Disneyland Part 1

I am finally getting around to writing about our Disneyland trip. Between the holidays and many scheduled posts, I never wrote about our magical time in Disneyland. It truly was the best time. And going during the Christmas season was even more magical.

Let me start this by saying that I have been to Disneyland many times, but I haven't been in 21 years. Rory and the girls have never been and my parents have been many times as well. But I have never been during the Christmas season and it has to be my favorite. I don't know how any other time can compete. Maybe Halloween? Probably not.

If you remember, we didn't tell the girls about our trip until the morning of. We got the girls up and ready as if they were going to school that morning, but when they saw some luggage and some backpacks, they asked where Rory and I were going. We told them to Disneyland and they cried thinking they were not going, but they were. We also didn't tell them that my parents were coming until we got to the airport and they saw my parents. Two big surprises for them.

We flew to Orange County with a stop in Oakland first.

That afternoon, we unpacked, walked to Target for some supplies and then went to an early dinner. We had an early night since we knew we were going to have a long next day.

Tuesday morning we got up bright and early, had breakfast at the hotel and then took the shuttle to Disneyland. We spent the entire first day in Disneyland. We were there from 8 am to 5:30 pm. We left the park and went to dinner near our hotel. But here is our day. I will let the photos do most of the talking and I will interject in between.

We took a photo right inside of the park. As you can tell, it was a little sunny and we had a hard time seeing. The girls wore their Frozen costumes that we got from Target after Halloween.

Right after you walk into the actual park, there was a tree at the beginning of Main Street.

We also snagged a photo with Goofy.

By this time, we had already been in one of the main Disney stores and the girls wanted everything.

 Sleeping Beauty's Castle during Christmas time

We headed right over to Pirates of the Caribbean. I took a few photos, but it was pretty dark in the ride. We had no wait.

Then we headed over to the Haunted Mansion. This has always been a favorite of mine and with it done up in The Nightmare Before Christmas style, it was even more fun.

We only had about a 5 minute wait. The rest of the time, it was about 40 minutes or more to ride this ride.

From there, we headed over to FantasyLand. The girls spotted the carousel and wanted to ride that. We rode that about 4 different times between the first day and the last day.

From there, we went on the Snow White ride, Mr. Toad's Adventure and Pinocchio's Daring Journey.

The girls were begging to see the princesses, so we went over to the Royal Hall. This is where we had to wait about 30 minutes to get in. We saw Belle on the way, but they closed her line, so we just went to the Hall. The girls got to meet three princesses and they were beyond happy. Though, they were hoping Anna and Elsa were in there, which we later learned that they were in California Adventure. I would have had them wear their Rapunzel dresses the first day had I known.

 Cinderella

 Ariel

 Snow White

After our meet and greet, we came out to the Rapunzel show almost starting. We grabbed a seat up from with the girls and watched that which was really cute.

Then we headed over to have a quick lunch and then were off again to TomorrowLand.

We went on Autopia, the Monorail and Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters.

Her face makes me laugh every time. I had about 4 different selfies that we took and each had the best face.

It was almost 3 pm and we had to make it over to watch the Christmas parade. We got there 20 minutes ahead of time and got front row seats and enjoyed a churro.

Of course the girls were waiting for Anna and Elsa and Anna just happened to blow kisses and wave to the girls.

The girls also LOVED the princess float. They now know that Aurora is my favorite princess and kept pointing her out every day.

The girls are very much into Toy Story, so they were beyond thrilled when their floats came out.

And the big man, Santa!

After the parade was finished, we went back on the Toy Story ride and then headed back into FantasyLand for the Dumbo ride.

We rode several rides many times and I have forgotten many of them I am sure. We didn't go into FrontierLand until the third day. Same with Star Wars Land and Toon Town.

And that caps off our first day at Disneyland!