Our last trip to Disneyland was last Christmas. We had a BLAST! After our trip, my brother started planning his next trip. We ended up piggybacking on their trip and this is what we ended up with. As usual, it started with hotel accommodations.
When and Length of Stay:
My brother's original plan was to plan a trip around Halloween. He wanted to actually start the trip on or around Halloween so he could see Halloween decorations and some of the Christmas decorations. He got my parents on board and they started looking for hotels. The more they talked about it, the more we wanted to go, so we jumped on board too. Due to issues finding a hotel (see Accommodations for details), we ended up changing our time of year from Halloween to December and full Christmas time.
We have found a week is a great amount of time to be in California and enjoy Disneyland. We will be in LA/Anaheim from Sunday to Saturday.
We waited until Southwest brought their fares out to look at airline tickets. I found an option through Southwest, but my dad found another option for a non-stop that was cheaper on Delta. We ended up booking it for the flight to California. We stayed with Southwest for the flight home through John Wayne Airport. We really enjoy this airport and its proximity to Disneyland. I'm very excited for my dad to experience it. I think he will enjoy it. My brother's family is flying home on a different airline.
We weren't exactly sure what to do for ground transportation. My brother wanted to go straight to Disney property, but I wanted them to experience other parts of southern California (more on this in Entertainment). We decided to do some sightseeing the first day. I wasn't sure what to do to get all 11 of us in vehicles. I decided on 2 minivans. We are hoping all of us will fit with all of our luggage. We will have the 2 minivans to drive around LA and then get us to the hotel then drop off the cars at the infamous Alamo rent a car off of Katella Ave. For the last day, we found a transportation service called Lansky we are going to try. They had very good reviews and were significantly cheaper than the Worldwide Chauffeur service.
Accommodations:
This was the driving force of our trip. The trip started with my brother's family and my parents going to Disneyland for Halloween and they wanted to stay at the Grand Californian. They had a heck of a time finding a DVC rental for the time of year they wanted at the Grand Californian and never did get a reservation. I mentioned trying to go for Christmas and I started looking into it. When I started looking, we were then on board for the trip as well. I couldn't find a DVC rental option for the Grand Californian for us in the entire month of December. We were looking 7 months ahead and nothing was available. At that point, everyone really wanted to go to Disneyland for Christmas so we looked at other options. The best I could find was the Courtyard Theme Park Entrance that we stayed at last year. We were excited because we really like this hotel. The rest of my family is very hesitant because we always stay on Disney property at Disney World and the 2 times we have gone with my brother's family and the 1 time my parents went, we stayed at a Disney hotel. This is going to be a little different for them, but I think they are still going to enjoy it.
Food:
We love the food at Disneyland. The snacks are the best. The food is so much better than our last trip to Disney World. On this trip, we have a couple reservations, but most meals will be quick service meals. We are for sure going to get the shawarma from Avenger's Campus. We missed it last time and are going to make sure we try it this time. Lisa's can't miss is the Adorable Snow Monster in DCA. They have a lemon Dole Whip and she keeps missing it. The Festival of Holidays looks delicious too.
On our last trip, we tried to eat vegetarian as much as we could. We had no problem finding food to fit our diet and it was all delicious. We are expecting the same this time. In some cases the plant-based option was better than the meat option.
Entertainment:
For the most part, we will be at Disneyland. We have 5 day park hoppers. We are not sure if we are going to use Genie+, but I'm sure we'll use it at least one day. On our first day though, Lisa and I wanted to go to the La Brea Tar Pits and the Academy Awards Museum. I brought these up to the rest of our group and we got a lot of push back. My dad did not want to do either of them. My mom really wants to go to the Academy Awards Museum though. Because of that, my dad started looking into the Tar Pits and found it is not what he remembered from 30+ years ago. After he looked into it, he was very excited. We have enjoyed our adventures around LA and this should be another good one.
Final Thoughts:
We are 2 days away from our trip while I'm typing this and we are super excited. The kids can't wait. We did do a surprise this time, so they've known since we started planning. It's been good and not-so-good with them knowing the entire time. They have started counting down the days for several weeks. The rest of our group is very excited as well. My brother and I have been texting a bunch about it.
I can't wait for my family to see Disneyland at Christmas. I think my mom is going to love it. Disneyland does a great job at Christmastime and I think our entire group is going to love it. I can't wait for my brother to see Haunted Mansion Holiday and Avenger's Campus. They haven't been to Avenger's Campus either and he and I are huge Marvel fans. Grady is really in to Star Wars right now (especially The Mandalorian and Grogu) so he is going to love Galaxy's Edge and the Mandalorian is a walk around character carrying Grogu. He is going to freakout. He says he wants to try Rise of the Resistance so we will se how it goes. We are interested to see how Grady does on the bigger rides. He was hit or miss on our last trip so I hope he enjoys them more this time. Ellie is ready to go. She is planning on shopping and riding the big rides.
It's going to be a great trip and we can't wait. We leave in 30 hours!!
