We got to our hotel in the early afternoon, so we had most of the afternoon to swim and play at the water park area of our hotel. We stayed at the Courtyard Anaheim Theme Park, which was right across Harbour Blvd from the Disney parks. It was about a 10 minute walk to the parks and had this fun water park/pool area. But the primary reason I chose this place was that the room had 2 queen beds plus a bunk bed so all the kids had their own bed, and it also had a tub and separate shower, so 2 people could shower at the same time. For a family of 5, both those things make a hotel stay better.
After swimming, we got showered up and headed into the Disney resort. Unlike Disney World, Disneyland is very compact. We walked through security to enter the Disney resort area, and then Disneyland park is on the right, Disney California Adventure park is on the left, and Downtown Disney is straight ahead. So easy to walk everywhere! (Which is why we returned our rental car as soon as we got into Anaheim...we didn't need it anymore.)
We explored Downtown Disney a bit, looking in the Disney store and the Lego store. Then we headed to the Grand Californian Hotel for our dinner reservations at the GCH Craftsman Bar. It was a poolside restaurant at the hotel, and the service and the food were great! We all really enjoyed our meal. I had wanted a reservation for that first night so that we wouldn't have to worry about a long wait or trying to decide on a restaurant. It worked out well.
After dinner, we walked through the hotel lobby and saw this edible Star Wars creation. It's all made out of cake! That must have wakened our need for sweets, so we stopped at Salt and Straw (an ice cream place in Downtown Disney) for some ice cream to eat on our way back to the hotel. They had lots of novel and unique flavors. It was really good!!
We were able to watch some of the Disney fireworks from our hotel balcony before heading to bed.
We got to Disneyland Park bright and early the next day after eating breakfast in our room. The park opened at 8, so we left our room before 7. When it comes to Disney and getting ahead of the crowds, the early bird gets the worm. Getting there that early got us towards the front of the crowd heading into the park.
We started our day in Fantasyland and tried to do most of the Fantasyland rides before the lines arrived. We were able to do Peter Pan, Snow White's Enchanted Wish, Storybook Land Canal Boats, Casey Jr. Circus Train, and Pinocchio's Daring Journey all with little to no wait to start the day.
I purchased Genie Plus in order to skip some lines and make the most of our day, so we used our Genie Plus reservations to experience many of the other rides while filling in with lower wait time rides. In Toon Town, we used Genie Plus for Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railroad and then hopped on Chip and Dale's Gadget Coaster.
Toon Town was really cute and well-themed. We explored, checked out some of the interactive play areas, walked through Mickey Mouse's house, and enjoyed this cute area.
While Disney World has lots of dedicated meet and greets where you wait in a line to meet a character, Disneyland has way more free roaming characters that you just happen upon. We saw lots of characters walking around at Disneyland. It was harder to get pictures, but more fun to see them interacting with the guests.
Throughout the day, we rode lots of rides. We used our Genie Plus to ride Autopia, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Buzz Lightyear, Indiana Jones (which Briggs REALLY did not like and cried his way through), It's a Small World, Matterhorn (twice for the girls using Zach's reservation), Space Mountain, and Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railroad.
Space Mountain (which was themed to Star Wars currently, so was called Hyperspace Mountain) was a favorite for Staley and I. (The rest of the family didn't ride it.) But Adelie and Briggs did do the other roller coasters, including the Matterhorn which Adelie and Staley did twice. Briggs did not care for the Yeti on the Matterhorn. Zach skipped the roller coasters, but took advantage of that time to ride Pirates of the Carribean without us.
Between our Genie Plus reservations, we checked out characters and rode other rides like the Disneyland Railroad, Alice in Wonderland, Finding Nemo, It's a Small World (again), and Jungle Cruise. Zach also waited in an absurdly long line with the little 2 for Dumbo while Staley and I rode Space Mountain, only to finally bail when the line just wasn't really moving.
We also snacked on beignets and frozen lemonade drinks, watched the parade (which was very cool!), checked out the Swiss Family treehouse, walked around Star Wars land, and ate an early dinner of Mexican food at Rancho del Zocalo Restaurante. It was very good!! We also watched part of the fireworks and projection show on It's a Small World.
Our Rancho del Zocalo reservation was a package that gave us priority seating for the evening Fantasmic show. Fantasmic incorporated fireworks, fountains, fire, characters, music, boats, rafts, and lots of cool special effects. The Peter Pan fight scene on the large pirate ship might have been the coolest, although Adelie loved seeing Ariel on one of the rafts since we had not seen her anywhere else during our day at Disneyland.
Disneyland was very similar to Disney World's Magic Kingdom Park in terms of rides and layout (with the addition of Star Wars Land and Toon Town). However, it felt more compact so walkways and lines felt a little more cramped and busy. Star Wars Land was exactly the same as the Star Wars Land at Hollywood Studios. Our one major misstep of the day was waiting until too late in the day to try to do Rise of the Resistance. We ended up opting out of waiting in line as we were worried about missing our Fantasmic show time.
Our Disneyland day was a success. We rode lots of rides, saw lots of characters, enjoyed lots of entertainment, ate good food, and enjoyed the beautiful weather. We also walked over 30,000 steps, waited in plenty of lines, had to navigate crowded areas, and spent over 16 hours in the park. It was a big, full, tiring day of Disney fun. There were things we could have done differently (like not make Briggs go on the Indiana Jones ride), things we didn't get to that we wanted to (like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride and Rise of the Resistance), snacks we missed out on ordering (here's looking at you, Dole Whip), and things we could have skipped (like the Pixar Pals dance party that we popped into or Autopia, which ate into the time we could have used for Rise of the Resistance). But all in all, it was a great day and fun to compare our east coast Disney experiences with our west coast one.
