Wednesday, May 11, 2011

calling all fanatics

ok, guys...

jeremy and i are heading to DISNEYLAND next week for his graduation trip!

woot woot! (we will spend 3 days at disneyland and the other days at the beach, hollywood, baseball games, etc.)


image from here

so you disneyland fanatics...
i need your tips and tricks for the happiest place on earth.

can we take food in? should we take food in?
where's the best food? anything we should splurge on? where's the cheap food?
should i take my camera? is it too much of a hassle? just take it for one day?
should i take a purse? or maybe a backpack? or just jeremy's wallet?
where do we put our stuff when we are on the rides?
any souvenirs you wish you purchased? or wish you didn't purchase?
any secrets for when to do what rides?
anything i should know, and probably don't? any advice at all?!?

please... fill me in!


6 comments:

Lisa Mc said...

I always bring a backpack, with granola bars, water and apples. I like to stay at the grand califorian or the disneyland hotel, that way you can take the monorail back to the hotel to rest and regroup. The Corndogs in the California Adventure are great! We also like to eat at the mexican resturant in frontier land! You can eat outside and the prices are very reasonable.Take a small camera, keep it in your backpack.
I just keep it on my lap on the rides. Hit the big rides at the first and get a fast pass. Go to downtown Disney and at the Jazz kitchen express they have amazing beneigts! I would go in the mornings and get them for all of us! We took Jesse and Lindsey and the boys in Feb, when he got into Oral surgery school. Have fun! We also loved the Aladdin show in the Calif. adventure.

Kayla said...

I have been to Disneyland every year from 5th grade to senior year. I LOVE DISNEYLAND. My advice is to work the fast passes. Depending on when you go, they'll save you on rides like Indiana Jones, Space Mountain, and Autopia. Indiana Jones is a must ride, as long as the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean. Yes, you can take food in. My family never ate there because it was too expensive, but we occasionally splurged on the turkey legs (they're made rotisserie style on carts throughout the park--so good). Don't waste with cotton candy because they don't make it fresh anymore. Churros are great as well as the funnel cakes. Anything you get at the bakeries on Main Street are going to be good. YES, take your camera. You'll find a ton of fun things to take pictures of PROMISE. Whatever kind of bag you take, just make sure it zips. The crazy rides have pouches to put your stuff in, everything else will sit in your cart just fine. I'm not a souvenir person trinket-wise, but I do enjoy my Mickey Mouse club sweatshirt I got there. Pictures are the best souvenirs in my opinion. ALSO, the kiddy rides you'll want to go on in the morning because they are PACKED in the afternoon and evening are Peter Pan (my favorite) and the storybook boat (it's cool to see all the miniature plants they grow in Disneyland when you go through the storybook lands). My absolute favorite show in Disneyland is Fantasmic. It's the coolest firework/adventure show I have ever seen. It's so worth it. The train that goes around the park is a nice, entertaining ride--a perfect time to eat lunch. The trip between Tomorrow Land and Main Street is pretty cool--it has a huge display of robotic dinosaurs. Another fun place to eat lunch and be entertained is inside the Golden Horseshoe. There's a shoe called Billy Hill and the Hillbillies. They're funny and play some amazing strings together in...interesting ways ha ha. We always try to go see them. Well, that's all I can think of for now. Let me know if you have ANY questions. I LOVE Disneyland and want to take my husband so bad! Have so much fun!

Kayla said...

One more thing, in case you're looking for a place to stay still. My family always stayed at Desert Inn and Suites. It's just across the street from Disneyland and has a decent continental breakfast.

Anonymous said...

Hey Katie! My family and I go to Disneyland all the time. The most crowded area tends to be Fantasyland. Go early in the morning or late at night. Lots of families with strollers there. Agree with Kayla that Peter Pan is the best. Go there as soon as the park opens because the line can get very long. If either of you have smartphones my brother and I discovered an app last time we went that had pretty accurate wait times for all the rides. A great time to go on rides is also a night before the park closes. During the parades and fireworks rides depend to be less busy. Our favorite rides are Peter Pan, Snow White, Indiana Jones, Pirates, Big Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain, Tower of Terror and Haunted Mansion. Those are all pretty popular rides that will get busy. When I was there Indiana Jones was probably the one that got the worst so I would try to get to that one right when the park opens too. On most of these rides, For the rest of these use the fastpass system. Some fast passes are better than others and you can only hold a fast pass for one ride at a time. It is a good idea to go get a fastpass to one of the super busy rides right when the park opens and then go on another super busy ride directly afterwards. If the sign says the line is 30 minutes or less that is a pretty decent wait time. They probably won't get down to less than that. As far as taking stuff in goes the only time that it is really more of a hassle then not is entering the park. They will check everything when you go in but in my experience the waits to get in aren't that bad. You are going in a peak season so you should probably plan to get to the park well before it opens because on some summer days the park reaches capacity and you might not be able to get in when you want. I would plan to try to go on less rides during the afternoon. See more of the attractions and just walk around. There are tons of cool things to see around the park. Hope this helps. Any other questions let me know!
Amber Pollock

Rachel said...

you can get your hand stamped and go out to your car for lunch if you want to have a picnic. But we always had pizza at the buzz lightyear place, and dinner at oh, I can't remember what it's called, but it's right by pirate of the carribean ride- they have good soup in bread bowls- get the clam chowder!
when your feet hurt and you want some air conditioning, walk through the shops on main street--you can sit in some of them and play checkers!
make sure you get fast passes for the big rides.

FAMILY FAMILY FAMILY said...

We always splurge on the soup in a bread bowl, which is over by the pirates of the carribean ride. It's yummy. And since we don't really eat breakfast or lunch (just granola bars and junk food), it tastes really yummy. And over in California adventure, they sell the best corndogs I've ever had. They're HUGE and worth every one of the 5000 calories they contain!

Yes, you can take food in, but no glass containers. But if there are just 2 of you, I don't know if it would be worth the hassle. I would just eat there. Then you don't have to worry about putting things down and collecting them after the rides again.

And if you buy any souveneirs, wait until the end of the day. We've caught somebody trying to steal our kids souveneirs right out of the back of our stroller while we had been on a ride. So if you wait until the end of the day....you'll still have nothing to keep track of.

The only other suggestion....take advantage of the fast passes. They are very helpful.

That's all! Have fun!!!