

[ballarinamom]

Love the pics with Minnie Mouse! We are staying at the Desert Inn in November. Curious to hear more about that AND your trip to Ariels Grotto I saw you post about earlier

 

[DisSarahK]

Sounds like you had a great time. I have to say I was not very impressed with Nemo. My six year old will ride Space Mountain but was scared of the Nemo ride It was not worth the long wait!

Yes, we had a fabulous time!!

Love the pics with Minnie Mouse! We are staying at the Desert Inn in November. Curious to hear more about that AND your trip to Ariels Grotto I saw you post about earlier

I'll be sure to share more about both!

 

[DisSarahK]

We made it to the Carnation Inn just before our late lunch reservations and were seated immediately. All of the seating is outside but there are many umbrellas to shade every table. As an added bonus, there is are restrooms very close to the seating area. Oh, and the children really loved the coloring pages and Crayola crayons. The prices were VERY reasonable--not bad at all.

We ordered the children the peanut butter palette with no peanut butter due to a nut allergy--they had a great time making their own sandwiches!

I forget what my husband ordered, but he loved it. I had a turkey sandwich on pretzel bread and it was fantastic! Yumm!!

This definitely is a place we will return to the next time we come to Disneyland. Oh and we ended up with take-home goodies from here! The children's meals came with milk in plastic Disney themed cups and we asked if the waitstaff could rinse the cups for us--she said no, but that she could give us brand-new cups instead! Works for me!

After a quick stop to admire the Mark Twain, we headed to Critter Country to go on Winnie the Pooh. My son thinks Winnie the Pooh is named after him (their names rhyme) so this ride was a must for us! Although I wasn't all that impressed with the ride itself, I did like all the little details around the attraction, including this cute little treehouse.

Next we took the raft to Tom Sawyer Island--I don't think any of us enjoyed that raft trip and, to be honest, we spent about ten minutes on the island before leaving again. We just were too hot and the children were too tired to explore much. I think that we'll all enjoy this destination more when they're older and it isn't as hot.

We took some castle pictures on our way back to Fantasyland.

Next we encountered my absolute most favorite spot in the park--gosh, it was so beautiful and peaceful...and we all were totally taken aback by the echo. We probably stayed there for ten minutes and returned to this spot MANY times during our visit.

There were some great views of the castle from here, too!

 

[WA Kay]

Thanks for the great report. Love the pictures and can't wait for more.

 

[mommy2allyandaveri]

Great t-shirts for the kids. I would love to get my girls something like that. Did you make them or buy them?

I'm surprised you weren't happy with your stay at the Desert Inn, we stayed there last time and had a fine stay. It was clean and we slept great. It served it's purpose, you can't get any closer to the park unless you stay on site.

 

[DisSarahK]

Thanks for the great report. Love the pictures and can't wait for more.

I'll update more soon!

Great t-shirts for the kids. I would love to get my girls something like that. Did you make them or buy them?

I'm surprised you weren't happy with your stay at the Desert Inn, we stayed there last time and had a fine stay. It was clean and we slept great. It served it's purpose, you can't get any closer to the park unless you stay on site.

I bought the shirts--they wore custom outfits for each day of our trip...but the shirts on day one were my favorites. I believe I found those shirts on etsy.

Actually, I still haven't decided what I really think about the Desert Inn and Suites. We had a really strange (and gross) experience there that I will get to soon. It was disgusting...but definitely out of the ordinary and the motel handled it very well. I'm still mulling everything over in my mind about how I feel about the motel overall and definitely haven't crossed it off our list yet.

 

[DisSarahK]

After we were through with Snow White, we went back into Fantasyland and rode King Arthur's Carrousel and then had a five minute wait before going onto Pinocchio's Daring Journey. We followed that up with another ride on Dumbo--I think the wait was up to about 15 minutes at this point.

Finally we dragged the children away from Fantasyland and we headed over to Autopia. There was no wait at all--we walked right down and hopped in our vehicles. I rode with our 4.5 year old and my husband rode with our son. Wow, I'm not looking forward to her driving when she's 16! I manned the pedal and she did ALL the steering. I think she thought the point of the ride was to steer like a maniac! Needless to say, this was one of her favorite rides!

Next we stopped off and refilled sippy cups and water bottles with free water in Tomorrowland and the children had fun playing with that giant wet sphere. Then we went to Buzz Lightyear and we all had a great time on this ride! It was another walk-on for us. No line at all!

After that it was off to the AstroOrbiter which both children loved and I hated! I'm not sure what it was about that ride, but it was really uncomfortable for me.

We spotted Alice and the Mad Hatter after that!

Actually, that area right in front of the Astro Orbiter (near the Plaza Inn) must be where a bunch of characters come out from, because we saw a number of characters just suddenly "appear" there during our stay.

We went back to Fantasyland and went on Mr Toad before calling it a day and heading for Main Street. Our little ones were TIRED at this point! The 4.5 year old was in the stroller and the 2.5 year old was being carried fulltime at this point.

Midway down Main Street we stopped and had their silhouettes done--I just love that memento and my mom still has the one of me (done when I was about 5) up on her wall!

We found Minnie and stopped for a picture, of course! My little girl decided that Minnie changed her clothes because she was hot too--we all were roasting!

We also did some pictures with the pretty flowers in the area.

 

[DisSarahK]

We took the time to get some pictures in front of the train station before we went out the gates--during our morning entry we were walking too quickly to do that!

Then we began the "long" trek out to the street. At this point our little boy was riding on my husband's shoulders "on Dada's head" is how he refers to it and our daughter was in the stroller. They were two tired babies!

We went to IHOP for dinner where the children ate for free (not including their milk) with the purchase of our adult meals. I know IHOP is pretty basic, but we don't have an IHOP near where we live, so this was kind of fun for us. Plus it was a WAY cleaner IHOP than most I've been in.

After dinner we went back to the Desert Inn and Suites and gave the children baths and put them to bed...and that is when our VERY long night began.

Remember I mentioned seeing a few flying insects in our room on our check-in day? Well, all of a sudden we realized our sink was FULL of bugs. Literally 20-30 bugs. It was really gross. My husband got rid of them all...and then everytime we turned around, another bug would swoop out of nowhere. They were in the bathroom area, on the carpet, and on one of the beds in the main bedroom of our room--luckily they were NOT in the room where our children were sleeping. After an hour of dealing with the bugs, we called down to the front desk--they were a bit incredulous, but quickly sent up a maintenance guy.

That nice man killed bugs right alongside my husband (I admit it, I'm rather useless with bugs...they creep me out bigtime) and the bugs just kept appearing out of nowhere--we couldn't figure out where they were coming from. The two of them killed a couple hundred, easily. Finally after another hour of bug killing, the maintenance guy was about ready to admit defeat and he called down to the front desk to arrange for another room for us.

Needless to say, we weren't relishing the idea of moving our sleeping children. Finally we decided we would go in and sleep on the floor with them and let the maintenance guys deal with the bugs in the morning.

So we're getting ready to do this when all of a sudden my husband sees one of these bugs swoop out of the light fixture. He and the nice maintenance man take the light cover off (just a plastic grill) and voila! They found the source--termites were hatching up there!!!! Sooooo gross! No wonder they were appearing out of nowhere--they were hatching!

The maintenance guy went and got some spray and sprayed everything up in the light fixture and then hung out with us for 30-45 minutes and made sure all the stray bugs were killed.

Then we FINALLY went to bed--but I was thoroughly freaked out and made us sleep with the lights on. It was a loooong night!

At my request, the manager gave us a discount on our bill and we really are very happy with the way the motel handled the whole situation. We know it was a freak thing...but it still was very disgusting and has tainted our feelings a bit on the Desert Inn and Suites. Still, we haven't crossed the property off our list...we're still pondering everything.

 

[Mycutekitties]

My kids are close to the same age so I am enjoying reading your trip report.

OMG the bug thing is NASTY!!! I would have freaked! We staied at the Dessert Inn and Suites in June and HATED it. This is the review I wrote on Trip Advisor:
We booked this hotel because it was so close to the parks and had the option of suites. My toddler still naps and we wanted a quiet room for her while we watched TV in the other room. The location is PERFECT. Right across the street but the hotel itself has issues.
When we walked into our room the floor was damp and there was hair (I won’t say what kind) in the shower. YUCK! The room is very old and outdated. The bedspreads looked about 20 years old!
We were going to change hotels but we couldn’t find one in walking distance at a reasonable price so we just dealt with it.
Then on day 2 our room at 3:30 p.m. was not made up even tho we had the “maid service” sign up.
The 3nd night we were there our neighbors were so loud and we laid there for 2 hours listing to the yelling and cussing. At 11:30 p.m. I called the front desk and they sent up the security guard. It didn’t help and I had to call back 45 min later to complain again. Then about 20 min later they quieted down but woke us up early the next morning with more yelling.
I complained the next day because we only got a few hours of sleep and they said the only option was for us to move rooms. (The day manager didn’t know anything that happened the night before). So we packed up our stuff and they moved it for us. Our new room was ready by nap time. It just made me mad that WE had to move and not the people yelling all night. For all the issues we had they only gave us a $30.00 credit (big deal). I will never say at this hotel again. We have been to HoJo’s, Carousel and Aryes and they were all very nice. This place is a dump and not worth the $139.00 a night we paid.
DON’T STAY HERE!!

Anyway I can't wait to read more!!!

 

[Daisybelle]

What a fun report! Except for the bug part. That just creeped me out! I'm so glad you're kids didn't have to be in the same room!

 

[travelmel]

OMG the bug thing had me itching all over the place!!!

Great TR though!! I love the little shirts and the pics of skipping with Minnie.. very cool!

My nanny used to take me to DL just to sit there where the characters came out (one of the sidestreets off Main Street). Back then you didn't have to pay to enter DL... just to ride the rides.

It seems like late Sept is THE time to go to DL. Wow with the no lines! Yea you guys!