After a wonderful outdoor breakfast, some last-minute shopping in Santa Monica, and a couple of errands, Annika and I were on our way to Disneyland! I had visited Disneyland twice previously - once on a day trip with my family when Annika was 2 and Ally was just a baby, and another time as part of a Disney education program for travel agents - but I've never really spent time there. Our plan was to spend 2 days and one night, stay at the Disneyland hotel, and drive down to Palm Springs in the afternoon or evening of the second day. It made the most sense to hit California Adventure on our first day, and save Disneyland for our second day, when we could get there nice and early.It took about an hour to get to the Disneyland Resort from Santa Monica, and we arrived at our hotel around noon. Our room was ready when we checked in (yay!), and when we went up to it we realized we had been upgraded to a room with a Downtown Disney and theme park view. I loved this room! It was huge, very comfortable, and the view was awesome!
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| Our room was spacious and well-appointed, and the bed was so comfortable! |
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| The view from our room - great spot for seeing fireworks! |
We changed our clothes and headed off to California Adventure. California Adventure often gets a bad rap, but all the improvements they have done over the years have worked, because we had plenty to do there! Because the park was getting ready for the opening of Buena Vista Street and Carsland (we missed those openings by just two days!), it was full of scaffolding and barriers, but we had a great time nonetheless!
We got into the park at about 1:30pm, so it was already pretty busy. We did end up standing in a really long line for Tower of Terror, but it is Annika's favorite ride at Walt Disney World, so was a must-do.
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| We're in the upper left |
We also rode Soarin', and the Little Mermaid Ride: by the afternoon I had worked up the courage to try California Screaming. I loved it!
My must-do's were the Aladdin show and World of Color. We really enjoyed Aladdin - I think it was the best show I've ever seen at Disney!
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| "You've Never Had a Friend Like Me" - hilarious! |
We also fit in Grizzly River Run, which would have been better in the heat of the afternoon! Luckily we picked up some ponchos before our ride, so we stayed pretty dry. It's a great water ride.
All in all it was a great day at California Adventure, and we were looking forward to an early start the next morning at Disneyland before heading off to Palm Springs in the afternoon.
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| The only photo of Annika and I together! |
When we woke up the next morning, Annika begged me for another night at Disneyland. She wanted one more full day at the park. As a certified (or certifiable!?) Disney fan this made me very happy! - but I was concerned that the small boutique hotel we had reserved in Palm Springs would not honor our reservation if we were a day late, and I knew that we were well past our cancellation deadline with them. But I said that I would try!
So I headed down to the front desk to see if we could extend our stay for one night. Unfortunately, the Disneyland Hotel was completely booked that night, so I thought that was the end of it. But when I reported that to Annika she tearfully requested that I try to see if we could stay somewhere else on property. I put my travel agent hat on, and got to work! I called central reservations, and they were able to find me a room at Paradise Pier for a reasonable rate (we could also have stayed at the Grand Californian, but there was no way I was paying $450 for one night when all we would be doing was sleeping there!). I was very sorry to be leaving our awesome room at the Disneyland Hotel, but happy to be staying one more night. Now I had to work a bunch of things out:
- I needed to contact our hotel in Palm Springs and let them know we would be checking in the next day and to hold our room for us (no problem);
- Our car was valet parked at the Disneyland Hotel, and I needed to find out if it needed to be moved or if I could pick it up there the following morning (no problem);
- We needed to pack and somehow get our luggage over to the other hotel. I asked our bellman if he could move the luggage for us, and found out that unlike Disney World that is not typically done at the Disneyland Resort. He did say that if they weren't busy they should be able to do that, so I gave him a very nice tip and asked him to please take care of that for us (and that did work, thank goodness, because our bags were waiting for us when we checked into Paradise Pier!).
Once all that was handled we headed over to Disneyland feeling very pleased with ourselves! We got there later than we'd hoped, so after just spending a moment contemplating the puny castle we enthusiastically criss-crossed the park doing rides. We didn't ride everything, but we hit all the highlights: Space Mountain (twice), Big Thunder Railroad, Splash Mountain, Pirates (twice), Indiana Jones (twice), Haunted Mansion, Buzz Lightyear (twice), Star Tours and the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage. We particularly loved Pirates (it blows the version at Disney World out of the water) and Indiana Jones - awesome! We were sorry that the Matterhorn was closed for renovation, but that's just one more reason to return.
A selection of Disneyland photos:
Whew! We did take a break in the middle of the day and check into our
new hotel, Paradise Pier. It was not as fancy as the Disneyland Hotel,
but the rooms were cute and comfortable:
Once again (that's twice so far!), we were upgraded and got this great California Adventure view:
I spent a few minutes at the pool while Annika rested in the room, and then we headed back to the park on the monorail. After a really awesome dinner of steak gumbo at the Royal Street Veranda we did a few more rides and caught the end of the fireworks. We then finished our day with some shopping at Downtown Disney before heading back to our room to sleep.
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| The monorail is much smaller at Disneyland! |
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| A very blurry firework picture! |
We had one more treat in store! California Adventure had closed early to get ready for the opening of Carsland two days later. It turned out that there was a major celebrity & media event there that night, and we had a great view of World of Color from our room! Here are some shots - I had trouble timing things to get a decent photo of the water effects, but it was really fun to see:
Carsland looks so awesome, and will be a great addition to the park!
The following morning we packed up again, I picked up the car at the Disneyland Hotel, and we headed out for Palm Springs.
Final thoughts:
- We had a wonderful, wonderful time at Disneyland! I loved how small the resort is. When we go to Disney World I feel like I'm mounting a military campaign - it takes that level of planning! But at Disneyland we could decide what we wanted to do and then just go do it. We could have easily spent another day or two there and not run out of things to do, but we could also be spontaneous and relaxed about our plans.
- While it is not "necessary" at Disneyland to stay at one of their onsite hotels for a great experience, I really loved it and would do it again. I would go back to the Disneyland Hotel in a heartbeat. Paradise Pier was perfectly nice as well, but the pool area was really lacking:
vs.
the Disneyland Hotel pool - an oasis of palm trees and loungers nestled in the middle of the hotel courtyard.No contest! Plus a slide shaped like a monorail!
- Finally, I am so glad we were able to work it out to stay another day! It made for a much more pleasant and relaxed time, and it was great to make Annika so happy.
Whenever we make it back to southern California, we will definitely head back to Disneyland!
Next: we head into the desert to see Palm Springs!
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