[Hey, it's me, Susan, your MacKID publisher, but I'm putting on my travel agent hat for this one!]
Disneyland is for making amazing family memories, and we sure made some when I took the kids for a couple of days in October.
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It had been about seven years since we'd visited the California theme park so I wanted to get back to check out the new Genie+ system and the new Avengers campus. Seeing the Halloween decorations for the first time was a nice bonus too. It's important that I keep up with destinations my client's visit so I can help them plan their trips better, and the kids were happy to join along as junior travel agents!
I love Disneyland because it's a smaller environment than the Disney World Resort in Florida. It's also a quick plane ride from Denver. We flew in on an 8:30 am flight on a Wednesday and we walked into the park (even after checking into the hotel) by 11:30 am! (The time change works to our advantage going west too!)
Disneyland Resort includes two parks - Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure.
In Disneyland park you'll find the classic main street, all the main attractions from the Magic Kingdom in Florida, plus Galaxy's Edge, the Star Wars-themed world. I loved that we could go to Galaxy's Edge without having to go to a whole different park!
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In Disney's California Adventure you'll find all the Marvel superheroes at the new Avengers Campus, plus Cars Land, Pixar Pier, and a bunch of other fun attractions.
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Hopping to Disney's California Adventure is so easy too, you simply walk across the esplanade, they're directly across from each other - no buses required!
Disneyland offers three onsite hotels plus a myriad of offsite hotel options directly across the street, some even closer than the onsite hotels. We stayed at one of the Good Neighbor hotels about a block from the park, and walking into the park was such a breeze!
Our Strategy
On our first day, we stayed in Disneyland park all day until the evening projection show. Fireworks don't happen every night at Disneyland as they do in Florida, but they do a show with projections every night. We were lucky to get to see the Halloween show, which was really fun (and not at all spooky).
On our second day, we started at Disneyland so we could take advantage of shorter lines, and then hopped over to California Adventure for the afternoon. DCA was closing at 6 pm though for Oogie Boogie Bash (the Halloween party), so we had to pack in all our favorites in one afternoon and head back to Disneyland for the night. It was a good strategy for our short visit, but if we'd had two full days there I would probably have spent one whole afternoon/evening in Disney's California Adventure and done the other day and a half at Disneyland.
Attraction Highlights
We put our Genie+ Lightening Lanes to good use and rode so many rides during our two days! The last time we visited these parks I had a 5yo and a 1yo, so we spent most of our time in Fantasyland riding Dumbo, Peter Pan, Small World, etc. But this time with older kids - 11yo, 8yo - we hit the thrill rides and loved every minute! [Well, except however many minutes Guardians of the Galaxy Mission: BREAKOUT! is (previously known as the Tower of Terror, but I heard it's faster now), I thought I was going to die....]
Disneyland Favs
Our Disneyland favorites are always Big Thunder, Splash Mountain, Space Mountain, and Rise of the Resistance. We also love happening upon Princesses and other characters throughout the park. It was such a treat to be able to give characters a big squeezy hug again. My daughter caught Merida out of the corner of her eye one day walking briskly through the park. Merida is her favorite princess so we ran to catch up with her and she stopped for a quick hug and photo with my daughter, and I thought she was going to cry she was so happy!
During the holidays Haunted Mansion switches to a The Nightmare Before Christmas theme. It was so fun to be able to see that too!
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Disney's California Adventure Favs
One big goal of our trip was to check out the new Avengers Campus and I was so excited to take my son to see all of the superheroes! Our first stop was the Guardians of the Galaxy Mission: BREAKOUT! because the kids loved Tower of Terror at Disney World earlier this year. I didn't want to send them on the ride alone so I committed to pushing myself out of my comfort zone. Yikes, that is one fast up-and-down ride, and I didn't love it, but the kids LOVED it. (I think I'll send them alone next time....) But the day got better from there!
We grabbed some fun themed lunch items at Pym's Tasting Lab and could enjoy some of the Superhero entertainment from there. I was amazed at how often Superheroes were roaming around, mostly on top of the Avengers Campus building (which is rumored to become a new ride eventually.) My son just lit up every time he saw a new one. He even got to meet Captain America up close, and Iron Man gave him a big wave from the top of the Avengers Campus Building. It may just have been the highlight of his young life. We tried out the new Spiderman ride too, which wasn't my favorite, but the technology that allows you to interact with the ride was incredible (and my son loved it).
We absolutely loved the Incredicoaster, it was probably our favorite ride of the trip! My son was thrilled that he had just done his first loop-de-loop coaster and we all wanted to do it again and again!
The Radiator Springs Racers and Soarin' were two of our other priorities and they were fantastic.
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It was a quick trip but we made so many amazing memories! I love that Disneyland is smaller and closer, it makes for a great 3-4 night trip with tons of memories!
If you're thinking about putting this trip on your family's bucket list, I'd love to help make it easy to plan. Clients who book a park pass and hotel package with me get my support for free, and I have SO much to share with you! Just send me an email at susan@elitetcagent.com.
Follow along on social to see where we're headed next: Facebook | Instagram.
