I was really nervous about how our trip to Disneyland would go because usually for WDW I have a super solid touring plan and have spent weeks researching and working on it, but this trip just snuck up on me so I really only had about a week to prepare! But it went amazingly and we LOVED how compact the CA parks are! We only had 2 full days but did almost everything and did a bunch multiple times!
Trip Details:
Me, DH and 3 kids - DD13, DS11 and DS8. Have been to WDW 3 times but always with a big family group so it was nice to just be the 5 of us this time. Stayed at Courtyard Marriott Theme Park Entrance - while the room size was perfect with the bunk beds, I thought we’d use the pool and water park area way more. We only went on our check in day and the other days we were too hot and tired during our midday break and didn’t want to be outside. Next time I’d try a cheaper hotel without the water park - though the distance was awesome!
Overall thoughts:
Loved the closeness of everything and our hotel. Felt like in general it was crowded body-wise even though it was low crowds while we were there - the lines feel narrow and during fireworks just felt like there was no where for people to BE. Food was easy with mobile ordering and everything we ate was good. LL snagging was SO much easier than our last WDW trip. I used BG1 and the drops and basically never stressed and got everything we wanted when we wanted it. I liked that you couldn’t make your first LL until in the park as in WDW I often missed the 7am one because we were already traveling TO the park and things were chaotic. We did not stop for many/any diversions and missed the other night time shows besides the parade - if we had an extra day I definitely would have made time for Fantasmic and Paint the Night. LL use was always slow to scan - staff didn’t seem to be great at managing the flow / lots of people just hovering around the scanners not knowing what to do or when they were supposed to be there.
Tips:
I didn’t want to have to scan my phone for all 5 of us because I wanted to save my battery for booking LL’s, so I screenshotted our barcodes and printed business card size versions of them before the trip. We wore them in lanyards around our neck and were able to use them for park entry and at LL’s.
This was our first trip without a stroller and I didn’t want to have to lug around 5 bottles of water nor did I think my crew would want to carry a bag of their own, so I carried a backpack with a 40 oz water bottle and then just got foldable cups for each of us. This was great because I just kept filling the 40oz bottle and whenever we stopped for a few I could give everyone their cup and a few sips of water.
Sunday 7/26
Got to security around 7:15, we were still on east coast time since this was the first day of our trip so this was easy to do. My kids remarked that the walk from our hotel into the park was shorter than the walk from the parking lot at TTC to the monorail ha, and they were totally right. The closeness of everything was so awesome! We weren’t rope dropping headliners so I felt better about not being first at the rope / my family gets a little stir crazy if we first have to wait for security, then wait to enter, then wait in the park. Entered the park at 7:30 and immediately booked a LL for IJ, then I just kept pushing the return time back to around 10 which is when we wanted to ride it.
Rope dropped Fantasyland but we skipped Peter Pan. We started with Alice which even DD13 loved, it is such a great and cute ride. Worked our way through all of the other Fantasyland rides with zero wait and then headed over to Toon Town where we did MMRR, Roger Rabbit and Gadget Coaster with no wait. Gadget Coaster we did a few times in a row - DS8 wasn’t sure if he liked rollercoasters so I wanted him to figure that out before putting him on anything else!
We stopped for churros (WHY are they SO amazing here?!) and a garlic stuffed pretzel, then headed to our IJ LL. In the meantime I made a LL for Haunted Mansion and kept pushing the time back. After IJ did Haunted Mansion and then forced the kids to Tom Sawyers island because I really wanted to go 
Then used a LL for Big Thunder, where DS8 realized he DOES NOT like rollercoasters after all haha, so we finished with Pooh. We then headed back to our hotel for a long rest break from about 2-6, and I kept booking LLs and moving the times back for when we returned.
When we came back at 6 we had a nice stack of LLs. We did Star Tours, Buzz, and Space with LL’s, and because DS8 didn’t want to ride any more big coasters the big kids got to ride twice every time using his LL and rider switch for the other parent and kid. This worked out amazingly for us and made having a family of 5 a perk for once! While big kids did space he and I did Autopia and Star Tours again. We then headed to Star Wars with a LL for MFSR and a paid LL for ROR. It was still only about 8:30/9 by then so we then just re-rode some favorites with low waits and the bigs kids did Matterhorn with a LL. Also did Nemo which I would not recommend when everyone is getting tired, we almost fell asleep haha.
They are not fireworks fans so we skipped those. On our way out Paint the Night second parade was almost starting so I made them sit and watch - DS8 ended up loving it and I thought it was well done but there were really long breaks between the floats. Back to our hotel around 11 to CRASH!
Monday 7/27
Started in DCA this day and again got to security around 7:15. We rope dropped Pixar Pier with big kids doing Incredicoaster then all of us doing TSMM an Goofy’s Sky School. Tried to have kids go back to Incredicoaster and then it broke down. Ate Jack Jack cookies to make up for it, they were SO good! I booked a LL for Web Slingers first and kept pushing the time back (no one was sure if they wanted to Mission Breakout yet). We headed to Cars Land aka the surface of the sun. That asphalt really makes the whole area feel soooo hot! We did Mater’s ride, Luigi’s ride and then paid for a LL for Radiator Springs. DS8 was nervous about it but loved it. It was a great ride but I felt like it was short!
Headed to Avengers campus around 9:30 and to Web Slingers with a LL, then spent approximately 11 hours in the Avengers stores while DS11 tried to decide what to blow all his money on. Ended up catching the Spiderman “show” which was cool to see but also quick.
Headed to Soarin’ with a LL and ordered lunch while in line, then did Monsters Inc (LL) and Grizzly (LL). DS11 and DH headed back to try Incredicoaster again with their MEP and the rest of us did Ariel with a LL but it broke down and this ended up being our longest wait - about 20 minutes. We had to wait for the others anyway so we waited but there were a lot of crying children and then when we finally DID get on the ride it broke down while we were on it and we were stuck in the Ursula scene where again there were a LOT of scared kids! After that we headed back to hotel, again from around 2-6.
During the break I made more LLs and DS11 decided he did want to do Mission Breakout so I grabbed one for that during a drop. At 6 we headed back into DCA and did Mission Breakout while DD13 and DS8 did Philharmagic, then we headed over to DL.
This is where things get blurry but we ended up doing Space twice, Matterhorn twice, DS8 did Star Tours at least 3 times and MFSR 3 times (end of the night there was NO line). We waited standby for Pirates and got beignets afterward. Big kids did Tiana’s. Somehow ended the night at 12:00 and DS8 and I walked out of Star Wars land with the park deserted which was cool!
