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We took the kids to Disneyland in mid January for 3 nights and 4 days and it was a blast. Our feet were horribly painful everyday but it was so worth it. We specifically picked this time to go we wanted to avoid a crowd.
For those of you with kids that has special needs/disabilities, I highly recommended you going to the guest service (Disneyland City Hall) before you start your day to ask for special pass depending on the needs of your child. We went and talked with them and got a pass for Milo to have front row seats due to his vision impairment. The only ride we used for that was Star Tours. And they also gave us a wheelchair access pass since lots of the lines are contained in a dark and narrow line and that was super helpful since Milo wanted to wait in line and do everything himself and having the wheelchair access, he was able to do all that without any obstacles. *of course, in some cases, we didn’t have to wait as long on certain rides.*
We rented strollers for both our kids and that was very helpful but it’s not so great when you cannot take it out to the on site hotel we stayed at (we were at the Disneyland Hotel). It’s a pretty long walk especially when you have to go back to the stroller rental to return them and then walked all the way back to the hotel when on occasion we could have taken the monorail back to our hotel. You would think they would have something where if you stay on site, you can take the stroller with you as an extra benefit. (We did not bring our double stroller because it would take up all our trunk space.)
Here are some tips we found on taking your kids to Disneyland:
1. Hotels. If you stay on site, stay at the Disneyland Grand California Hotel because that is the closet one to the main entry and also there’s a direct access into California Adventures. If you go during a busy season, it’s worth asking to stay on the first floor so you don’t have to wait for the elevators. When we were at the Disneyland Hotel, the elevators were insanely slow and we had to wait for a long time. And if you need accessible rooms, make sure you make that request.
2. Eating. All the food within the park is pretty much the same. Our kids are pretty picky so as long as we find french fries and grilled cheese they are fine. We packed lots and lots of snacks for the kids so they can snack all day long. We went to Goofy’s Kitchen twice and even though it is a bit on the priceier side, we thought that was a great choice compare to the places in the park. The kids like having the characters walking around. You get to sit down in a nice air condition place and the kids picked their food from the buffet. We wanted to try the Chip n’ Dale breakfast at the Disneyland Grand California Hotel, but did not get a chance but we heard the food is way better. *The food at Goofy’s Kitchen was not great, sorry Goofy! But we knew we were not there to eat yummy-let’s make a great impression-on-us food (since we were really paying to have the characters walking around us), but we thought for the price we were paying, it would be better.* Again, I have heard that Disneyland Grand California Hotel’s restaurants are super yummy.
3. Strollers. If you can bring your own strollers, I would highly recommend it. We couldn’t fit ours because we have the double jogging stroller and since we are driving our trunk space is limited. But if you have have more than one child and you are driving, I suggest taking one stroller at least and renting another one at the park. We will be taking our Bugaboo stroller with a skateboard attachment so at least we can stroller both kids back to the hotel after dropping off the rental stroller at the park.
4. Sunblock. It was super warm in the last 2 days we were there and my advice, pack a sunblock in your day bag so you can apply it on your child throughout the day.
5. Addictive. We did not even consider the annual pass because we did not think we would be back for at least another year or so. But after you see how happy your kids are, the chances of you going back within the year is high, so, an annual pass is a much better deal. We wished we did that because we are heading back this May for Milo’s birthday. We gave him a choice of having a birthday party with his school friends (which he has been asking us for for a long time) or going to Disneyland. He picked Disneyland. Oh! How I wish we got the annual pass.
I think that is all for now. I hope this helps for those who are planning a trip to the happiest place on planet Earth.