A Disney Recap

We are back from our vacation! We had a great time.  We did some things right and some things wrong on this trip, and to share what I’ve learned and enlighten you so that you don’t make the same mistakes, here we have our list.

Good things

**I bought lots of snacks from Costco before we went. The most helpful were the Sunny Delight bottles. They have the little pop up drink tops, and the kids could keep them in their fanny packs and have a drink when they wanted. They also enjoyed the granola bites, ritz bits packages, and the fruit snacks. Plus, then we didn’t have to spend as much money in the park on snacks.

**I packed extra socks and at least two pairs of shoes for each child, so that if one pair made their feet hurt one day (or got soaking wet) they had another pair to wear the next day.

**We stayed with some friends of ours in St. George on the way down. The kids LOVED playing with friends, it was a free place to stay (with breakfast included), and it was fun to see them again. They also invited us to ditch our hotel and stay with them on the way back, but we didn’t want to impose TOO much. When they insisted we come for dinner, though, we readily agreed.

**Birthday badges. Always a fun thing, and then you can get those free tortillas from the tortilla factory in California Adventure.

**Fast passes. Because there was a mix-up when we were entering and they wouldn’t let us use the tickets I had bought on line and sent us to guest services and then guest services told us we didn’t need to come to them, but should be able to use those passes at the main gate and it was a general pain and a run around (whoo–long run on sentence, isn’t it?), the lovely Jen at guest services gave me a fast pass for any ride we wanted for the whole party. It wasn’t the magical fast pass by any means (which I tried and was SO close to getting TWICE, but no go on that one), but it saved us some time going on Space Mountain (and by “us”, I mean everyone ELSE who went on space mountain. Although I did brave quite a few yucky rides this time, that isn’t one of them). We also used fast passes on lots of other rides, saving us lots of time, I’m sure.

**Meeting friends! I have a roommate from college who lives about 3 hours away from Disneyland, and they have annual passes. So, when I ask if they’d like to meet us, their answer has always been yes. I guess they go about once a month to Disneyland, and they don’t get tired of it–imagine that! So, they met us there on Friday, and their two kids are the same ages as Cole and Megan. They had a BLAST together, and it really gave them something extra to look forward to. On Saturday night, when John was asleep and Jenna had been begging to just go back to the hotel for about an hour and a half, we decided to call it quits for the day (we’d only been there for 11 hours, I can’t believe they would be tired!). Our friends were nice enough to keep Cole and Megan with them for another 3 hours. Then they didn’t have to be slowed down by “the little kids” and could go on all the fun rides they wanted (at least until California Adventure closed. Then they realized that we had taken their passes with us, so they could not go over to Disneyland without those passes and just made their way out of the park). I’m glad that our kids can be such good friends, even if it’s just for those couple of days at Disneyland.

**We rode three rides that I had never ridden before. The finding Nemo ride, which is new, of course, was one. We ONLY had to wait an hour for that one, and apparently that was a “short” wait. Everytime we saw the line or talked to anyone else who had waited, they had to wait longer. Another ride was Peter Pan. I don’t know why I’ve never ridden that ride before. There were probably long lines and we didn’t think it was worth it. But that was a fun ride! Same thing with Pinnochio’s Daring adventure, or whatever that one is called. First time for that one, too.

**And the Block Party Bash. I just LOVE that parade! There was no one in front of us, so John and his little cousin, and all the little kids were just dancing the night away with Boo and Sulley. It was so much fun! If you’ve never watched that one, it’s one to catch. And I love those army guys!
**Earplugs. With seven people in a hotel room, it’s nice to have a set of earplugs to drown out the noise of everyone breathing. Not that I want them to stop breathing, I just want them to be quiet about it.
**Ziplock bags. Helpful for keeping your stuff dry when you ride the Grizzly rapids ride, and also great for all those snacks.

**Character breakfast. We splurged on a fancy character breakfast on Sunday at the PCH grill. Lilo and Stitch and Minnie and Max were there to take pictures with (the only character pictures we have, by the way, since they all had extremely long lines). It was also a fabulous buffet, with everything imaginable to eat for breakfast, even chicken nuggets! I don’t really consider chicken nuggets to be a breakfast food, but there were some members of our party who enjoyed them for breakfast. After making the kids skip meals and living only on snacks for a few meals of our trip, it was nice to be able to say, “Sure, have more bacon if you’d like,” for once. And eat they did. I think Jenna had about four pieces of sausage, Cole had about a pound of bacon, and lots and lots of Mickey waffles and pancakes. Even though it was a LOT of money to spend on breakfast, it was fun, and I’m glad we did it once. Besides, then we could skip lunch, since we were all so very full.

Some Not so Good things

**I bought some “Sparkling Rain” flavored carbonated water (a whole case of it) and NOBODY liked it. Yuck. I still have most of a case of it, if anyone’s interested.

**Jackets. Or the lack of them. For some reason one of the kids didn’t end up packing a jacket, even though I’m pretty sure I put it in the bag for them. So on the cold or rainy days, it was not good for her. She had to wear just a long sleeved shirt over her t-shirt, and then on the rainy day, she had to wear a jacket of John’s that was too small for her. I wish I had made sure that every single person had a sweatshirt, a jacket AND a hat.

**Lines. As I said before, we took 1/2 of Utah with us to the park, and the lines were long and obnoxious. Enough said.

**Traffic Jams. We hit some kind of traffic jam on the freeway going through Las Vegas, and we should have just gotten off. Thinking it would clear up any minute, we stayed on the freeway. For an hour. Dumb. We should have just gotten off right then, drove through the city, and then gotten back on.

**Stroller rental. Even if you can get a free stroller rental in the park, you really should just bring your own from home, anyway. My brother-in-law, who we were traveling with (he won a trip, too!), told me that he could get two free stroller rentals each day with his Disney Visa, so we wouldn’t need to bring a stroller. Great, I thought. Less to pack. But you can’t get that stroller until you are inside the park, so what do you do with all the snacks, jackets, and general crapola that you schlep into the park with you until then? You carry it, that’s what. And what do you do with the child when he falls asleep in the park and you can’t take the stroller out of the park? You carry him, that’s what. So, even if you CAN get a free stroller rental, you really should just bring your own if you have a child 4 or younger. I should have thought that one out better.

Overall it was a fabulous trip! We had so much fun with our kids, and I am so glad we were lucky enough to go. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with the washing machine.