Disneyland - 19th - 20th April 2016
I really love Anaheim already, after only checking in the night before. The hotel was in the perfect location, along a pretty busy road, close to food and a 24-hour supermarket. It also had laundry services and a heated pool (sadly we didn’t check it out). Everything was pretty easy to sort for Disneyland, we had to go next door to another hotel to pick up our shuttle passes for the two days, which were $6 each for both way, so $12 each for the two days. The shuttle was located in front of the hotel next-door so it was nice and convenient.
We were up early, had breakfast and picked our shuttle passes up next door and then waited for the first bus to Disneyland. We arrived with at least 40 minutes to spare so we just took it all in. Everyone was so happy, families were wearing matching t-shirts and some had even custom made t-shirts with each of their names on them – it was great! Once we were in we took the expected selfie with the Mickey Mouse garden and headed in.
It is extremely overwhelming, not knowing when to start and what rides to use your fast pass on and if you will have enough time to fit everything in in one day, but just keep calm because you can and you will. We started off checking out a few stores and then started to decide on some rides. We tried to do the park in a order and then once we done most things we back tracked.
A few of the rides we did were Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, Splash Mountain, Indiana Jones Adventure and Hyperspace Mountain – I get motion sickness pretty easy and was a little worried, but I ended up taking half of a Travelcalm pill and I enjoyed every single ride without feeling the tiniest bit sick and it just made my day 100% better than I expected. I would recommend all of these rides, lines may be long but they can’t be missed!
We also checked out other smaller attractions, such as the Tarzan Treehouse, the Club 33 door, Sleeping Beauty’s Castle Walkthrough, Snow Whites Scary Adventure, the King Arthur Carousel, Mickey’s Toontown and Finding Nemo’s Submarine Voyage.
We didn’t shop too much because we thought we would save it for our last day, as you don’t really want to be holding shopping when trying to go on rides, but I suggest grabbing what you want at the end of the day as sometimes (quite rarely) but you may not find the same thing in the other park. That is if you get a two day park ticket, one park per day and not a park hopper ticket.
We enjoyed the junk food and then got settled for the light parade and fireworks. Definitely stay until the end you cannot miss this! They dim the streetlights and quite a few characters come out on lit up floats surrounded by dances and loud music. Once the parade has ended they start the firework show with lighting effects covering the buildings down the streets and even some fake snow for the Frozen themed firework performance.
Day 1 was a complete success but a few tips:
· Wear your comfiest shoes
· You may get wet on some rides so keep this in mind
· Wear sunscreen and reapply
· Enjoy some of the overpriced food, it’s worth it
· Go on rides even if they scare you
· Line up and get pictures with your favourite Disney characters
Day 2 - California Adventureland
We were up an hour later as we weren’t in a complete rush to get to the second park because it was a little smaller. We missed breakfast so just headed out once we were ready. We arrived at the park and were worried that they may not have the same things in the second park as they did in the first (shopping), so we enquired about upgrading to a park hopper for the last day. If we did want to do that we could go back and get it at anytime, as we wanted to check the park out first. It would cost us $40 each if we decided to upgrade our tickets.
The California Adventureland park seems to be more see than do, which we didn’t mind as we were super tired from the day before. We started off in Hollywood Land and went on the Monsters Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue ride, nice and slow to start us off haha! Although some rides are slower than others I’d still recommend doing most as they are so well done. We walked around a bit more and then had some brunch as we still hadn’t eaten and thought we better before going on the faster rides.
We gave The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror a miss, as we don’t like going up and down and that is exactly what that ride does continuously – no thanks! So we moved onto a bug’s land, which is for the movie A Bug’s Life. No adult rides in this section but worth the walk through as so much thought has gone into making this park, the lights were light up bugs from the movie, it was so cute. In this section there was a theater showing a quick 10-minute preview of the new movie The Jungle Book so we checked that out. It was actually an interactive theater, one usually used for a Bug’s Life show. During the viewing we were spray with water, bump on the backs through our seats and had air blown on us for affects.
Next was Cars Land, again amazing!! We decided to line up for the Radiator Springs Racers as there was a 45-minute wait and no fast pass option was available. This was a pretty good idea, allowing our food to settle. Time passed quick enough and the ride was awesome, lucky we did decide to do it then as the wait time went up to 65 minutes for the rest of the day. Lots of food choices and a lot more stores in this park so lots of wondering and browsing between rides.
We walked over to the California Screamin’ rollercoaster after having just watched it take off, there was only a 5 minute wait so we decided to do it then and there. This didn’t give me enough time to get nervous because we were seated before I knew it. Ok this was fast, like way too fast and I did not expect it. But no regrets, happy I did it and I may do it again, but the vertical climbs, the drops and that loop well it definitely scared the living hell out of me. The jelly legs lasted about 10 minutes after, as we headed to our next ride. This one a little slower and more so a game/ride, it was called Toy Story Midway Mania and you had a gun attached to your chair stopping at game screens and having to shoot targets.
We needed some sugar after getting thrown around a bit so we got some churros and then an ice cream each. They have a World of Colour show at the end of the day at California Adventureland and we saw on our brochure that you could get a fast pass for it for better seating, so we walked up to Grizzly Peak and got our fast passes for that. We then stared to browse some more shops before heading off to do any rides we wanted to do before putting some time aside for shopping for the nephews.
We checked out The Little Mermaid – Ariel’s Undersea Adventure and then Goofy’s Sky School, a smaller rollercoaster. We then saw Minnie Mouse and decided we would love a picture so lined up for that. After we shopped, also checking out Downtown Disney, which is outside of the park and then reentered the park to get a caricature and some food before lining up for World of Colour. No seating available but we got a good standing area, my feet were killing me by this point though. World of Colour is a small story of Walt Disney with music and a fountain and light show, it was fantastic and made me feel extremely happy – once again, a must!!!
I would suggest getting a park hopper even if your only going for 2 days, you may find you like Disneyland more than California Adventureland, as there seems like there is more to do.
Tickets for a 2 day one park per day ticket:
Park Hopper Tickets 2 days:
Also download the app, Disneyland, it gives you an interactive map where you can read up on the rides (suitable for adults or not), wait times, tells you what rides are closed and also allows you to link any photos you got on rides.
