Disney!!

The wonderful world of Disney. What can I say except, wow?! We returned from an impromptu trip to Disneyland a couple of days ago and I must say it might be one of my favorite trips that our little family has been on. The boys were in Disney heaven and I even got Brod (who was admittedly not the world’s biggest fan of Disneyland) to self proclaim that he is now a “Disney guy” by the end of the trip! So what made it so great? Well first off let me start by saying that I am not in any way a Disney expert, in fact, most of the experiences we had during our 3 day Disneyland stay came about because of following suggestions and ideas that YOU guys shared with us via Instagram. So thank you very very much for your feedback and advice, the comments helped lead us to a fantastic trip! What I want to do here today is simply recap a few of the reasons/highlights that helped make our experience so magical, and also answer some of the most common questions you guys asked on my last IG post in reference to our trip. So here we go…

1. Where did we stay and did we like it?

    – We stayed at the Courtyard Marriott Maingate and loved it. Nothing too fancy but it was clean, nice rooms, bunk beds for the dudes, and has an awesome pool/slide/splash pad area for the boys when we were not at Disney. The biggest reason we loved it however was its proximity to the park. Having a five minute walk to Disneyland, California Adventure, and Downtown Disney was so convenient and made it so simple and easy when it comes to travel. We didn’t have to worry about parking our car which saved time and money. So I would say any of the hotels located close to the main gate would be a good option to explore!!

2. What age would you recommend taking your kids to Disneyland?

    – This is a tough one because it’s all about personal preference. We took Hanes and Arrow when Hanes was 3 and Arrow was 2 months old, and now we obviously just took them when they were ages 6 and 3. So here are my thoughts, I think you can have an amazing experience at both Disneyland and Disney California adventure no matter your kid’s ages. However, there are some things to note that may enhance your experience even further.

  • Most of the big feature rides (Toy Story, Cars Land, Star Wars, Space Mountain, Guardians of the Galaxy, etc, etc) require a height of 40 inches. Both are boys were 40 inches so it allowed us to go on pretty much every ride we wanted to! (minus Matterhorn and Indiana Jones, their requirement was 46 inches)
  • There are plenty of “toddler-friendly” rides/shows/spaces in both parks…for example, bug’s life area, toontown, it’s a small world, jedi shows, fantasyland, some of the cars land rides, disney junior show and on and on…what I am getting at is even for kids shorter than 40 inches there is plenty to do and see!
  • Finally, as I mentioned above, I think any age can have a great time for both kid and parent at Disneyland. I think we preferred this particular trip because both Hanes and Arrow were old enough and tall enough to do pretty much everything there and so THEY were even more excited! Also, they both were old enough to talk about their excitement and favorite things to do so it made it more memorable for us as parents!
3. Favorite foods/snacks?
    – Oh man, ummmm everything haha! For reals, there are so many amazing treat and eating options at Disney that it can actually be overwhelming. First things first, the food is amazing but it’s not cheap, so I would recommend still bringing in your own water bottle(Hydroflask) and little snacks to eat throughout the day (fruit snacks, crackers, jerky, etc). Also, for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, you definitely want to make reservations beforehand if you are planning on eating at one of the more popular spots. This will save you time and hassle and allow you to kind of plan your day out around your meal times! For me, each of the spots we had lunch and dinner at (Carnation Cafe, Riverbelle Terrace, Holly Jolly Cafe) they were pretty accommodating as far as gluten free options which was so awesome! 
– As for snacks/treats….let’s just say Brod and the boys tried as many of them as they could. Here were some favorites for them:
  • Corn dogs
  • Dole whip
  • Matterhorn Macaroon
  • Mac-n-cheese cones
  • fried pickles
  • chocolate covered frozen bananas
  • anything and everything from pooh corner
4. What is the max pass and is it worth it?
    – The max pass is this new app/feature on the Disneyland app that allows you to get fast passes from your phone, without having to walk to each ride’s fast pass area to get a fast pass. It also allows you to have access to any pictures that you take with the Characters at the park, or any picture you have taken of your family by a Disney photographer. It’s 10 bucks per person, per day, so it cost us an additional $40 a day to do. Was it worth it? For us, absolutely!! It was a game changer in terms of going using the fast pass to go on as many rides as we could! I don’t think we waited longer than like 20 minutes for any ride the entire time. It also made it easy to schedule our day because we could select a fast pass for one particular ride and while still in line for that ride we could select our fast pas for the ride we wanted to do next! I will definitely be using the max pass every time we go to Disneyland in the future, and having access to the photos that we took with the characters and around the park was a huge bonus too! So yeah, if you are going to be riding a lot of rides, especially the more high-profile and popular rides that get long lines, the max pass is so worth it!

5. Where did you get your Disneyland passes?

 -We got our passes from Park Savers and they seriously are amazing! If you are looking into going to Disneyland, Disney World, Universal Studios. or package deals on hotels then I highly suggest you check them out!

6. Finally, what stroller did we use?
     – So, we actually used our Orbit Baby stroller that has the skateboard attachment for the boys to ride. This way Arrow could sit and Hanes could ride and it made it so easy to get around the parks, without tiring out the dudes from walking place to place. Unfortunately, Orbit Baby is no longer making strollers and so this one we used might be tough to get now (maybe amazon?). There are other great strollers that have similar board/skateboard attachments such as Bugaboo, found here. 
Ok, I am done. I hope this helps. I will continue to try and answer any other questions you have about our trip here on the blog or on IG. Leave a comment below if you had a question I didn’t answer. Also, disclaimer…we are not the Disney experts by any means and I am sure there are so many people out there that know more and better about Disney than us, but hopefully sharing our experience helps you understand what we enjoyed and may help you in your future planning for your very own Disney trip! Thanks for following, I love you all!!

MY OUTFITS
minnie long sleeve (sold out! im sorry!)
sneakers i wore (here, here & here)
mickey hoodie hoodie (i’m wearing a large)
dress
denim jacket 
mickey hat

Brody’s mickey t-shirt

Boy’s character sweatshirt
Arrow’s mickey shirt
Hanes’ disney shirts (old and from Zara)

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    I am Monica David from Ontario Canada, i want to testify about the good service of Dr. Ugo Wonders living in USA for helping me bring back my fiancee who left me because of a prostitute. it was a terrible and depressing time when my fiancee whom we were supposed to be married in two months cancelled our wedding because of a prostitute who cast a spell on him and stole him away. i was searching for help online when i saw a review about Dr. Ugo of General Spell Temple, i then contacted him for help. I followed all his instruction accordingly as he assured and guaranteed me that my Fiancee will be back in 48 hours, to my greatest surprise in exactly two days after the spell was cast, my Fiance called me and started to apologize for leaving me because of another lady. i waited for two months in which we are now married before i could testify and right now, we are one happy family and its going to remain like this for ever.. all thanks to Dr. Ugo Wonders of General Spell Temple. you can contact Dr. Ugo for any relationship problem through his direct email
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