Tips and Tricks for Disneyland

Before we left for Disneyland, we reached out to people via social media for their best tips, tricks, hacks, rides, and foods to try at Disneyland. I'll post all the advice we received and then go over what I personally would choose to do :) (Mainly for future reference!)

Source 1:

Fav FOOD in Disneyland:

-Pickles and pineapple spears

-Chimichangas in food carts

-Corn on the cob in food carts

-Cheeseburgers at Hungry Bear Restaurant

-Steak @ Blue Bayou inside Pirates of the Caribbean if you want to splurge (more than you already do at Disneyland, ha!)

-Corn dog @ Red Corn dog truck on Main Street (SO GOOD)

-Chicken nuggets and fries @ Golden Horseshoe (stay for the show!)

-Skewers @ Bengal BBQ (a great snack, and they're all tasty.. we usually just order one of each and share, depending on how many people you have) 

-Pommes Frites @ Cafe Orleans

-Monte Cristo sandwich @ Cafe Orleans (need a reservation at this cafe, but SO good!)

-Grilled cheese and tomato soup @ Jolly Holiday

-French dip sandwich @ French Market Restaurant

-Taco salad @ Rancho del Zocalo Restaurant

-Quarter chicken at French Market

-River Belle Terrace has good food also

Fav TREATS/DRINKS in Disneyland: 

-Dole whip or dole whip float at Enchanted Tiki Room (the line moves faster if you go inside the Enchated Tiki room and wait there, then either exit or watch the Enchated Tiki room show. If your daughter likes music, she'll LOVE it)

-Matterhorn macaron @ Jolly Holiday Bakery

-Mickey Beignets @ Mint Julep Bar (near French Market cafe)

-Lightside Lemonade @ Galactic Grill

-Hot Cocoa @ Jolly Holiday (seriously my fav hot cocoa EVER!)

-Pomegranate Pirahna lemonade @ Bengal BBQ

-Churros (duh!)

California adventure FOOD/TREATS: 

-Pear of dice soda and/or red apple freeze @ Cozy Cone in Cars land

-Popcorn @ cozy cone in cars Land 

-Broccoli cheese soup in bread bowl @ Pacific Warf

-Lobster Nachos @ Ariels Grotto

-Corn dogs @ Corn dog castle 

-Refreshment corner drinks (if you like soda, so you don't have to buy bottled and wait in line at restaurants) 

Tips: 

-save money if you eat breakfast at your hotel

-don't buy water bottles in the park (they have drinking fountains to refill yours), and bring snacks. But I really do love the food and it's part of the reason I love Disneyland so much

-download DL waits app

-Cars ride and Cali screaming have different fast pass systems 

-For Disneyland, if you get sick, don't ride the Star Tours ride. We don't even ride it when we go and I don't even get sick on rides besides that one. Don't do the toy story ride either in Disneyland. The toy story ride in Cali Adventure is Better. 

-When you get to Disneyland, especially since you have a daughter, go STRAIGHT to Fantasy Land. It depends what time you get there, because it starts filling up around 10-11. The best time in the park is when it opens until 11 am. I would for sure start in fantasy land. But split up and one of you can wait in line in Fantasy Land (Peter Pan always has the longest line) and go get a fast pass for Space Mountain. Then when you're done in Fantasy Land or whenever your Fast pass is, go to Space Mountain and do Tomorrowland. There's not a lot to do there besides Space Mountain and Matterhorn. Finding Nemo is OK, your daughter will like it. Not adults fav. Don't waste time on Autopia unless it's a short line. 

-Are you taking your daughter? Have you heard of the rider swap pass? 

-Other places to get fast passes for in Disneyland: Thunder Mountain Railroad, Indiana Jones, and Splash Mountain. 

-Toon town is super fun and usually not too busy so save that for when you're done

Source 2:

Ralph Brennan's Jazz Kitchen Express: has amazing Gumbo! Also make sure you GET THE BEIGNETS!!!! 

Taqueria at Tortilla Jo's They have good Mexican food. I just kinda built my own nachos but I'm sure that they have other things. 

So when we start the day in disney we get there earlier than opening usually. We head straight to Tomorrowland and fast pass Star Tours, ride Space Mountain, check time for buzz lightyear. If short ride that. Run to Indiana Jones and grab fast passes for that. Run back and ride Star Tours (with the Fast Pass) then after star tours I would go ride pirates (use right line it is shorter.) Ride haunted if line is shorter. Fast pass splash, ride Indiana Jones. If you didn't ride haunted yet ride that now if you already rode it then go ride Thunder Mountain. 

Use your fast passes for splash and then you've ridden all the big rides. Usually we will now go do the fantasy land rides like teacups, matterhorn, any of the other rides. We don't really do those rides though so we'll do the ones we want, grab something to eat and then head over to California adventure. 

We never go to toontown but it's fun to walk through if you're in the mood. The rides aren't worth it there in my opinion so we just don't go. Also, the fantasy land rides don't have fast pass options so keep that in mind. Peter Pan is my fave (legit I cry every time) but the line gets SO LONG! So beware of that. 

There is usually a parade that happens right before the fireworks. I would find a place somewhere in front of the castle to line up for the Parade and usually after the Parade everyone then crowds into the street to watch the fireworks. In front of the castle is my fave place to watch the fireworks. So magical! It will be very crowded but worth it. 

Here is the order we do things a California adventure: 

Arrive early, get to cars ride first and ride it. (This is seriously the cutest ride ever and I think I also cry of excitement on this one especially because it makes me feel like home). Then we usually grab a fast pass for Soarin' (We would normally go ride Tower of Terror now but alas it's closed ) then we would grab our world of color fast passes and go ride screamin' (the roller coaster). Grab fast passes for the toy Story ride and then go back and ride soarin' with our fast passes. 

From there the rest of the ride lines aren't too long in that park so there is no particular order from there. We usually would ride Tower of Terror like 6 times and we would keep getting fast passes to ride soarin a couple more times. And in between waiting for our fast passes we always do the show It's a Bugs Life and the other smaller rides we like. The one other ride you might want fast passes for is the grizzly river (I'm not sure if they offer the fast passes for that one though so you might want to check.) Also, they have a cream cheese pretzel there and I think you can just get that at any of the little food carts they have around it's really good. 

Also, any time a ride line splits right or left, go to the left because more people usually go to the right. The only ride that you want to get in the right line for is Pirates. 

Our plan seems like we don't have any down time but we actually do. We always find that we have time to walk around the little shops and things like that. I will say we do usually sacrifice the smaller dark rides in fantasyland (snow white, Alice in Wonderland, Pinocchio etc) So if those are important to you then some people suggest you go to matterhorn first and then do all of those right after that. And then you could resume to our plan after that. Peter Pan does seriously get really long. In fact the last time we went we didn't get to go on it because it was too long. If you don't care about where you see the fireworks, if you watch them from the carousel then you could dash over to Peter Pan right after and have a shorter wait time. 

I forgot to tell you about this place in California adventure. When you go in, go to the left side area (like you would be headed towards tower of terror) on the way there is this Disney Animations building. Go in and go the the little workshop area. (You'll have to go through some little gates). But down there you can draw characters, look at little animations, take a fun little quiz to find out which Disney Character you are most like and you also can voice a disney scene! 

After taking all of that into consideration, here is my list of must-haves and must-do's:

-comfy shoes

-check weather beforehand

-if rainy pack extra socks

-if rainy pack umbrella

-$1 ponchos from Walmart for sure!

-wear comfy clothes (leggings)

-wear a jacket that can tie around waist

-Arrive 15 min before open

-plan 5 big rides per day to accomplish

-make a plan of how to accomplish them

-FAST PASS from the start!!!

-fast pass close/near rides... save your feet

-sometimes rest and snack while waiting for fast pass ride

-otherwise ride shorter rides while waiting for fast pass ride

-ride monorail into Disneyland if wanting to start at space mt or star tours

-Disneyland firework show on the weekends 

-world of color (I would prefer sitting)

-check the weather before hand and plan accordingly

-download the Disneyland app for wait time references, shows, and other entertainment updates

FOOD:

-Beignets $7 jazz kitchen express downtown Disney 

-gumbo from there too ^

-cozy cones mac'n cheese $8

-corn dog from red cart $10

-dole whip $5

-bengal beef skewer $6 (these are yummy, but very small!)

-free water from pizza port

-fill up waterbottles at filtered water station near jolly holiday cafe

-eat a GOOD breakfast at hotel

-bring a whole case of water bottles for hotel room

-only pack 1 water bottle per person before going to the parks

Great Snacks:

-meal bar/protein (cliff bars)

-almond butter packets

-string cheese

-Apple

-cutie

-baggies of trail mix

An example of rides:::

Take the monorail into Disneyland (Tomorrowland). 

Fast Pass Space Mountain (ex. return between 10:00 and 11:00 am, next available fast pass 10:00 am)

Ride Space Tours

Ride Matterhorn (if short line)

Fast Pass Thunder Mountain (at 10:00 am) (ex. return between 11:20 and 12:20, next available fast pass 11:20 am)

Go back and ride Space Mountain

Go back to Adventureland or frontier land, ride the jungle tour while waiting for next fast pass.

Fast Pass Indiana Jones (at 11:20 am)

Ride Thunder Mountain

etc.

The key is to use your fast passes as soon as they're available. That way you are able to almost walk on to the rides you desire within like a 20 min. wait, compared to waiting in line for 45+ minutes!! It's genius if you can figure it out!

Also, remember to always take the left line. We forgot to quite a bit but when we did it went faster!

A big thanks to everyone for the awesome tips, hacks, and advice. Until next time!

Love,

Kate

Spontaneous Disneyland Trip

We did it. We made plans and bought tickets to Disneyland all within 6 days notice! Drew and I had been itching to go for quite a while. We have wanted to go to Disneyland together since we got married (almost 4 years ago) and we've never made it happen until now! Since Lila is now a year old and its the beginning of a new year, we figured CARPE DIEM! I did my research and tried to find the cheapest hotel and park tickets as possible. For under $700 we got a 3 night stay, plus 2 park hopper tickets each! I feel like that was a steal!

The day after the Piano Guys concert, we left for California! Of course we contacted our parents right away as we made our plans to make sure they could come down and watch Lila for us. Luckily everything worked out! Bill and Linda came down on Saturday and took care of sweet little Lila until Sunday evening when my mom and Kinsley arrived to take over! They took care of her from then until Tuesday afternoon-- when we got back!

I will be honest, it was HARD to leave Lila. I was so torn! I cried as we left, but felt good knowing we had left in her in good hands. She loves her grandparents and I feel so lucky and blessed to be able to call on them whenever to watch her! It also helps that she is easy and fun too, so it's great for both parties hah ;)

Well we arrived in California Saturday afternoon (it is only a 5.5 hour drive from where we live!) and checked into our hotel. Turns out our hotel was super...... "underclass," to say it nicely. The door of the room was hard to open and shut, but yet it had gaps all around the edges to outside! We had the outside edge room right next to the busy street (Katella), and could hear all the traffic. The room smelled funny, the pillows and bedding were questionable, and the continental breakfast turned out to only be coffee and cheap pastries. I guess that's what people mean when they say "you get what you pay for," ha ha!!

It wasn't as bad as it could have been, but we definitely won't be staying there again. We ended up rolling toilet paper into little balls and sticking them in our ears at night (like earplugs) so we wouldn't hear the roaring traffic outside or the obnoxious people next door to us.

Besides that though, it was only a 15 minute walk to the park entrance which was actually quite nice! So after we got checked in, we ran over to the park to redeem our tickets we purchased online. We waited for quite some time in a rather short line to do so, but was happy we went when we did because the tickets closed soon after that! The sun was getting closer to setting and I REALLY wanted to be on the beach when the sun set, so after we got our tickets we ran back to our hotel, jumped in the car, and set out to Huntington Beach. Although it was only a few miles away from where we were, it took us a good 45 minutes to get there probably so we missed the sunset but was still happy to even get to see the ocean! I've only seen it two other times in my life and that was when I was younger so it was really cool for me to see! Plus the beach was gorgeous!!

It was freezing, but we still hiked down to the water and I put my feet in. The tide was high and the waves were huge!!! Drew says they weren't big waves, but I feel like the swells were pretty big! And they kept coming in fast. Faster than I had ever seen (or imagined) so I was surprised! But I loved it and had tons of fun while we were there!

It was dark by now and so we set back to our hotel. We had noticed a place to eat that our friends Lindsey and Parker had recommended to us in Downtown Disney. (Downtown Disney is like a shopping/eating district just outside of the parks. It sells almost all the same treats and goodies and similar food items that you could find inside the parks! Except it's open to the public so anyone can go anytime. Pretty brilliant if you ask me.) I really wanted to try beignets (ben-yay). They are like a mix of a donut/scone but 1000x better and covered in powdered sugar. Drew wasn't too hip on the idea, but we walked over to that cafe anyways to get some food. Drew got the gumbo and I got a pulled pork sandwich and together we shared some beignets and it was life changing. I'm not even kidding. Those things are soooo good!!! Drew and I both loved them! You receive them in a baggy with powdered sugar at the bottom, so you roll the top of the bag over and give it a good shake to make sure each beignet is coated. Then you devour!! They were so good we couldn't stop thinking about them for the rest of our entire trip. We ended up getting more on our last night at the parks! HA! Worth it though!

Well the next morning was Super Bowl Sunday. We thought we would beat the crowds because it was Super Bowl. We didn't really think very many people would come out, but we were wrong. The parks ended up being pretty busy this day, however, we booked it to each of our destinations and got to ride all the rides we hoped for that day. However, 13.8 miles and 30,948+ steps later, we were POOPED. My feet were soar and my legs were tired. We pushed ourselves so hard, the second we got back to our room that night we hit the bed and both of us were out.

 

 

Overall the day was really good though! It was overcast all day, slightly chilly but mostly comfortable. We had the best luck and just happened to be in the perfect place at the perfect times for a lot of occasions allowing us to almost walk on to a lot of our desired rides! For example, the light parade was about to begin and we jumped right on the teacups with no wait at all! It was awesome.

Also, with the suggestions of MANY people who gave us advice, tips, and tricks, we used the Fast Passes like champs. If you know how to use them to their full advantage, you can almost get on ride after ride without any wait at all! THANKS TO THOSE WHO TAUGHT US ;) 

The next morning was Monday. We woke up to lots of rain!! We wore layers of clothing, packed extra socks, and put our ponchos on and set out for our 15 minute walk to the park. My feet got SOAKED. There really wasn't any way to avoid that unless I had rain boots which I don't. So that was a bummer. However, we chose to ride the monorail into the parks on this day instead of walking for another 10-15 minutes to our desired destination-- Tomorrowland! We wanted to hit Space Mountain, Space Tours, and ride Peter Pan this morning and luckily the monorail took us straight there!!! It saved us from getting more wet and it saved our energy for the rest of our day! WIN WIN!

We got our fast passes, we rode the rides, and eventually hopped over to Fantasyland and jumped in line for Peter Pan. I turned around to look at the back side of the castle and then noticed a familiar face. It was Jacqui from Baby Boy Baker Blog. I discovered her blog quite a few years ago and have followed along ever since! She lost her first born son a couple years ago in an accident, and since then has overcome a lot of trials and to me resembles strenght and courage. She just had her second baby girl who is now 1 years old and so she and Lila are the same age and it has been even more fun to follow her along since I can connect to her in that way now! So anyways, she has like 300K+ followers on instagram and is just a great example to me of mompreneurship. I knew she came to the parks often and secretly HOPED I would run into her here and I DID!!!!! I ran right up to her while calling back to Drew to take our picture. I was shaking! She probably thought I was crazy. But I told her my daughter was the same age as hers and that I really looked up to her. It was so neat! It was like a dream come true hahaha..

It was so cool to me!!!!

Then, we got back in line for Peter Pan. I was still fan girling and still couldn't believe it. I had just met one of my favorite bloggers/instagrammers! Well, a few minutes into the line Drew mentioned to me that he thought the people ahead of us were from Australia because he thought he could hear their accent. So a bit later I finally asked them where they were from.

Sure enough, Australia!! It was a cute girl and guy about our age. Turns out she was 25 (just like me) and he was 28. They had been in the states since New Years just traveling and touring. They were headed home in a few days. What a cool trip for them! Anyways, it was so fun to chat with them for the rest of the Peter Pan wait. (FYI there are no fast passes for Peter Pan and it is quite a popular ride so the wait times are usually pretty long.) But the time passed fast because we visited with them the rest of the time! We even became Facebook friends with them and they said we could stay with them when we got to visit Australia someday! Cool! HAH! I love looking back at our experience. I'd like to think it's not just "by chance" that I happened to see Jacqui from Baby Boy Bakery, or how it wasn't just "by chance" we ended up standing next to the cute Australian couple for 40 minutes in line. It was also pretty funny as we visited with them, Drew's australian slang came out a few times ha! It was funny!! Also, it was neat to hear Drew tell them why he had lived in Australia for two years. He told them it was for a mission for his church. They were so interested and surprised that he wasn't paid for it and that he would do it for two years! Although it wasn't a typical missionary moment, I would love to think it could have planted a tiny seed somewhere in their hearts, you never know!

This is for the cars ride! ^  

 

 

The rest of the day was good, 10.6 miles and 24,436+ steps later. The rain actually stopped and it cleared up for the rest of the afternoon. I had to change my socks THREE different times and my feet were pruny for the entire day, but it was okay. I'm super glad I brought those extra socks! Also my legs were so sore and I had some blisters on my feet too.. (how do people do it?! Or how do you avoid it?!?!?!) But we made it through! We watched the World of Color show in Disney California Adventure to end our trip and then grabbed beignets on our walk home. 

We left first thing the next morning and arrived back to St. George in the early afternoon. It was so nice to see Lila! We both had missed her so much and she was happy to see us!!! Thank you SO MUCH to our families for adjusting their plans to meet our needs. I am so grateful to have such loving parents and families who support us and take care of us! We are the luckiest! We can't wait to go back to Disneyland with you all hopefully someday! So thank you again from the bottom of our hearts. 

Love,

Kate

ps. we got to ride Thunder Mt 3 times, Cars 2 times, and the roller coaster Screamin 2 times! Unfortunately Pirates was closed this trip, but overall it was an awesome experience and we hit every ride plus more that we wanted!! Also, aside from the fun rides, we enjoyed trying the park food. We tried the Bengal BBQ skewers-- a beef one and a chicken one. They were yummy but very very small. Drew tried the famous Disneyland Corndog (not really my fave, but he liked it), and we also tried some other gumbo in a bread bowl. We got to try a Dole Whip float (very yummy, but probably even better on a warm day. We tried this on the rainy wet cold day haha), and a peanut butter chocolate sandwich. We loved the bacon mac'n cheese cone from Carsland and I tried a yummy drink there too called "pear of dice." We figured we'd splurge on the food this trip because in our future trips we imagine we'll be with more of our family ;)

Oh, and here are some of the snaps I received from our families while they watched Lila... she's so funny! :)