My wife and I took our 4 kids to a trio of California theme parks last week and we had a fantastic family time. We also visited a trio of zoos (Wildlife Safari, Sacramento Zoo, California Academy of Sciences) and I already posted mini-reviews of those establishments on their respective threads. This time around, I'll not even be talking about zoos, which is a surprise for anyone who's met me!
I've been to plenty of theme parks in the past, such as Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, Six Flags Magic Mountain, SeaWorld San Diego, SeaWorld San Antonio, Disney's Animal Kingdom, and several others. In almost every case, I was there for the captive animals and avoided almost all the rides. My wife and I are simply not rides people, as that queasy feeling that you get in the pit of your stomach while on an exhilarating ride is not for us. We are both in our forties and before last week, neither of us had been on a rollercoaster in decades.
Nevertheless, we drove 20 hours south and spent two days at Disneyland, two days at Disney California Adventure Park and one day at Universal Studios. A spectacular time was had by all.
Keep in mind that my wife and I have one daughter (14 years old) and then three younger boys. Therefore, it should surprise no one that our family's most popular attractions at each park were Star Wars, Avengers and Harry Potter.
For each day, I'd set an alarm for 5:40 a.m. and we'd get all the kids up and dressed by around 6:10. Then we'd walk to McDonald's and fill up on pancakes and sausage muffins for breakfast. After that, we'd be at Disneyland at 7:00 where there would be security guards going through our backpack and going back and forth through metal detector machines. We'd then line up at the ticket booth and get into the actual park at 7:20 each morning. From there, it was then another 40 minute wait at 'rope drop' until 8:00 when the ropes would be pulled back and the hordes unleashed.
Disneyland:
Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge is by far and away the best part of Disneyland. No other area is even in the running in my opinion. As a Star Wars geek, although not nearly to the extent of those visitors walking around in costumes (!!), this area was sublime. It's probably the most expensive, largest Disney production of any theme park in the world, costing an amount so staggering that no one can determine the exact price. Rise of the Resistance is a spectacular ride and a real experience. It's not a 2 or 3 minute rollercoaster like Space Mountain, where it's over before you even really begin, but instead Rise of the Resistance is an 18-minute ride where you feel as if it's worth the time spent waiting in line. By contrast, Millennium Falcon: Smuggler's Run is a typical modern theme park ride, meaning that it's a standard simulator ride that is good but not conducive to repeat visits. But the whole Star Wars area, especially when Chewbacca, Rey, or some Stormtroopers were walking around the themed land, is incredibly immersive.
Adventureland was another huge hit with our family. The Indiana Jones ride is terrific and we rode it twice. Jungle Cruise is quite slow and dated and wasn't worth the hour-long lineup, but I'm glad that we saw those iconic animals.
Frontierland has the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad rollercoaster and we rode it 3 times as a family. Here is a rollercoaster that my wife and I can handle, as it's fast but not too death-defying. The Disney attention to detail is extraordinary, whether it is a rattling rattlesnake or mock explosions in a dark tunnel. We didn't do the slow-moving Mark Twain Riverboat ride, but we did have lunch at The Golden Horseshoe restaurant and my kids enjoyed the gift shops with old-fashioned wares.
Splash Mountain (soon to be Bayou's Adventure) and Haunted Mansion were both surrounded by high wooden fences and closed off for refurbishment. Nearby is New Orleans Square with the slow-moving, 16-minute Pirates of the Caribbean ride. It's old and dated, but enjoyable to do once.
Critter Country had a handful of people taking canoe trips, but like the riverboat there was never a lineup and therefore it shows that those 'rides' are not very popular at all. It would have been easy enough to just walk right onto a boat or canoe, while everywhere else had enormous lines. There's a Winnie the Pooh area here and we ate dinner at the Hungry Bear Restaurant. Chicken tenders and fries for our picky kids!
Fantasyland and Mickey's Toontown is where we missed the boat in not visiting Disneyland a few years earlier. This section of the park had some adult couples on dates, but was overwhelmingly small toddlers and extremely young kids. There were hundreds of strollers in all directions, babies in diapers everywhere, tantrums, baby soothers left on the ground, and it's obviously all geared for very young ages. Our 14 year-old daughter wasn't interested in any of the rides, while our trio of boys (aged 9, 11 and 13) complained about us even visiting this part of the park! Did they want to see anything involving Pinocchio, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Alice in Wonderland or Dumbo? Nope, they did not. They've seen all the movies, but where were the Avengers? Oh, that's right, they are in another park. Where's Chewbacca and Darth Vader? Where are people getting stabbed with lightsabers? Going from Star Wars to the kiddie section was a bit of a shock, but if my kids were younger then they would have adored Fantasyland and Mickey's Toontown. The boys, in particular, couldn't really care less, although they were happy to meet many of the characters.
We did do the Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway ride and it's a slow-moving, kiddie ride but I still enjoyed it because there's some really cool backdrops that are like comic book pages come to life. It's as if the background is animated in a modern, hip style. The lineups for Peter Pan were always 45 minutes to 60 minutes in length, with no Genie+ option, so that seemed like a waste for what is literally a 2-minute ride. Try lining up with 4 kids for an hour and then see how much hair you've pulled out in that timespan.
We ate at the Red Rose Taverne (with an 'e' at the end) for lunch one day. This part of the park does have one spectacular thrill ride for older kids and that is the Matterhorn Bobsleds, a rickety rollercoaster that shoots people around a snow-capped mountain with a Yeti howling in the shadows. My kids loved it.
Tomorrowland is all about Space Mountain, which was pretty much an hour-long wait at all times throughout the day. Here's where the Genie+ pass was worth every penny, as we used it to wait perhaps only 10 minutes. I'd say that half the family liked this ride, but the other three of us found it mildly terrifying as you are basically on a rocket of a rollercoaster speeding into darkness and hanging on for dear life. I did it once but if you paid me $500 then I would not go again. For a thousand bucks, then I could pull it off as it's a short ride. In Tomorrowland, we also did the Star Tours - The Adventure Continues, which is a decent simulator ride that can hold around 40 people and it's the THIRD Star Wars themed ride in Disneyland. Each time you ride, there's a 'Rebel Spy' image that flashes on the screen (a photo of someone on the ride) and once it was me! The kids didn't want to do Autopia as the lineups were incredibly long and it is another juvenile-focused ride.
Main Street, U.S.A. is the 9th and final themed 'land' and it's basically all gift shops and characters. We actually spent hours here, as my wife and daughter were more than happy to skip the rides and just really soak in all the movie memorabilia and cool stuff for sale in the multitude of stores. The two youngest boys didn't receive Christmas presents from grandparents a few months ago, as instead they had a whole whack of Disney spending money for Xmas. Therefore, they bought several lanyards and went from store to store purchasing a lot of collectable Disneyland pins. There's whole walls dedicated to these metal pins that you place on lanyards around your neck, and we even saw some adults wearing them with 30 different pins hanging off them like Mr. T in the 1980s A-Team television show. "I pity the fool!"
Recap:
Disneyland was a blast, even with noisy music pounding out of speakers in all directions. There's some negatives for sure, such as the fact that it's not quiet anywhere in the park. One has to be practically yelling at all times. The cost of everything is exorbitant, as even with discounted teacher admission prices, it cost us more than $1,000 Canadian per day for 6 tickets to a single park, including the Genie+ pass. That's not counting renting a room at a nearby hotel a 15-minute walk away, or the $100 Canadian we dropped on lunch and then another $100 on dinner every day. Some people gave us advice to leave the park for meals, but we didn't do that as even the local McDonald's across the street was expensive and the lines to get back in through all the security were incredibly long. It's totally not worth leaving the park until the bitter end.
The Genie+ is an absolute gem to purchase, as we used it 15 times in the 4 days at Disney parks. Instead of an hour-long wait at a ride, it could be a 10-minute wait instead. That costs extra and can only be used once per specific ride per day, which was a royal pain. So, the first time you do a ride it's a short wait and then you have a massive wait later on if you choose to do that same ride again.
The characters were a huge hit with our kids and we purchased autograph books. They filled all 25 pages with autographs and also had their photos taken with loads more characters, as some didn't sign at all but would only pose for photos. For example, all the Star Wars characters we saw didn't do any signing at all, while generally the Mickey Mouse/Goofy/Donald Duck crew would patiently sign everything and wait for photos with kids.
Lastly, it's quite a workout at these Disney parks. It's not even the 25,000 steps each day, or the days of arriving at 7:00 a.m. and leaving at 10:00 p.m., but those 15 hours involves a LOT of standing around. Waiting at the entrance gate, waiting in lineups at rides, waiting for food, waiting to meet characters, waiting for the spectacular night-time fireworks show. Our feet became numb to the pain. I would personally choose a midsized, half-day zoo over Disneyland any day of the week and in fact if I didn't have kids then I'm quite certain that I'd never go back to Disneyland ever again. But, because we have 4 lovely children then I'm already looking at when we can next afford to head back to the 'Mouse House'. Haha! The things we do for our kids, and in truth I had fun through their fun and it was a great family holiday.
Next up: Disney California Adventure Park
I've been to plenty of theme parks in the past, such as Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, Six Flags Magic Mountain, SeaWorld San Diego, SeaWorld San Antonio, Disney's Animal Kingdom, and several others. In almost every case, I was there for the captive animals and avoided almost all the rides. My wife and I are simply not rides people, as that queasy feeling that you get in the pit of your stomach while on an exhilarating ride is not for us. We are both in our forties and before last week, neither of us had been on a rollercoaster in decades.
Nevertheless, we drove 20 hours south and spent two days at Disneyland, two days at Disney California Adventure Park and one day at Universal Studios. A spectacular time was had by all.
Keep in mind that my wife and I have one daughter (14 years old) and then three younger boys. Therefore, it should surprise no one that our family's most popular attractions at each park were Star Wars, Avengers and Harry Potter.
For each day, I'd set an alarm for 5:40 a.m. and we'd get all the kids up and dressed by around 6:10. Then we'd walk to McDonald's and fill up on pancakes and sausage muffins for breakfast. After that, we'd be at Disneyland at 7:00 where there would be security guards going through our backpack and going back and forth through metal detector machines. We'd then line up at the ticket booth and get into the actual park at 7:20 each morning. From there, it was then another 40 minute wait at 'rope drop' until 8:00 when the ropes would be pulled back and the hordes unleashed.
Disneyland:
Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge is by far and away the best part of Disneyland. No other area is even in the running in my opinion. As a Star Wars geek, although not nearly to the extent of those visitors walking around in costumes (!!), this area was sublime. It's probably the most expensive, largest Disney production of any theme park in the world, costing an amount so staggering that no one can determine the exact price. Rise of the Resistance is a spectacular ride and a real experience. It's not a 2 or 3 minute rollercoaster like Space Mountain, where it's over before you even really begin, but instead Rise of the Resistance is an 18-minute ride where you feel as if it's worth the time spent waiting in line. By contrast, Millennium Falcon: Smuggler's Run is a typical modern theme park ride, meaning that it's a standard simulator ride that is good but not conducive to repeat visits. But the whole Star Wars area, especially when Chewbacca, Rey, or some Stormtroopers were walking around the themed land, is incredibly immersive.
Adventureland was another huge hit with our family. The Indiana Jones ride is terrific and we rode it twice. Jungle Cruise is quite slow and dated and wasn't worth the hour-long lineup, but I'm glad that we saw those iconic animals.
Frontierland has the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad rollercoaster and we rode it 3 times as a family. Here is a rollercoaster that my wife and I can handle, as it's fast but not too death-defying. The Disney attention to detail is extraordinary, whether it is a rattling rattlesnake or mock explosions in a dark tunnel. We didn't do the slow-moving Mark Twain Riverboat ride, but we did have lunch at The Golden Horseshoe restaurant and my kids enjoyed the gift shops with old-fashioned wares.
Splash Mountain (soon to be Bayou's Adventure) and Haunted Mansion were both surrounded by high wooden fences and closed off for refurbishment. Nearby is New Orleans Square with the slow-moving, 16-minute Pirates of the Caribbean ride. It's old and dated, but enjoyable to do once.
Critter Country had a handful of people taking canoe trips, but like the riverboat there was never a lineup and therefore it shows that those 'rides' are not very popular at all. It would have been easy enough to just walk right onto a boat or canoe, while everywhere else had enormous lines. There's a Winnie the Pooh area here and we ate dinner at the Hungry Bear Restaurant. Chicken tenders and fries for our picky kids!
Fantasyland and Mickey's Toontown is where we missed the boat in not visiting Disneyland a few years earlier. This section of the park had some adult couples on dates, but was overwhelmingly small toddlers and extremely young kids. There were hundreds of strollers in all directions, babies in diapers everywhere, tantrums, baby soothers left on the ground, and it's obviously all geared for very young ages. Our 14 year-old daughter wasn't interested in any of the rides, while our trio of boys (aged 9, 11 and 13) complained about us even visiting this part of the park! Did they want to see anything involving Pinocchio, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Alice in Wonderland or Dumbo? Nope, they did not. They've seen all the movies, but where were the Avengers? Oh, that's right, they are in another park. Where's Chewbacca and Darth Vader? Where are people getting stabbed with lightsabers? Going from Star Wars to the kiddie section was a bit of a shock, but if my kids were younger then they would have adored Fantasyland and Mickey's Toontown. The boys, in particular, couldn't really care less, although they were happy to meet many of the characters.
We did do the Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway ride and it's a slow-moving, kiddie ride but I still enjoyed it because there's some really cool backdrops that are like comic book pages come to life. It's as if the background is animated in a modern, hip style. The lineups for Peter Pan were always 45 minutes to 60 minutes in length, with no Genie+ option, so that seemed like a waste for what is literally a 2-minute ride. Try lining up with 4 kids for an hour and then see how much hair you've pulled out in that timespan.
We ate at the Red Rose Taverne (with an 'e' at the end) for lunch one day. This part of the park does have one spectacular thrill ride for older kids and that is the Matterhorn Bobsleds, a rickety rollercoaster that shoots people around a snow-capped mountain with a Yeti howling in the shadows. My kids loved it. Tomorrowland is all about Space Mountain, which was pretty much an hour-long wait at all times throughout the day. Here's where the Genie+ pass was worth every penny, as we used it to wait perhaps only 10 minutes. I'd say that half the family liked this ride, but the other three of us found it mildly terrifying as you are basically on a rocket of a rollercoaster speeding into darkness and hanging on for dear life. I did it once but if you paid me $500 then I would not go again. For a thousand bucks, then I could pull it off as it's a short ride. In Tomorrowland, we also did the Star Tours - The Adventure Continues, which is a decent simulator ride that can hold around 40 people and it's the THIRD Star Wars themed ride in Disneyland. Each time you ride, there's a 'Rebel Spy' image that flashes on the screen (a photo of someone on the ride) and once it was me! The kids didn't want to do Autopia as the lineups were incredibly long and it is another juvenile-focused ride.
Main Street, U.S.A. is the 9th and final themed 'land' and it's basically all gift shops and characters. We actually spent hours here, as my wife and daughter were more than happy to skip the rides and just really soak in all the movie memorabilia and cool stuff for sale in the multitude of stores. The two youngest boys didn't receive Christmas presents from grandparents a few months ago, as instead they had a whole whack of Disney spending money for Xmas. Therefore, they bought several lanyards and went from store to store purchasing a lot of collectable Disneyland pins. There's whole walls dedicated to these metal pins that you place on lanyards around your neck, and we even saw some adults wearing them with 30 different pins hanging off them like Mr. T in the 1980s A-Team television show. "I pity the fool!"
Recap:
Disneyland was a blast, even with noisy music pounding out of speakers in all directions. There's some negatives for sure, such as the fact that it's not quiet anywhere in the park. One has to be practically yelling at all times. The cost of everything is exorbitant, as even with discounted teacher admission prices, it cost us more than $1,000 Canadian per day for 6 tickets to a single park, including the Genie+ pass. That's not counting renting a room at a nearby hotel a 15-minute walk away, or the $100 Canadian we dropped on lunch and then another $100 on dinner every day. Some people gave us advice to leave the park for meals, but we didn't do that as even the local McDonald's across the street was expensive and the lines to get back in through all the security were incredibly long. It's totally not worth leaving the park until the bitter end.
The Genie+ is an absolute gem to purchase, as we used it 15 times in the 4 days at Disney parks. Instead of an hour-long wait at a ride, it could be a 10-minute wait instead. That costs extra and can only be used once per specific ride per day, which was a royal pain. So, the first time you do a ride it's a short wait and then you have a massive wait later on if you choose to do that same ride again.
The characters were a huge hit with our kids and we purchased autograph books. They filled all 25 pages with autographs and also had their photos taken with loads more characters, as some didn't sign at all but would only pose for photos. For example, all the Star Wars characters we saw didn't do any signing at all, while generally the Mickey Mouse/Goofy/Donald Duck crew would patiently sign everything and wait for photos with kids.
Lastly, it's quite a workout at these Disney parks. It's not even the 25,000 steps each day, or the days of arriving at 7:00 a.m. and leaving at 10:00 p.m., but those 15 hours involves a LOT of standing around. Waiting at the entrance gate, waiting in lineups at rides, waiting for food, waiting to meet characters, waiting for the spectacular night-time fireworks show. Our feet became numb to the pain. I would personally choose a midsized, half-day zoo over Disneyland any day of the week and in fact if I didn't have kids then I'm quite certain that I'd never go back to Disneyland ever again. But, because we have 4 lovely children then I'm already looking at when we can next afford to head back to the 'Mouse House'. Haha! The things we do for our kids, and in truth I had fun through their fun and it was a great family holiday.
Next up: Disney California Adventure Park
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But it sounds like you and the family had an amazing trip!! I'm a Disney Studios "cast member" in my 9-6 job, so it was really interesting to hear your perspective on the parks. Oh, and a quick plug for "my zoo," our visiting male snow leopard is getting along wonderfully with Georgina. With any luck there will be kittens in their future...