Disneyland Family Vacation Recap
Disneyland is a special place for me. I was 25 when I first made it through those magical gates and we’ve tried our best to make it back every year since. Luckily, our visit this year coincided with the celebration of my sister’s graduation so we met up with my family there and it was SO. MUCH. FUN!
10/09/18 — The Garcia girls (first four seats) on Splash Mountain.
10/09/18 — After Splash Mountain. You can’t see it but my jeans are soaking wet!
We booked our entire Disney trip (park tickets, hotel and character dining) using Get Away Today. I heard lots of great things about this Disney travel agency from co-workers and friends prior to booking and decided to go with them over Costco because they had a better deal for our party of two. When we booked in August for October, GAT was running an “Adults at Kids Prices” special so we got our 3-day park hoppers at kids prices! At the time of booking, the hotel that I wanted was full so we stayed at the Anaheim Majestic Garden Hotel.
We really wanted to watch the new Fantasmic! show at Disneyland so on our first day we practically ran to that FastPass station. Once we got our tickets we had a nice sit down breakfast at River Belle Terrace. We’ve had lunch here before (the pulled pork sandwich on their lunch menu is amazing!) but it was our first time having breakfast and we were not disappointed!
Prior to our vacation we learned about Disney’s new digital FastPass system MaxPass (more on this in another post soon!) and decided to try it out. Once we figured it out we used it to get fast passes for Goofy’s Sky School, Soarin’ Around the World, Radiator Springs and Astro Blasters.
10/08/18 — Breakfast at River Belle Terrace. I got the Mickey pancakes with chicken link sausage. So delish!
10/08/18 — In front of Sleeping Beauty’s castle!
10/08/18 — Oogie Boogie at Disney’s California Adventure.
10/08/18 — I love the movie Coco so you know I had to visit the Plaza de la Familia!
On our second day we met up with my family at for Magic Morning. This is a benefit to all Disney hotel guests with a 3+ day ticket and it allows them to enter the parks one hour before it opens to the public. This was the perfect day to get into the parks early since Disneyland was closing early for Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. We took advantage of this time to ride the busier rides like Space Mountain, Star Tours, It’s a Small World, Big Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain.
Since we knew ahead of time that the parks were closing early, we booked our character dining at Goofy’s Kitchen for that evening. The character dining was an amazing experience and it’s one that everyone should try. We were a party of seven adults and it was just as fun for us as it was for the kids around us.
10/09/18 — Visiting Chef Mickey at Goofy’s Kitchen!
10/09/18 — The Garcia girls in Downtown Disney.
Angel and I loved Fantasmic! so much that we forced my family to watch it before leaving. After grabbing our fast passes for the show, we got on as many rides as we could then we had lunch at Earl of Sandwich in Downtown Disney. Angel got the french dip and I got the holiday special (aaalll of the turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce and gravy. SO DELISH! 🤤). After lunch we did some shopping then ended our night back with the family at Disneyland just in time for the show. Some of us were tearing (ahem, me) as we walked out the gates but only because it’ll probably be a while until we return.
I’m already looking forward to our next trip to the happiest place on earth. Have you been to any of the Disney parks? Share your favorite and most memorable experiences in the comments below.