Disneyland with Kids

Coming up on one year ago, our family took a trip to Disneyland. It was everyone's first time there. My husband and I lived in Florida for almost 4 years, so we'd had annual passes and had taken many trips to Disney World. It was fun seeing where all of Walt's theme park ideas began at Disneyland Resort in California. The trip was even more fun visiting with children. There's something magical about seeing a kid experience a Disney park for the first time. Being the big kid that I am, I had just as much fun as our children.

Going along with the theme of our blog, there's no "right season" in life to travel with kids or, for that matter, to visit a Disney park. There are pros and cons to traveling with kids of any age. There's always going to be a reason not to travel: the kids are too young, car seats are too hard to travel with, they don't fly on airplanes well, or there's too much stuff to bring. My biggest fear is that our kids will be out of the house and we won't have traveled with them at all.

We live in Arizona which is within reasonable driving distance to Disneyland. For this trip, we packed up the car and made the 6 hour drive instead of flying. There were the obvious potty/diaper breaks and leg stretching breaks involved, but the drive was manageable. We made it to Disneyland easily, and we checked into our hotel excited for our first visit to Disneyland!

We didn't stay on property, because the Disneyland hotels are rather expensive. The off property hotels are a short walk from the main gates, so you can easily walk to the parks from your hotel if you stay close to Harbor Blvd. We stayed at the Residence Inn near the Anaheim Convention Center. It was about 10-15 minute walk to the park gates, and it was perfect for our family of four. We had a kitchenette, living area, and a bedroom with two queen beds. The hotel was very clean and more than enough room for all of us and plenty of room to park our jogging stroller too.

Disneyland has two separate parks as opposed to the four parks at Disney World. Being on a small budget for our trip, we only spent one day at each park. We visited California Adventure on our first day in the parks, and on our second day we enjoyed Disneyland.

A few tips for visiting Disneyland with Kids

Baby Care Centers. There's one in each park, and I highly recommend familiarizing yourself with with them if you're traveling with small children. We mainly used it for nursing and diaper changes, but they're useful for so many things. They're a nice air-conditioned break as well.

Character Dining. We reserved the Minnie & Friends character breakfast at the Plaza Inn on our morning in Disneyland. It's a great way to see a lot of characters all at once. They come to your table and interact with the kids. Our experience was fantastic. We saw Minnie, Pooh, Tigger, Fairy Godmother, Captain Hook, and many others. The only downside, if you can call it one, is there's so much character interaction it makes it difficult for your kids to focus on eating.

Expectations. This trip to Disneyland was really focused on our small children, and we didn't have big expectations for doing everything. My husband and I had been to Disney World multiple times, so we weren't feeling like we needed to ride all of the rides on this trip. We really just wanted to ride some of the toddler-friendly rides, and we wanted to enjoy being in the park and seeing characters. Mission accomplished.

Disneyland Favorites

Dad

riding rides like the Golden Zephyr and Mater's Junkyard Jamboree with Chase

(Golden Zephyr was especially neat at night)

Mom

seeing both kids in awe at seeing the magic of Disney

riding Luigi's Rollickin' Roadsters multiple times with Chase

Chase 

meeting Lightning McQueen

the dance party to music from the DJ car in Radiator Springs

Cars Land and everything Cars

Olivia

Minnie!!!

seeing all of the characters