(Note: I'm writing this after the trip)
We had been talking about taking a trip with Ellie for a little while and couldn't decide where to go. We were going to Disney World in September with some friends so we didn't want to go back there again so soon with Ellie. So we were trying to find another place that we could go with her that would still kind of cater to kids. I went to Disneyland when I was around 8, but I don't remember it. Lisa had not been. I have been wanting to go because it is the original Disney park and I would like to experience it. We decided to go because it is still Disney, they cater to kids, but it isn't the same as Disney World in Florida. It would be new and familiar to all of us.
Now comes the hard part, how do you plan a trip to Disneyland. I have become a pro at planning a trip to Disney World, but Disneyland is a whole new beast. Where do we stay? When do we go? How do we get there? Let's break it down to show what we decided:
When to go?
The parks on our trip to Disney World with the whole family was a little busier than I would have liked. I overlooked Columbus Day when booking. Because of that, I wanted to make sure we did not overlap any events or holidays. I originally wanted to go in February. I found that President's Day is really busy and Valentine's Day is really busy. To avoid those (and to accomodate my work schedule), we picked the last week of January. There were no events, the holidays were passed, and it should be pretty quiet. Hotels were pretty inexpensive, and airfare wasn't bad (we'll get to that later).
How to get there?
After we picked out dates, January 21, 2017 through January 27, 2017, I looked at airfare. It was a bargain. I found a sale on Southwest for $97 each way to LAX. That was not my preferred airport because John Wayne in Orange County is closer to Anaheim, but it was more expensive.
Not too long after I booked those tickets, there was another sale and the Orange County flights were the same price as LAX, but we had to go a day longer (darn). So I called Southwest and changed the flights to January 21-January 28 in and out of John Wayne, non-stop. Great deal. I was really excited about it.
Then about a month after I booked them, I got an email from Southwest saying our flights had been changed because the non-stop flight was dropped. We had to fly through Phoenix, but the prices would stay the same. I called and changed one of the times, but it was ok. I was a little sad to lose the non-stop, but it was fine.
After the flights were booked, I had to decide how to get to and from the airport. This is SOOOOO easy at Disney World because they have the Magical Express that picks you up in a bus and takes you to your hotel, included with the hotel cost. In California, we had to do it on our own. I looked at a bunch of transfers and either we had to rent a car seat or bring one for her. That didn't work very well. Then through our planning process and since we added a day to our trip, we decided to go to San Diego for 2 nights. Because we added this, we needed to rent a car. I found a pretty good rate from Alamo to pick up the car at John Wayne airport, keep it for 3 days and then drop it off at Katella and Harbor in Anaheim close to Disneyland. That would be great. But how do we get back to the airport. So I checked the cost of a one day rental car and it was cheaper than 3 people to ride in any of the shuttle buses. So I rented a car from Katella and Harbor to the airport.
Where to stay?
The hotel(s) on this trip were interesting to plan. Our original plan was to rent Disney Vacation Club points and stay at the Grand Californian. We waited too long to book the trip and all the rooms were full. So where to do we stay. I looked and looked and looked. The Disney hotels were way too expensive, especially considering there are dozens of non-Disney hotels within walking distance of the parks. I really wanted to stay at the Disneyland Hotel, but it was too expensive. I found a fairly new hotel called the Springhill Suites at the Anaheim Convention Center. It was on the southwest corner of Katella and Harbor. It was a good location and the rooms were around $150 per night. The rooms were also 2 rooms so the living area was separate from the sleeping area. This was good for us because Ellie could have her own room to sleep in. I booked it for 5 nights.
Then I looked at San Diego. I was looking for an Embassy Suites, but they were really expensive. Then I found a Hyatt Regency at Mission Bay. It looked really nice and was on the harbor next to SeaWorld. It looked nice and was $170 per night. I booked it for the first 2 nights.
As time went, I would look at the hotels again occasionally. Every time I looked, the Anaheim hotel went down in price. The San Diego didn't, but the Anaheim did. The Springhill Suites are part of Marriott so I would look at their site to update the rates on my room. One time I looked and found a brand new hotel right next door to the Springhill Suites. They built a brand new Residence Inn that opened last August. It has similar rooms (separate living and sleeping rooms). It was cheaper than the Springhill Suites, so I switched.
The week before our trip, we checked the weather and it looked like it was going to rain the 2 days we were going to be in San Diego. We decided to ditch that plan, and I canceled the hotel in San Diego (which I had switched to a Courtyard, because it was cheaper than the Hyatt Regency). I moved those days to the Residence Inn and when I did, the rates went down again. I don't remember what I started at (I think it was close to $2,000), but for 7 nights we paid $1,450 including tax, fees and 3 days of parking. Ended up pretty good.
What to do? And what tickets to get?
Our plan all along was to go to Disneyland, and I figured we needed 4 days because we had never been there before and we are a little slower with Ellie. We also added time to go to San Diego so we were thinking about going to the Zoo and SeaWorld. I found a CityPass for Southern California, and it seemed like a pretty good deal. We waited until the week of our trip to buy tickets because there wasn't any reason to buy them before. As we looked at the weather, we decided not to buy anything for San Diego if it was going to ran. We didn't want to be stuck with tickets we couldn't use and waste the money. San Diego became a play-it-by-weather situation.
Then I had to figure out what to do at Disneyland. At Disney World, you have to buy tickets early so that you can book Fast Passes early. Not at Disneyland. It is very much a play-it-by-ear type of experience. They have the original Fast Pass system so you get them the same day at the parks. We really wanted to watch the afternoon parades because Ellie loved them at Disney World. Well, we found they do not run them in January. Darn it. I had watched the attraction closures and rehabs throughout the planning and when we got close I found that the Jungle Cruise, Haunted Mansion and Small World were all going to be closed at different times to take down their holiday theming. Well, the Jungle Cruise was closed the whole time we were going to be there. The Haunted Mansion was supposed to reopen right before we got there. And Small World was going to close while we were supposed to be in San Diego. Ellie loved Small World in Disney World and I wanted to ride it because it was the original and Lisa wanted to see the exterior outside. This became a must do. So since we were not staying in San Diego, we decided to go to Disneyland the first day after our flight to ensure that we got to ride Small World. It was supposed to close that Monday of our trip and we arrived on Saturday. We ended up buying 5 day park hopper passes from Disney. I could not find a good deal from a 3rd party so we got them direct.
What to do about kid items (stroller, car seat, etc)?
On this trip, we decided we needed a car seat, a stroller and we wanted to buy some baby items like pull-ups at a store rather than packing them. But how? Well, the items from a store would be easy because there was a CVS and a Walgreens on opposite corners of Katella and Harbor. Or there was a Target not too far from there.
Now what to do about a car seat and stroller. In Orlando I found a company called Orlando Stroller Rentals. They were great. They dropped the stroller off at the hotel, we got it at bell service and used it, then dropped it off at bell service and they got it back from there. Really easy and a nice, clean stroller. I wanted to find something similar in Anaheim so we didn't have to bring ours. I found a company called City Strollers. They were very similar as they would do the same thing in Anaheim and they even had car seats, which we needed. We decided to rent both from them and we were able to schedule a drop off and pick up at the car rental area of the airport so we could use it to and from the airport.
When to book dining?
Dining at Disney World is a big deal. You have to make reservations 180 days prior to your trip or you may not get to eat at certain restaurants. Not the case at Disneyland. They do not take reservations until 60 days prior. This was really weird for me. Park hours didn't come out until 45 days prior either which made it even harder to schedule our dining reservations.
We did a lot of research on where to eat because we had not been there before and found a lot of good options. We landed on the following:
Lunch at Cafe Orleans
Lunch at Carthay Circle
Dinner at Napa Rose
Lunch at Carnation Cafe
I didn't want to plan too much because we found a lot of fast food type items we wanted to try and you never know what will happen with a 2 year old. The Carthay Circle lunch I added the World of Color package. This gives you a preferred area to watch World of Color. I had found that the show can be tough to watch in certain areas and that this was one of the best (and the food I heard was really good too). Napa Rose would be an adventure. We didn't know when we would be back and we had both heard amazing things about the restaurant. Ellie was too young to go to the kids club so we decided to take her with us and take a chance.
We had quite the planning experience for this trip. It was a whole new experience for me and I enjoyed doing it. Hopefully it will all work out (you'll find out soon), and I'm sure we will have a good time. The main things I was worried about was the walk from the hotel to the parks; dining at Carthay and Napa Rose and the plane changes in Phoenix. We'll see how it works out.
And now, we're off to Disneyland......
No comments:
Post a Comment