Disney

What Not To Miss On Your Trip to Disneyland

Planning a trip to Disneyland? Check out these tips and things to do while visiting!

Living on the east coast, I have never visited Disneyland before. I was so excited to get to visit in January to check out the park that started it all!

If you live on the East Coast, I would not fly all the way out west to just visit Disneyland. Try to make it so that you check out other locations while in California, or add some other fun spots on your trip such as the Grand Canyon, or Las Vegas. Also, if you are flying to California in the winter, be sure to pack layers as the weather can be chilly, especially at night.

First trip to Disneyland

For our trip, we planned it so that we got to Disneyland on a Friday morning and stayed until Tuesday morning. We had park passes (with the park hopper option) for four days, Friday-Monday. Then we flew out on Tuesday and spent the rest of our trip in Las Vegas until Sunday night. I would recommend spending about three days in Disneyland. While we enjoyed our four days there, I believe that three days is enough time to check out everything in the parks. For the first two days, we spent time exploring Disneyland Park and California Adventure Park.

Day One: Disneyland Park

On the first day of our trip, we flew into LAX and arrived to Disneyland Hotel at around 10:30 a.m. We checked into the hotel, checked our bags into luggage services, and headed to Disneyland Park. Walking from the Disneyland hotel, you walk through Downtown Disney, which has so many delicious dining options.

We were hungry for lunch, so grabbed churros and corn dogs right in Downtown Disney before scanning into the park. Taking one bite of a Disney churro just instantly puts you in the mood for long days at the parks and all of the excitement that is to come.

Disneyland Churros

Right away when we walked into Disneyland Park, we were overtaken with the joy of main street decked out for Christmas, and the beautiful Christmas tree. I have to say that Sleeping Beauty Castle is very underwhelming coming from Disney World, but nonetheless charming. Right away, we ran over to Space Mountain, which had a very minimal wait time. The line queue is much different from Disney World, and I also feel that Space Mountain at Disneyland is a bit different and a longer ride, which was enjoyable.

Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland

For the rest of the evening we jumped on Jungle Cruise, the Indiana Jones ride (which is not to be missed, this was one of my favorite rides), we also hopped on The Matterhorn, and in the evening jumped on It’s Small World Christmas. The Christmas version of the ride is so magical, from room to room you listened “Jingle Bells.” Also during Christmas, they had 25 hidden “25s” that could be spotted throughout the ride, as a celebration of the 25th year decorating the ride for Christmas.

We grabbed dinner in Downtown Disney at Splitsville Luxury Lanes. Unfortunately this evening we were unable to see the nighttime firework show as it was canceled due to high winds, which I hear is actually a common occurrence at Disneyland.

Day Two: Disney California Adventure Park

We started our day in California Adventure Park. After picking up our Starbucks to go, we ran right to the park to hop on Soarin’ before park hours opened to the public. In any Disney park, Soarin’ is a must. Following Soarin’ we jumped in line for The Incredicoaster, one of our favorite rides in Disneyland, the coaster is very fast and has so many drops!

While in line for The Incredicoaster, we purchased a lightning lane pass for Radiator Springs Racers, which was another one of my favorite rides. I love that Car’s Land is unique from anything at Disney World, so it is something to definitely check out on your California trip.

Disney California Adventure Park

Before lunch, we headed over to Avengers Campus and went on Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure and caught the Spider-Man Stunt show. If you didn’t know, when Spider-Man does the large stunt jump, he is actually what they call a “stuntronic,” it is a complex animatronic, not a person! For lunch, we got Shawarma, which had to be our favorite quick-bite during our time at Disneyland.

The rest of the day we went on various rides throughout California Adventure including Guardians of The Galaxy: Mission Breakout. I really enjoyed the re-theme from Tower of Terror, but I absolutely hate drops and do not like this ride (I had to go on at least once though). In the evening, we booked ahead of time to see World of Color, the nighttime show at California Adventure Park.


For more Disneyland Trip Info, check out part-two of this post.

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