Hi everyone! We went to Disneyland this past Monday and I received a bunch of questions about my trip so I decided to answer it all and share some more information in a blog post 🙂 The last time we went was over 3 years ago on Scarlett’s 3rd birthday. To be honest, we weren’t planning on taking all 3 kids until Liam was a little older but we couldn’t pass up the limited capacity! Thankfully we had a bunch of family with us so we had lots of extra help with the kids. Ok so let’s answer those questions:
Reservation Process (I hope they keep this forever)
You do have make a reservation on their website so plan ahead. Order your tickets as far in advance as you can to avoid having the date(s) you want to go being fully booked. We got the 1-day park hopper (starting park CA Adventure), we weren’t able to go into Disneyland until 1pm which wasn’t a big deal. We got there around 12:45pm and spent about 3 hours in CA Adventure.
Parking Situation
So we actually lucked out on this because my Father-in-Law booked us a room at the Grand Californian (thanks Dad!) which has its own entrance straight into CA Adventure. We were able to valet our car at the hotel then walk go right into CA Adventure. We skipped the long security lines at the main entrances. From what I heard though, the parking lot is quite a long walk to the parks. Because of the whole COVID situation, there are no trams to transport you so be prepared for that. With things moving towards normalcy though, I’m sure the trams will be back in business soon.
Ride Wait Times
Make sure to download the Disneyland app because it has the current wait times for all the rides! I literally used the app all day and it was so helpful. The longest wait time I saw was 55min and that was only for a handful of rides for both parks like Cars, Matterhorn and Space Mountain. A lot of the rides ranged any where from 10-30 minutes which is unheard of! I remember going as a kid and waiting in line for 2 hours for rides so this was a dream. The rides that are constantly loading and unloading people were about 10-15min, like Pirates of the Carribean (one ofmy faves) and Small World (the music stopped the last 5 minutes we were on the ride then they shut down the ride lol). The 2 newest attractions, Spiderman (CA Adventure) and Star Wars (Disneyland), must be reserved through the app only. If you do not get on the queue then you unfortunately can’t ride those rides. We weren’t able to. I tried to get on the queue when they opened it up at 7am and it was already booked. The next chance you get is 12pm but again, it’s gone in seconds! Just try though, you might be one of the lucky ones 🙂
Park Cleanliness
In my opinon, Disneyland has always done a great job of keeping things pretty clean for the most part. Some of you asked if they clean the rides between riders and the answer is no. They do offer a bunch of hand sanitizer stations all throughout the park. Whenever I walked by one, I made sure to get some. FYI, masks and 6 feet apart are no longer enforced.
Food
Now you can order food through the app. Before a lot of the COVID restrictions were lifted, I heard that you were only able to order food and drinks through the app but now you can do both. There are some restaurants that only did mobile order and some that allow you to walk-in and order. You might have to wait long so I suggest to bring snacks, especially if you have kids. My family ordered food for a 1:40pm pick-up but it wasn’t ready until like 2:15 so just a heads up.
BYO Snacks
Like mentioned above, you are allowed to bring your own (already prepared) snacks! I brought hawaiian bread sandwiches (thanks to a TikTok hack haha) that I made the night before, little bags of chips, fruit snacks, juice boxes, oreos and my hydroflask filled with water. It definitely helped to bring all of that.
Characters
Since there are no parades or shows because they don’t want huge crowds of people together, which doesn’t make sense cause everyone is pretty much next to each other in lines, the characters are seen everywhere! Looking back at it now, I didn’t see any princesses or princes 🙁 It was nice to walk around and always see characters though. They have designated spots that they go to and you can’t get close to them. It was totally fine though! My kids loved seeing all the characters 🙂
Fireworks
They had fireworks which was pretty cool. I’m not sure if it was because it was the day after July 4th or if they have it every night, sorry 🙁 They also didn’t have the music and full-on show during the fireworks either. It was literally just fireworks which was a bummer because something about the full-on Disneyland fireworks was so magical.
Mom Hack
Bring your own Disney toys from home or buy some ahead of time at Target or Walmart! Omg this was a lifesaver! I literally went through the kids’ toy bins and pulled out the Disney toys they never play with. I knew they would be all over them at Disneyland and yup, I was totally right! Lol. I even bought a few at Target the day before. Liam was obsessed with Cars and so I packed all of his Cars toys that he doesn’t play with that much anymore and he was loving them so much at Cars Land! I mean, why have to buy things they already have at home?! We still ended up getting the kids something plus was gifted some by family friends over there but I know we would’ve spend WAY more if I didn’t bring some toys from home.
Celebrity Sightings
We saw Jojo Siwa at Thunder Mountain Railroad! Oh and there was literally a paparazzi in line just taking photos of her. My family also saw Russel Westbrook (basketball player that I don’t know haha) and Vanessa Bryant and her daughters. I wish I saw them but I was in the bathroom changing Liam’s diaper haha.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I had a wonderful experience at Disneyland! It was nice to truly enjoy the park with less people and shorter wait times. If you are on the fence about going, I say just go! I’m not sure how long they’ll keep this reservation system going so go ASAP. Honestly, you’ll get your money’s worth for sure. The only downside I experienced was some of the Cast Members working at the Guest Relations/Services booths weren’t that friendly. I mean some were great (shoutout to Shiela at the CA Adventure Chamber of Commerce) but a lot of them were so unpleasant which was unfortunate. That was just one thing though and other than that, everything else was fabulous!
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