Things I Learned in Disneyland

A while back, I mentioned I was going to put together a little list of things I wanted to remember for the next trip to Disneyland.  I am sure most of you are Disneyland pros, but I figured a few things out I don't want to forget.

Organization:
We bought a program called RideMax, that helps you plan your trip to Disneyland.  We used it the first and last days and thought it was awesome.  It the program lets you enter in the things you want to do and plans your day according to wait times and gives you a plan to follow.  I loved having a plan so we never had any, "Where should we go next?"  But, we didn't follow it strictly.  If we were passing a ride that had a super short line, we went for it and didn't worry that it wasn't on our "plan".  Every night before bed, we would figure out what we most wanted to do.  Honestly, we did so much the first day, we were exhausted, but Matt and I left the park feeling like we had done everything we wanted to do and could go home that night.  :)  Because we had such a full day, we took a much more relaxed approach the second and third day. 

There are also all kinds of apps for phones, like MouseWait, that tell you the current wait times at the rides. 

There is also a program called Ride Share, where a parent with children to young for a particular ride waits in line while one parent goes and then can get right on the ride as soon as the other parent is done.  We never used this since we had some extra adults with us, but I saw a lot of people using it throughout the parks. 

Packing for the Park: 
We drove into the park everyday, since our hotel was a ways away.  I loved having extra snacks in the car and wish I would have thought to bring more clothes.  Example:  I had packed an extra pair of pants and underwear for a little three-year-old boy, just in case.  (and the baby, of course.)  Ten minutes into our twenty minute drive to the park, a little five-year-old got the worst bloody nose I have ever seen.  We went through about a half a box of tissues that was in the car and then moved on to a beach towel leftover from the day before.  He spent the day at Disneyland covered in blood.  About five minutes into our first ride at Disney, said three-year-old peed his pants in line.  Extra clothes were used up in the first half hour of our Disney day.  I planned better the the following days. 

We definitely needed sweatshirts at night for the fireworks and world of color, we left them in the car and I had Matt go get them while I saved us a spot. 

The stroller was awesome to have.  I took my front to back double stroller and figured I could let anyone sit in it, since I also had a front carrier for Sydney.  Well, Sydney refused to sleep in the stroller or the carrier, so the second and third days I ended up bringing her carseat to put in the front of the stroller and it worked great for her to nap in.  Austin even napped in it one day.  Most of the time, the stroller was awesome.  Sometimes, especially at night and when it was a little more crowded, it was really hard to navigate through the crowds.  In areas like Fantasyland and Toontown, where Sydney could go on most rides with us, I just parked the stroller somewhere and came back for it after we had done everything in that area.  That was so nice, I wish I would have done it every day! 


Food:
We had a great breakfast at our hotel everyday, which was so nice.  We would take lunch in with us and eat dinner in Disneyland or somewhere nearby.  We took tons of snacks, and we actually didn't buy any food in Disneyland except at mealtimes. 

Rides/Attractions not to miss:

Jedi Training....so much fun and Derek and Zack were both picked to go up.
the Aladdin show....our kids loved it and it was a great opportunity to rest!
Turtle Talk was so cool, all the boys loved it. 
World of Color was pretty neat, too bad none of our kids stayed awake to enjoy it and we had to carry them all to the car. 

This was way too long, but here is the short version:

Get to the park EARLY!
Take bandaids for blisters and tons of water.
Give your kids plenty of opportunities to rest, it is exhuasting!
The theaters are a great place to have a break.

Run around and have so much fun with your kids!!!!