Traveling to Disneyland with Toddlers

 

We took our 3 year old and 1 year old to Disneyland. Here is everything I learned in hopes that it can help others. 

Planning your trip 

When to go: 

The great thing about traveling with toddlers is that you typically have no school schedule to work around. You can search "crowd report Disneyland" and it will give you predicted crowd levels. We purposely chose to go at the end of January when crowd levels were predicted to be lower. We also picked this time because the weather would also be cooler. This ended up working well for us. 

How long to go for: 

We chose to go for 3 days. We did two days in Disneyland and one day in DCA. This honestly felt like max for us. Our kids were exhausted by the end of each day and the end of the third day so I feel like this was good for us. We also chose to save money and only get tickets for 1 park a day rather than park hopper. Honestly I never felt like we needed park hopper but I could see if your kids were older how that might be beneficial. 

Where to stay: 

On grounds vs off grounds. This is always the great debate. We chose to stay off grounds and honestly it was fine and I would do it again. It was about a 15 minute walk to the entrance to the park from where we were staying. I'm not super familiar with where the on grounds hotels are but from what I could tell it wasn't like they were much closer. 

Somethings to consider:

1. Whether the hotel has a water park or not- if this is something that appeals to you. Honestly our kids were so exhausted by the end of the day that we never used the pool. 

2. Some hotels you can see Disneylands fireworks show from their property. This is a great option if you don't want to go back into the park but still want to see the show. 

Where to fly into: 

There are two major airports near Disneyland . One is LAX and the other is John Wayne Orange County airport (SNA). We found it significantly easier to fly into Orange county airport. Then you aren't deal with LA traffic after getting off a flight. Orange county airport had this nice area for ride shares that made it easy for us to be picked up from the airport. 

Pro Tip: Ask for Disney gift cards for christmas/birthday presents for your kids. That way they have some "fun money" to pick out something at the park

Before you go 

1. Decide what your goal of the trip is and what your priorities are. 

We decided based on the ages of our kids that we would prioritize meeting characters rather than going on rides. Our kids are in the "magic" age and we wanted to take advantage of that as much as we could. I know that at some point we will prioritize rides instead but not for this trip.  That being said: 

2. Download the Disneyland app early. 

This is so helpful. I would log into it all the time to look at general trends like ride wait times and characters that were coming out that day.  Also join a Disneyland group on facebook. I found this to be helpful for questions and getting opinions and information. 

3. Prioritize what characters you want to meet.

 Using the Disneyland app you can see what characters tend to appear consistently and plan based off of that. Based on your kids preferences you can make sure you meet the most important characters to them.

4. Plan out what routes you want to take in the park. 

Where you want to start the day and where you want to go from there. You don't have to have it planned to the minute but it's nice to have a general plan. 

5. 60 days prior to your trip you can book your character dining experiences.

 Because we were prioritizing characters we did two character dinings. I thought of this as "lightening lanes" for characters because this is the only way to "skip the line". I had a friend of mine complain about to the food but she didn't have kids. If you are looking for a spectacular culinary experience then I don't think any of these are for you. But for getting to meet and interact with the characters I thought this was great and then you have something to do while you are waiting for another character to come. 

For character dining we did Breakfast with Minnie at the Plaza Inn and we did dinner at Goofy's kitchen

Breakfast with Minnie- We purposely picked a later time so that it was more of an early lunch situation. This way we weren't missing the "golden hour" right after rope drop. You get your picture with Minnie right away and then you go and get your food. The cast of characters rotates but we got to see Pluto, Chip, Dale, Pooh, Tigger and Daisy Duck. 

For Goofy's Kitchen this is the only restaurant that I was able to find that does dinner with characters. You meet goofy right away and then have buffet style service. Minnie, Chip, Dale and Pluto come to your table. We went to this one the night that we flew into CA. It was a great way to start off the trip. 

6. Prep your kids for the trip. 

You can find on Youtube people have recorded videos walking around the parks and riding the rides. I showed them some just for them to get a concept of what we were going to do. I also showed them videos of other kids meeting certain characters so that they could see what that was like. I found this to be very helpful for helping to explain it to my 3 year old. It also makes it fun because they start getting really excited. 

7. Make a list of movies to watch before the trip 

I looked at the rides that we wanted to do in advance and made sure we had seen the movie they were based off of.  For example I knew they were both old enough to do the little mermaid ride so I made sure we had watched the little mermaid a few times before we went so that they would connect it with the movie once we were in the park. 

Things to Pack/Bring: 

1. If you want just basic Minnie/Mickey ears you can buy them in advance.

 This was great because I didn't want to spend a ton of money on them- especially if they were only going to wear them for a picture or something. My 3 year old actually really liked it and wore them for about an hour or so- which totally shocked us. Also we lost a pair on accident and I wasn't heartbroken because they weren't that expensive on Amazon. 

You can also purchase the bubble wands in advance and bring them. I ended up not doing it but I could see where it would come in handy if your kid is really obsessed with bubbles.  In the park the bubble wands are about $40- which is absolutely insanity in my opinion. 

2. Costumes for your kids to wear. 

I packed Spiderman and and Captain America. My 3 year old wore the Spiderman outfit in DCA all day and refused to take it off. It was super special for him to meet Spiderman in his costume. All the other characters we met that day also complimented him on it so it was special. 

3. Charger stick for your phone. 

Between the app, photos and videos you are going to be constantly draining your battery. It's nice to have a charger stick to keep your phone alive. 

4. Jackets

 Depending on the time of year you go. In January it was cool in the morning so we all wore sweatshirts until it got hot about mid morning. 

5. Small Bag to take with you on the rides  

If you have kids in diapers bring a bigger diaper bag/snack bag etc and then a small bag for you to take on the ride. You can leave your diaper bag in the stroller. I guess there is theft at Disneyland so make sure you take important stuff with you on the rides. 

6. Snacks/food. 

This will save you a ton. We packed bread, peanut butter and jelly and honestly thats what our kids ate for dinner or lunch most days. We (the parents) wanted to try stuff in the park and we would let our kids eat off our plates but I thought it was silly to spend so much money on basic "kid food" especially because it can be so hit or miss on whether your toddler will eat in that given moment. 

7. Either pack your own stroller or set up a stroller rental.

 Disney is very strict about strollers so make sure you check it before you bring yours. We found it nice to rent a stroller because they dropped it off at our hotel and then we just left it at the hotel when we checked out. Easy peasy! If you rent one within Disneyland you have to leave it when you leave the park. If you are staying off grounds this means that your kid has to walk or be carried back to the hotel- so just be prepared. We rented from an outside company so we just took it back to the hotel with us. 

While you are there 

1. If you toddler hasn't been on many rides before start with outdoor rides. 

We started with teacups and dumbo. Also just because it says no height requirement it doesn't mean that it's not scary- which is something we kind of learned the hard way. Some of the inside rides are dark and scary and scared our toddler. We had to reassure him that it was "pretend". I think this really depends on the kid. But it's something to think about 

2.  Avoid waiting in line as much as possible.

 It's just so hard with toddlers to understand the concept of waiting for a long time. You can bring snacks but you can't really bring that much to do. We made a rule that if a ride was more than a 10 minute wait then we wouldn't do it. This worked well for us because 10 min is about how long my kids can wait before they lose it. 

3. Rope Drop  

Take advantage of "Rope Dropping" or getting into the park before it officially opens- yes this is kind of pain but it is so worth it. It allows you to get a lot rides done very quickly without having to wait in much of a line. Have a plan for where you want to go first 

4. "Pick out something when the sun goes down".

 You are going to be surrounded by stuff that your toddler wants. To avoid constantly saying "No!" we said: "You can pick something out when the sun goes down". He had gotten gift cards from grandparents for Christmas and we wanted him to pick out something fun but we wanted him to think about what he really wanted- not just the first thing he saw. This forced him think about what he wanted. He would say "I want this!" and we would say "Ok, if you still really want it when the sun goes down then we can come back and get it." At the end of the day he got to pick out one thing. This was also super helpful because then you weren't shlepping more stuff around the park all day and worried about it getting lost or stolen. 

5. Take advantage of mobile ordering.

 This allows you to avoid waiting in line to get food.  A lot of people mobile order while they are in line at a ride and then go and pick up their food after riding on the ride. It's pretty convenient.

 

What I learned 

Not really a big pin trading scene at Disneyland- that or I completely missed it. 

There was a few pin trading stores but I maybe saw one or two pin boards. I really wanted to start pin trading on this trip but ended up not doing any of it. I think it's more of a Disney World thing. 

Even though you have a stroller you are still lugging your kids around a ton.

 I wish I would've brought our baby hip carrier. A lot of times we would park our stroller somewhere and then go from ride to ride in that general area. We were holding our kids a ton still and that was tiring. 

You go through full security- I didn't fully realize this. 

Obviously bring what you need but it slows you down if you bring a ton of stuff. I found the staff to be pretty efficient but still it caught me off guard. 

Overall we had such a FUN trip. My husband pooh-poohed this trip the entire time leading up to it and then while we were there he was like "ok I get it now." Just experiencing the magic through your kids is such an amazing gift. While traveling with littles is not always easy we continue to do it because it so fun to experience things with them.