Disneyland with toddlers

I realized something about myself this week.  I'm a closet Disneyland lover.  I mean the kind that wants to buy all the things.  The ears, hats, shirts, the pins...everything.  I don't, though, because I'm too cheap.  But I want to.  

There is something truly magical about being at Disneyland.  It was our first time going with the kids and I knew they would love it.  I just didn't know I would love it as much as them.  This surprises me because I used to work at Disney World and thought I knew where I stood on the Disney fanaticism spectrum.  I was wrong.  I'm definitely above average on the spectrum.  

I was hesitant to take our kids to Disneyland this young.  My mom thought we were crazy for attempting it.  I knew it would be a lot of work and we'd have our fair share of meltdowns but I'm so glad we did.  It was worth it!  It's such a magical experience at this age.  There are a few things I'd do differently and a few things that worked really well and I wanted to share those.  Hopefully they help you in your Disneyland planning adventures!!

General tips and tricks:

• Bring snacks.  

Lost and lots or snacks.  We brought fruit snacks, granola bars, apple slices, cucumber slices, applesauce pouches (great for the baby!  You don't have to worry about spoons!), jerky, trail mix, protein bars, goldfish

• Get a good night sleep!  

We drove from Utah through the night and went straight to the park when we got there.  It wasn't a horrible experience but we were all exhausted and weren't very well prepared the first day.  We only stayed until about 3 pm that first day and if we had just gotten a room for the night before we could have done a lot more. On the bright side the kids were able to spend some time in the pool at the hotel, which they loved.

• Bring ponchos!!  

 We actually had great weather for the most part.  Our days at California adventure were a bit cold and occasionally drizzly, but never enough that we needed ponchos for rain.  They did end up being EXTREMELY handy for the rushing river ride.  My daughter would have been miserable after getting drenched on the ride and would have been rough to deal with after had we not had the ponchos.  Instead she giggled and laughed the whole time.  It ended up being her favorite ride and she rode it three or four times a day!  

• Play games in line.  

 


Along with snack, games were very helpful!  We played a lot of "I spy" and I brought Mickey Mouse "Go fish" cards that helped pass the time.  I also saw a lot of people playing the headbands/20 questions game on their phone, which is an option if your kids can read.  

 
 
 
 

• Shuttle transportation.  

If your hotel is not within reasonable child walking distance, but is still relatively close to Disneyland I would highly recommend the ART shuttle service.  We got a 3 day pass for around $15 per adult and it ended up being a lot faster than parking at Disneyland.  The only thing is that on the magic morning day the shuttle was a little late so we ended up getting there right at 8.  But overall it was so easy to use.  

• Riding "It's a Small World"

If you plan to watch the Electric Parade and also want to ride "It's a Small World" then a good time to ride it is right after the parade.  If you watch the parade as close to Small World as possible you'll not only see the parade right as the floats come out, but you'll also be one of the first in line for Small World after the parade!  We saved ourselves about a half hour wait time doing this!

•  Do FantasyLand first!

I recommend going through Fantasyland first if you need to do that one with littles.  Lines seem to be slightly shorter in the morning!

• Use fastpasses!!!!  I'll go into more details later ;)

CHARACTERS 

if you have a little one who adores the princesses or Mickey and his friends then waiting in line to get your picture with them is a must!  This can end up taking a significant amount of time, and it's important to plan accordingly.  There are a few tricks, though, to spend less time in character lines.  Here is my favorite tip:

Get the Disneyland app!!!  

This one is so import for rides as well as characters.  It's not perfect, but it gives you a good idea of wait times for rides and it will tell you what characters are where in the parks.  More importantly than that, though, is that they tell you WHEN then characters will be there.  When I first looked at the app I thought it was telling me where all the characters were that were out and about right then.  I was wrong and spent a small amount of time looking for characters that weren't there.  Click on the character and it will tell you when each character will be around and where they will be.  I preferred looking at the list view, so I could see them all at once.  I also noticed that if I checked back on the app a few additional characters had popped up.  

When you look at the app you may see a few characters that will show up at the fantasy faire courtyard.  Sometimes the app will show them only appearing for 5 minutes.  Don't fret!  They're usually there for quite a while.  We missed seeing Rapunzel because I thought we didn't have time to see her.  They let you form a line to see them and are usually there about an hour at a time.  Then a new princess will come.  There are also princesses that show up there without being on the app, so use the app but don't totally rely on it.

You can see three princesses by only waiting in one line if you go to the royal hall.  Who you see will sometimes change but they will usually tell you at least two of them that are there.  For example we saw Cinderella, Ariel and a "special friend" (Snow White was there during our visit).  *I have talked to others who were there on different days who also saw these three.*  The line can sometimes be long but you can get three out of the way at once if you're willing to wait. (We waited about a half hour to see the three princesses in the Royal Hall.  I'm sure wait times are longer during busier seasons.)

They have the same thing at California adventure where you can meet Anna, Elsa and Christoff inside the Animation building.  I'm not sure if Olaf is always there with Christoff but he was when we went.  

Here are the characters we saw and where we founds them:

California Adventure 

Anna, Elsa, Christoff and Olaf- animation building 

Spider-Man and Captain America- sunset boulevard 

Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck and goofy - carthay circle 

Sofia the First and Doc McStuffins - Hollywood boulevard 

Disneyland park 

Ariel, Snow White, Cinderella - royal hall

Belle, jasmine & Aladdin, sleeping beauty, Rapunzel & Flynn Rider - fantasy faire courtyard 

Tiana - on the mark remain boat near New Orleans square.  She's a little trickier to see unless you know where she is, but I believe she's usually there on the boat

Pocahontas - we didn't have time to go see her, but she was by big thunder mountain. 

We also did a character breakfast that I talk about in another blog post.  

FASTPASSES

Okay guys. Fastpasses are the bomb.  If you haven't learned how to use them yet then you need to!  They will save you SO MUCH TIME!  Decide which big ride is the most import.  Not all rides have fastpasses so I'll provide you a list for each park.  The first thing you should do when you get in the park is to give all your park tickets to one person (your runner) and have them go pick up fastpasses to the ride you choose.  The past pass will tell you a time to come back (1:55-2:55 for example) and then you can go into a shorter line to ride that ride.  Once the time comes for you to use your fastpass you can go get another fastpass for a different ride.  But what if you go get the fastpass at 9:30 and it doesn't say to come back until 1:55?  That's a long time to wait for another fastpass.  In that case you can get another pass after two hours.  It will tell you on your fastpass ticket what time you can get your next ticket.  We didn't do the standby line for any rides that had fastpasses unless their wait time was under 20-25 minutes.  We would send our runner to get another fastpass as soon as our ride return time came.  This saved so much time!  Seriously.

Another line timesaver that is a must if you have small kids is the RIDER SWAP.  We especially loved this in California Adventure because it was so easy to do.  With a small baby we usually always had to have one person stay behind to watch the baby and any other small kids who didn't want to ride.  When you're in line ask the cast member for a rider swap pass.  In California Adventure most of them have you the rider swap before you get on the ride. At Disneyland they usually have you ask for it right after you get off the ride.  And I mean RIGHT after. Like as you are stepping off the ride. But always ask because unfortunately every ride seems to be different at Disneyland.  The rider swap pass lets you take two additional riders with you and puts you through the fastpass line.  It's truly amazing.  

We only had one bad experience with it when we tried to get the rider swap on space mountain.  STORY TIME!  After having such an amazing experience with the rider swap at California Adventure we tried to do it the same way at space mountain.  I stayed back and fed the baby while everyone else went on the ride.  They kept telling my mom to get the pass when she got off the ride.  Then when she asked the cast member at the end for a pass she was told to take a picture of the ride photo (you know, the one where you're supposed to have your hands in the air while they snap your photo on the ride) and that because I'm not in the picture that would prove I was with the baby 🙄. Right. So we sent the rest of the crew off to splash mountain and my mom and I went to get in line.  The guy at the front said that wouldn't work.  He said I had to prove that I had a baby.  They needed me to bring the baby back up to the line.  He was not kind about it at all.  We had already had a bit of a rough morning with the shuttle being 25 minutes late and dumbo breaking down right as we were supposed to get on so I was mad.  And I mean mad.  Luckily I only came off as being extremely annoyed.  I think.  But seriously.  I was about ready to show him my nursing bra as proof that I had a baby.  Or maybe I should have let him smell the spit up all over me.  😂.   But other than that the rider swap was fantastic.